RGL e-Book Cover
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.
RGL e-Book Cover
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
The Phantom Detective, September 1942, with "Murder Cuts Diamonds"
Swift death threatens the Phantom in his daring fight against jewel thieves! Neither fire nor bullets can halt a master detective's crusade for justice!
PATROLMAN MIKE RYAN walked briskly along First Avenue, trying the doors of the stores along his beat to be sure they were locked. It was early in the evening, and despite the chill in the February night air there were quite a few people on the street.
Ryan abruptly grew tense as he heard a loud crash that came from the direction of a dead-end street half a block away. Grim-faced and wary, the patrolman broke into a run, heading for the corner. He reached it, then gasped when he saw the battered wreck of what had been an expensive limousine burst into flames.
"Good Lord!" exclaimed Ryan, catching a glimpse of a man's head through one of the windows of the car. "It's burning and there's someone still inside."
He hesitated for an instant when he nearly stumbled over the motionless form of a gray-haired man dressed in a chauffeur's uniform that was sprawled on the pavement, and then went on.
The patrolman reached the car and yanked the nearest door open. Heat seared his face, and smoke billowed about him as he grabbed the man huddled down in the tonneau of the car and dragged him out of reach of the flames. A crowd had quickly gathered and other blue-coated police officers appeared, swiftly assuming their duties.
Two patrolmen were keeping the throng away from the unconscious man in the chauffeur's livery. Ryan knelt and examined the well-dressed man he had hauled out of the burning vehicle. Patrol cars and trucks from the fire department rolled into the street, sirens wailing.
A police sergeant pushed his way through the crowd.
"You get him out in time?" demanded the sergeant.
"No, he's dead," said Ryan. "There's a bullet wound in his heart. This is murder, Sergeant!"
"Murder!" exclaimed the sergeant as he leaned down and looked closely at the blood-stained clothing of the dead man. "You're right, Ryan. This is a case for the Homicide Squad."
A swift study of the murdered man's personal belongings revealed that he was Harry Young, of Young and Randall, diamond cutters of Hoboken, New Jersey. The fire department made quick work of putting out the flames before the limousine was completely demolished, and the car was identified as belonging to Rufus Lemore, head of the great Lemore Department Store.
IT WAS discovered that the unconscious man, who had evidently been driving the limousine, was Lafe Grimes—Lemore's private chauffeur.
In a leather case that Grimes had apparently dropped were some unmounted diamonds. A .38 automatic that had recently been fired was found in the chauffeur's pocket.
"Looks like Grimes killed Young for the diamonds the man was carrying," said a police official. "Then he must have wrecked the car in an attempt to make a getaway."
"Rufus Lemore is going to feel pretty bad about this," stated a newspaperman. "Even though Grimes was an ex-convict he has apparently gone straight during the past ten years he has worked for Lemore as his private chauffeur."
"That's true," agreed a reporter from the New York Clarion. "If Grimes is convicted of murder, it will be a hard blow to Rufus Lemore's faith in humanity."
The opinions of the newspapermen proved prophetic. By the time Lafe Grimes was placed on trial there were rumors that Rufus Lemore had become a broken and grieving man. Upon regaining consciousness and finding himself under arrest and charged with murder in the first degree, Grimes had sullenly refused to talk.
The chauffeur steadfastly maintained his silence during the weeks that passed before the case came up in court.
THE trial itself developed elements of drama. The jury had been impaneled and the circuit court was packed with interested spectators.
Lafe Grimes did not look like a criminal as he sat there in the prisoner's dock. A gray-haired man in his fifties with a rugged, scarred face, a strong chin and a bleak expression in his blue eyes, something in the way of inner gentleness kept all trace of viciousness from his features.
The prosecuting attorney was young, bombastic and inclined to be a bit theatrical.
"You have heard the testimony of Patrolman Ryan," he addressed the jury. "He has stated that even though he heroically risked his own life to drag Harry Young from the flaming car his efforts were useless. Through no fault of his own, Officer Ryan failed in his attempt to save a human life. And why did he fail?"
The prosecuting attorney knew the power of dramatic pauses. He deliberately hesitated for a moment before answering his own question.
"I'll tell you why Officer Ryan failed," he continued dramatically. "It was because Harry Young was already dead! He had been ruthlessly shot to death by a man he must have trusted. Else, Young would not have been riding in that limousine. He was murdered by that man there in the prisoner's dock!"
"I object!" shouted Grimes' lawyer. "Mr. Wilson will kindly refrain from personal accusations."
"Objection sustained," ruled the judge. "Kindly confine yourself to the summing up of the evidence, Mr. Wilson."
THE prosecutor smiled grimly, and his eyes remained determined and hard.
"Certainly, Your Honor. It was at first thought that the defendant wrecked the car and then was thrown out and knocked unconscious. It is now believed that Lafe Grimes did deliberately plan and execute a deed of premeditated and brutal character. That he did murder Harry Young and planned to burn his victim's body in a wrecked car."
A roar went up from the crowd causing the judge to rap impatiently with his gavel.
"Silence, please," he said, "or I shall be obliged to order the court cleared of all spectators." He looked at the prosecuting attorney. "Again I must insist you confine yourself to the evidence, Mr. Wilson."
"Very well," replied Wilson. "We have shown through police testimony that the gun that killed Harry Young belonged to Lafe Grimes—"
"Objection!" exclaimed the defense attorney. "The prisoner has not acknowledged ownership of the weapon."
"Objection sustained," said the judge. "Reword your statement, Mr. Wilson."
"The gun found in the prisoner's possession and on his person contained his fingerprints," declared the prosecuting attorney. "And both the fingerprints of Lafe Grimes and Harry Young were among those found on the case containing the diamonds." Wilson hesitated and looked at the judge. "Your Honor, I should again like to call Mr. Rufus Lemore to the witness stand."
"Have Mr. Lemore take the stand," ordered the judge.
A slender, gray-haired man, with a thin face and gold-rimmed glasses on his near-sighted eyes appeared from the judge's chamber and took the stand.
"Repeat what you have told us regarding the prisoner, please, Mr. Lemore," requested Kenneth Wilson.
"I have employed Lafe Grimes for ten years," repeated Rufus Lemore with a quick glance at the prisoner. "During that time he has been loyal and faithful in every way."
"Lafe Grimes was known to you as a former convict, Mr. Lemore?"
"Yes." Lemore nodded. "I was quite familiar with his past history when I engaged him to work for me."
"You have told us that before, Mr. Lemore," said Wilson. "But you have not explained why you were willing to employ a former criminal."
"Because Lafe Grimes was recommended to me by the Phantom Detective," was the astonishing reply.
A murmur of awe swept through the packed courtroom at this mention of the great and mysterious manhunter whose fame was world-wide. "The Phantom Detective!" exclaimed the prosecuting attorney. "Is he here in this courtroom?"
"I believe he is," stated Rufus Lemore. "But I would not recognize him if I saw him."
"From what I've heard," a fussy little woman whispered to the man next to her, "nobody is able to identify the Phantom Detective." She sniffed. "But he couldn't fool me. I don't believe he is here at all."
"Perhaps you are right, Madam," said the man beside her softly.
BECAUSE of the clamor, the judge had to pound his gavel to restore order. The fame of the noted Phantom Detective had certainly created an added note of interest to the trial.
A master of disguises and known as a man of a thousand faces and as many identities, the Phantom was highly amused at this moment. For, he was the quiet business man sitting beside the fussy little woman who had been so sure she could identify him.
The Phantom's attitude swiftly turned serious. He was seeing and hearing a man in whom he had put faith being hurried along to the death chair. He felt powerless to save Lafe Grimes. Not a single shred of evidence had appeared which did not point to the ex-convict's guilt.
Yet there were still doubts lurking in the Phantom's mind. His keen brain had considered the case from all angles and he felt that there was some reason for Lafe Grimes' refusal to make any attempt to testify in his own behalf.
The prosecutor finished questioning the witness. Then, after the defense attorney had announced that he did not desire testimony from Rufus Lemore, the owner of the Lemore Department Store was dismissed.
The Phantom saw Lemore join a beautiful young woman with clustering black curls. Reporters noted her, too, for she was Martha Lemore, the vivacious society daughter of the big department store head.
Only the Phantom's keen eyes, however, saw that the girl's lovely face was pale and drawn beneath her make-up, and that while she appeared quite calm and self-possessed, her eyes never seemed to leave the drab prisoner who appeared determined to go passively to his doom.
The Phantom was one of four persons in the courtroom who knew the reason Martha Lemore was under such intense emotional strain. It was a secret that would have brought new headlines for the murder case had the newspaper reporters known it. Martha was actually Lafe Grimes daughter!
Her remarkable singing voice had first attracted Rufus Lemore when the child was twelve years old. Anxious for her to have every advantage, the millionaire had prevailed upon Grimes to permit him to adopt the girl. He received her father's consent. Since then the world at large had known Martha as Lemore's motherless daughter.
Only the Phantom, Rufus Lemore, Lafe Grimes and the girl herself knew otherwise, and there was no point in revealing the secret at the present time.
As the prosecuting attorney continued his summing up to the jury, the Phantom found himself mentally reviewing the case. There was one odd item sticking in his mind. Robert Donaldson, jewel expert and manager of the Lemore store jewelry department, had testified that Harry Young had visited him some two hours before being found murdered.
How Young happened to be in Rufus Lemore's car, driven by Lafe Grimes, Donaldson did not know. But he provided what at first had seemed a slight break, a departure from the evidence bringing Lafe Grimes nearer and nearer to the Sing-Sing death house.
"Except for two, the diamonds found at the time of the murder are not the same as the twenty perfect stones shown to me by Harry Young two hours before," Robert Donaldson had said. "They are inferior diamonds and some are badly flawed."
THIS was abruptly discounted, however, as a point in favor of Lafe Grimes. The prisoner himself had lifted his head, but showed no more sign of interest than that. The Phantom soon remembered that Lafe Grimes had once been an expert jewel thief and might have a certain strange pride that would make him resent being accused of stealing inferior diamonds.
"But Harry Young was to visit several other customers whom I do not know, right after leaving our store," Donaldson had said. "It is probable that he made some sales or exchanges and the inferior diamonds might have been intended for cutting to smaller stones."
There was one more development in the case that had left its impression in the Phantom's mind. It was connected with the prisoner's wooden and tiresome answer of "I don't remember" to all questions put to him on the stand.
"Was there a third party or others in the car with you at the time Harry Young was killed?" the attorney for the defense had asked the prisoner.
"I don't—" Grimes began his routine reply, then suddenly lifted his head and added in a fierce voice: "No!"
In that brief, passing second the Phantom had seen Lafe Grimes glance for the first time at Rufus Lemore and the girl sitting beside the department store owner. Then the prisoner's eyes were swiftly veiled.
The defense attorney who had been hired by Rufus Lemore had then spread his hands as if to say, "My client has just destroyed the last faint hope he might have had."
When the jury filed out the court declared a recess, but it did not last long. Not fifteen minutes passed before the judge reappeared from his chambers and court was again declared in-session. The jury entered, the box and the foreman remained standing.
"We find the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree," he announced solemnly.
The Phantom's eyes were fixed on Martha, and he saw the girl stifle a sob. Later, when the judge had pronounced sentence and court was dismissed, the Phantom saw Rufus Lemore leaving the courtroom with Martha gripping his arm tightly.
He was close to Lemore and the girl as they were entering the Lemore's new limousine. He was about to make himself known when the sound of their voices stopped him.
"You can't be so foolish, Martha," he heard Lemore say. "You will feel differently tomorrow. Please come home now."
"I'm coming only to pack a few things, that is all," responded Martha tensely. "Nothing need be said about it. The newspapers must never even suspect that I have left home."
The Phantom turned away. He had decided not to reveal his identity to Lemore and his adopted daughter now.
THREE months had passed. In the death house at Sing-Sing the date of the Grimes execution was steadily drawing closer. The interval of time had wrought great changes in the lives of others. Since Grimes had been sentenced Rufus Lemore had become a changed man. While he devoted a great deal of his time to the executive management of the great Lemore Department Store he was seldom seen in his former habitual places of recreation.
He avoided his home because his adopted daughter was not there. Martha had given up a future fortune in dollars and social standing to seek obscurity in a shabby room on one of the side streets of the city.
But there was one man who had not given up his unceasing efforts to find a way of saving Lafe Grimes from the electric chair. That man was the Phantom Detective.
With the passing weeks and months he had found that he had a cold trail to follow. But it was not in his nature to admit defeat.
During the interval that had elapsed since the trial the Phantom had worked on other important cases that called for all his courage and resources, but he had never altered his belief that Lafe Grimes was innocent.
On a day in early June, Police Inspector Thomas Gregg, one of New York's best, was figuratively tearing his scanty iron-gray hair. For the past month the greater New York police department and the police of nearby New Jersey cities had been balked by a series of mysterious jewel thefts.
The majority of the gems stolen had been diamonds. Thieves were taking heavy toll of the most recent influx of new and valuable stones being brought into the country as the result of the war.
Some of the victims of the thefts were left unharmed. Others died in a variety of bizarre ways. Through all the reports ran a single note—an indication of clever planning and brain work.
"The Phantom Detective has shown some interest in diamond stealing since Lafe Grimes went to the death house," Inspector Gregg remarked to a high police official. "I wish he would become more directly concerned with this new string of jewel crimes. We could use his brains now. Perhaps I should call Frank Havens and ask him to get in touch with the Phantom. One more diamond murder and I'll do it."
Frank Havens, publisher of the New York Clarion and a chain of other nationwide newspapers was the only living man who knew the real identity of the famous detective, and it was only through Havens that the Phantom could be contacted when needed.
It was an amazing dual identity that had been maintained by the Phantom Detective for several years. For the Phantom, surprisingly, was Richard Curtis Van Loan, playboy and spender of Broadway and all other playgrounds where his society friends collected for frivolity. To them he was looked upon as a cynical waster, bored with life, interested only in having a good time.
YEARS before, however, Frank Havens had interested him in a puzzling crime. Van Loan had solved that crime, and boredom had dropped from him as a butterfly sheds its cocoon. He bad discovered an interest in life. He started training, a form of rigid discipline and education that went beyond that of any other manhunter, for he meant to be a detective par excellence.
Now, as a result of his intensive study and work, he was an adept in all the arts of fighting, and had become known as the man of a thousand faces because of his artistry in fashioning disguises. Furthermore, he could reproduce the voice and mannerisms of any other man he studied for the purpose.
His extensive laboratory contained all of the latest crime detecting devices. To its perfection he added many scientific instruments he had himself invented.
Ventriloquism and the mastery of Oriental studies in hypnotism likewise were also a part of Dick Van Loan's equipment when he stepped from the gilded pathway of the playboy spender to battle the most dangerous criminals.
At the moment Inspector Gregg was speaking, the one more diamond murder which he had mentioned would impel him to call for the Phantom was in the making. Like some of the previously reported crimes, it was being so cleverly carried out that those witnessing the beginning could have had no suspicion that they were seeing a murder victim and his killer.
Cort Hanlon, diamond broker and salesman, was a bluff and hearty man with a friendly red face. As he emerged from the train and climbed to the upper level of Grand Central Station, Hanlon's gaze roved about for a moment.
He waved at a business acquaintance that he recognized in the throng, but did not bother to stop to speak to the other man. He smiled broadly when he saw a sign indicating the nearest bar.
That satisfying point established, he walked over to the information booth in the center of the rotunda, glancing sharply about him in search of the individual he expected to meet there.
In the fringe of a crowd, as if waiting for a local commuting train, stood an expensively dressed young man. He wore no hat and his wheat-colored hair was carefully brushed. Only upon close observation could it be noticed that he was a bit older than he looked at first glance. There was a hint of hardness about his mouth and a bleak coldness in his eyes.
He appeared to be bored with his surroundings, but for an instant his eyes narrowed as his gaze centered on the red face of Cort Hanlon. Raising one hand, he rubbed his jaw and shifted his chewing gum to the other side of his mouth.
The small man in the palm beach suit who followed the gum chewer's gesture might have been a youthful bank clerk or bookkeeper. He approached Cort Hanlon with some hesitation, then swallowed and mustered up nerve to speak.
"Would you be Mr. Hanlon?" he asked. "You fit the description given me at the office, but if you're not I'm sorry."
"Sure thing," Cort. Hanlon said in his booming voice. "But I was expecting your boss."
THE little man's eyes seemed to knife through Hanlon before he smiled with his lips.
"Mr. Harvey was detained and sent me to meet you," he murmured. "My name is Douglas. Mr. Harvey will be ready for you when you arrive at the office."
"Okay, Douglas." Hanlon frowned. "You wouldn't be thirsty, would you? I could stand a drink."
"Why, no, Mr. Hanlon," said Douglas. "I had an extra cup of coffee this morning. But there's a soda fountain over there."
"Soda fountain!" exclaimed Hanlon with a laugh. "I suspect you don't drink hard liquor, Douglas?"
"No, sir, I never have," asserted the little man. "But, of course, I'll accompany you."
Hanlon smiled wryly as he led the way to the nearest bar. He had his drink while Mr. Douglas fidgeted and waited.
Out in the street Hanlon was about to summon a hackman, but the little man stopped him.
"I have our car, sir," said Douglas. "It's over here."
A few minutes later a small automobile of popular make stopped at the entrance to a second-rate hotel in the East Fifties. The little man who got out was the teetotaler, Douglas. He turned to aid his companion.
From the way he staggered out of the car, Cort Hanlon's drink appeared to have gone to his head with stunning effect. The diamond salesman still clutched a briefcase under his arm, but the uncertain support of Douglas was required to bring Hanlon to the small hotel desk.
"My friend had a little too much, sir," Douglas said to the clerk. "He needs to sleep it off."
The clerk turned the register book around. To his surprise the big, red-faced man seemed to stare at him with unseeing eyes. But Hanlon produced a fountain pen and wrote, Cort Hanlon, Philadelphia, on the proper line on the page. Then Hanlon looked around, saw a chair and slumped into it.
Little Mr. Douglas glanced at him and then edged closer to the clerk and grew confidential.
"I'd like to have Mr. Hanlon put in a downstairs room, not too far from the ground," he said in a half whisper. "He's a big shot, but he might get funny ideas about a high window." Douglas shook his head sadly. "He's had some woman trouble."
"Anything to oblige." The clerk nodded and drew a key from the rack. "I'll give him two-eleven. It's only eight feet to the ground from the window of that room."
"Oh, yes." A thought struck Douglas. "Keep his money and his briefcase here. He wouldn't want to lose them."
Cort Hanlon developed unexpected stubbornness as he overheard the little man's words.
"No. I'll keep the rocks with me all the time," he muttered. "Want to sleep it off."
"All right," agreed Douglas soothingly.
"Doesn't look like he's drunk," said the clerk. "Acts like he had a shot of dope or something."
The clerk was staring at Hanlon so he did not see the dangerous glitter that flashed into the little man's eyes, then vanished as quickly as it had come.
"He gets that way," Douglas stated quietly. "I'll call for him in an hour or two."
The one bellboy on the day shift at the hotel helped Douglas steer Cort Hanlon to the room the little man had paid for in advance.
Douglas tipped the boy and he departed. A narrow window that looked out upon a court only a few feet below faced the blank wall of the building opposite.
The timidity of Mr. Douglas disappeared as soon as he was alone with the big jewelry salesman. When he left the room Cort Hanlon's briefcase was still there, but its contents, which had been more than a hundred thousand dollars' worth of cut and uncut diamonds were no longer in place. Cort Hanlon had now lost all interest in the diamonds, for he was dead. The quiet and ruthlessly efficient Mr. Douglas was never seen again by anyone who could identify him.
INSPECTOR GREGG was with the Homicide Squad that answered the excited phone call from the clerk of the small hotel. Cort Hanlon had been found dead, hanging by the neck only two feet below his window. Tightly twisted sheets off the bed had been made into the death noose, with the upper end attached to the radiator.
"The little guy with him said he had ideas of committing suicide when he was drunk," said the clerk. "Didn't want him in a top room for fear he might jump out a window, and look what happens. The porter saw him when he was emptying the ashcans outside."
On the dresser was a penned note which matched Cort Hanlon's signature on the register, and which was undoubtedly his writing. It read:
I knew I would do it some day. This turns out to be the day. Please notify my office in Philadelphia. I placed the stones in a safe place before I started drinking.
Cert Hanlon.
The briefcase in the room contained only a few contract forms employed in jewelry transactions. The police photographers and fingerprint men were busy, even though it looked like an obvious case of suicide.
"The guy was drunk and he wasn't drunk," supplied the clerk. "His eyes looked like he had been hitting some kind of dope."
Within half an hour Inspector Gregg had established leading facts. Cort Hanlon had carried more than one hundred thousand dollars in large cut and uncut diamonds. His Philadelphia office, contacted by phone, revealed that one of his first visits was to be have been made at the Lemore Department Store.
While still at the hotel Inspector Gregg got the reports from the medical examiner and the fingerprint men.
"Death was apparently caused by self-strangling with suicidal intent," the medical examiner reported.
"Only Hanlon's fingerprints on the radiator and the windowsill," said a fingerprint man. "Same with the briefcase."
Cort Hanlon's note appeared to bear out the suicide theory, but the inspector was not entirely satisfied. He had a feeling that this might be murder, and questioned the clerk again regarding the little man who had brought Hanlon to the hotel.
"He didn't weigh more than a hundred pounds, and this Hanlon guy goes over two hundred," said the clerk. "Even if he hadn't left the note, Hanlon was too big to have been handled by the little fellow, unless he was hypnotized or something."
"You might have something there," growled Inspector Gregg.
He was thinking there was something wrong about that supposed suicide note. At first, he could not decide what it was that made the note seem unconvincing, then it finally dawned on him.
"Wait until I get the Phantom and he hears this one," he muttered. "A salesman with a hundred grand in rocks kills himself. He leaves a note saying he has put the diamonds in a safe place, but he neglects to say where he put them. There's no reason for a man planning to commit suicide to keep the hiding place of those jewels a secret. This looks like murder to me!"
HEADQUARTERS contacted Inspector Gregg at the hotel as he was about to call Frank Havens in an effort to reach the Phantom Detective. The terse report that started the inspector swearing luridly came from a far different locale than that of the second rate hotel.
That morning Mrs. Montgomery Tremont Lothan had stopped at the jewelers and picked up her famous "Necklace of Stars" as society editors had named it.
It was a string of matched diamonds, reputed to be worth two hundred thousand dollars, but its actual valuation was about fifty thousand dollars. Mrs. Lothan had left it at the jewelers in order to have the catch repaired.
Mrs. Lothan had stopped to do some shopping on her way home. Two hours after picking up her necklace, which she had safely deposited in the ample frills close to her bosom, Mrs. Lothan arrived at her apartment where her maid greeted her at the door.
"A man from the insurance company is here, madam," the maid informed her. "He insisted upon waiting and asked me a lot of questions about your necklace."
A smiling young man with a distinctly deferential air greeted Mrs. Lothan as she entered the drawing room.
"I'm sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Lothan," he greeted her. "But the Elite Insurance Company always makes this check. We have heard that you may be a little unsuspicious of what might happen in the manner of your handling the necklace we have insured without taking proper safeguards."
"I'll have you know, young man. I can take care of my jewels and myself anywhere at any time," she said coldly, "I happen to have the necklace right here." Her hand moved to her bosom.
The young man was still smiling, but there was something hard and sinister about the expression on his face.
"Allow me," he said grimly.
He glanced at the empty doorway, then moved abruptly to Mrs. Lothan's side. After that no sound was heard outside of the drawing room.
Inspector Gregg received this detailed report because the maid, Mary, had listened out in the hall up to that moment. Afterward she only knew that the housekeeper had summoned her, and that when she had returned Mrs. Lothan was sitting alone in the drawing room.
Mrs. Lothan stared at her maid as if she did not see her. The girl spoke and, getting no reply from the motionless figure in the chair, she had suddenly screamed and fainted as other servants rushed in.
Now a Homicide Squad was at the apartment, and Mrs. Montgomery Tremont Lothan was dead. In addition, the famous fifty thousand dollar necklace was missing.
The Lothan chauffeur had driven Mrs. Lothan to pick up the necklace and to do her shopping in the Lemore Department Store. Just before Mrs. Lothan had been found dead the chauffeur had seen a young man come hurriedly from the apartment house.
This young man had joined a man waiting in a parked car. That the waiting man had light hair, looked young and had been chewing gum were the only details the chauffeur could recall.
"I've got to contact the Phantom and do it fast," exclaimed Inspector Gregg as he hung up. "This is getting to be too much for me!"
SEATED in the coupé parked at the curb, the Phantom Detective was sure that the dudish-appearing man with the pliant black malacca cane did not belong in this shabby neighborhood.
The man with the cane had shadowed a girl into the block, depending on the darkness of the night to keep her from suspecting that she was being followed.
As she strolled along the street the girl's graceful walk and the manner in which she held her head suggested that she had been accustomed to better clothes than the cheap attire she was now wearing.
The Phantom realized she was the living proof that a woman can age herself, or make herself ugly or beautiful very easily. The girl's black hair was drawn back severely. A drooping hat nearly covered her apparently plain features which were free of make-up.
Martha Lemore's best friends would not have identified her with the girl the Phantom had been waiting to see.
As Martha entered an old house with a brownstone front farther down the block the man with the cane stationed himself outside. The Phantom decided it was time for him to go into action.
Slipping out of the coupé, he spoke to the thin-faced youth with him. The youth was Chip Dorlan, the Phantom protege.
Brought up the hard way in the city slums, Chip had become the Phantom's faithful follower after the boy's brother had been saved by the great detective from execution for a murder he had not committed. But even Chip Dorlan did not know the Phantom's actual identity.
"Keep an eye on the fellow with the cane, Chip," ordered the Phantom as he left the car.
"Right, Phantom!" exclaimed Chip, his sharp blue eyes fixed on the man who had dropped back into the shadow of a doorway. "I'll watch him."
One of the Phantom's greatest assets was his ability in the art of make-up and his mastery of disguise. He might have been any other worker seeking a furnished room as he strode slowly along the sidewalk.
Frequently Van Loan paused, reading numbers and even stopping to ring one doorbell and inquire about the kind of room he knew that he could not get. He was making the character he had assumed entirely convincing to the man he was sure must be watching him.
The Phantom's reason for being here was a double one. First, he hoped that he might persuade Martha Lemore to return to her foster father. Word had come to Van that Rufus Lemore was apparently on the verge of losing his mind.
Secondly, Van was still convinced that Lafe Grimes was the possessor of some vital secret which might aid in averting his electrocution.
It was quite possible that now that her father's death was so imminent Martha might be willing to reveal something about which she had previously remained silent.
There was a third angle to be considered. Since he had been working on the Grimes case the Phantom had deemed it advisable to permit certain members of the Lemore Department Store personnel to get in touch with him.
In order to do so, he had taken a room at a Broadway hotel under the name of Marshall Green. From this point he answered all phone calls—messages jotted down by the hotel operator and left in Mr. Green's box.
Just a few hours ago he had found a message from Robert Donaldson, the manager of the jewelry department of the Lemore Store. The Phantom had called Donaldson and was to meet him when the store closed this evening at a place they had selected outside. The time arranged for the meeting was but an hour off. Donaldson had hinted that he possessed startling information.
"I can't tell you much now," Donaldson had said over the phone. "But some of the original perfect diamonds Harry Young showed me before he was killed have turned up here in our stock. And Rufus Lemore is acting insanely."
Van was coming down the stoop of the house where he had pretended to be seeking a room when he saw the dudish man with the cane rapidly crossing the street.
The Phantom strolled after him. Before, he could get close, the man with the cane went up the steps, opened the front door of the house which Martha Lemore had entered and vanished inside.
Stepping beneath a street light, the Phantom noticed that Chip Dorlan was walking toward him. Van turned, his lips framing a command to Chip, who also possessed one of the Phantom's countless assets, which was the ability to read lips.
"Cover outside the house, Chip," the Phantom silently ordered while apparently busy finding a cigarette. "If the man with the cane comes out suddenly, stop him, but go easy."
"All right, Phantom," silently answered Chip by merely moving his lips. "I'll be careful."
Van deliberately walked up the steps of the house with the brownstone front as if still searching for a room. He found the front door unlocked, pushed it open and slid into a dingy hallway filled with musty, stale odors.
Abruptly a shrill scream came from somewhere upstairs. It was the kind of forced and choked-off cry that would be uttered by someone in pain. The Phantom hesitated tensely, then raced swiftly yet silently up the carpeted stairs.
He had just reached the second floor landing when a woman's body came hurtling over the third-story stair rail and struck the floor of the hail with a sickening thud.
Van's heavy automatic snapped into his hand as he glanced at the gray-haired woman sprawled on the worn runner. This looked like a deliberate attempt at murder.
Another terrified scream came from the floor above. The woman in the hallway moved and groaned. Relieved that she had not been killed by the fall, Van took the next flight of stairs in amazing jumps, instinctively sensing that the girl who screamed might be Martha Lemore.
"Keep quiet or I'll give you the same treatment!" ordered a harsh, metallic voice from above.
THE Phantom heard the swish of something that he decided was probably the malacca cane. He reached the head of the stairs leading to the third floor ready for a swift encounter, but he was unprepared for the sight which met his gaze.
Martha Lemore evidently had snatched the malacca stick out of the man's hand and was lashing at him with the punishing weapon.
"Stop it, you little fool!" the man snarled. "Stop it! Do you want to kill me and land in the death house with your father? Drop that cane. It's deadly!"
"I know it is, you killer!" screamed Martha. "You jabbed Mrs. McCarthy with it and she fell over the stair railing. You've murdered her! Get out, or I'll kill you!"
Van leaped forward, seized the collar of the man who was backing toward him, and gave him a quick jerk that swung him around. The girl gasped when she saw Van and aimed a blow of the cane at him that just nicked his ear.
"Wait, Martha!" he said tersely. "I'm the Phantom!"
The man he held writhed and twisted like a cornered rat as he heard the name. Blue sunfish eyes on either side of a puggy nose glared at the Phantom.
"Let me go!" he bellowed.
His right hand shot out in a short jab at Van's face. A small bright object was tightly clutched in his fingers.
Trained in every art of physical encounter from Oriental tricks to the latest in American boxing, the Phantom ducked just enough to permit the man's hand to slide by his ear.
When the Phantom identified himself Martha Lemore had stepped back. But her dark eyes were still blazing, and she held the malacca cane firmly, ready for instant action.
Van drew back his free arm with the intention of landing a knockout punch on his opponent's chin, but he never struck that blow.
"Don't do it, chum, or you'll go out the tough way," a hard voice rasped behind him on the stairs. "I've got you covered and this gun doesn't make any sound, either. Turn Danny loose!"
GLANCING at Martha Lemore, the Phantom saw her eyes widen as she gazed toward the stairs. He realized then that the man behind him was not bluffing—and evidently held a gun in his hand. Van held back his punch, but he maintained his hold on the man called Danny as he swung toward the stairs.
"I said let him go."
A slender, young-looking man stood halfway down the stairs. The dim light gleamed on his thick, wheat-colored hair. His face was expressionless, and he held what looked like a tapered, slender pipe about three feet long in his hands.
Brightly colored feathers stuck out of one end of the weapon. Van realized it was a new kind of air-gun, probably extremely powerful, and that the dart it contained must certainly be fatal or its owner would not have been so confident.
Bleak, cold eyes gazed at the Phantom, but encountered a glance just as forceful as their own. Van was fully aware that this calm blond-haired man was an extremely dangerous foe.
Deliberately the Phantom continued to hold onto Danny. He had dropped his own automatic back into his pocket when he reached the head of the stairs and noticed that the girl had the man with the cane pretty well under control. Now Van was glad that neither of these men knew whether he was armed or not.
"I said turn Danny loose," repeated the man on the stairs. "I can get you and the girl before either of you can move."
"It seems to be your tricks," said the Phantom. "Okay, I'll turn your pal loose." As he spoke his hands dropped and the man who had had the cane was free. "But we're not quite finished yet!"
Abruptly Van launched himself forward, diving through space with the speed of a flying arrow. He was under the line of the gun, barely skimming the stairs. He heard the faint, muffled snap of an air plunger. Then as he struck the legs of the man holding the weapon, a terrible scream sounded behind him.
"Sonny!" wailed the metallic voice of Danny. "You got me. I—"
The words died away in a ghastly gurgle.
Van hooked an arm around the man with the air-gun as he hit him, bending the fellow's knees and knocking him down.
The two of them rolled into the hallway of the second floor, fighting like angry wildcats.
"You murderin' prowlers!" stormed a hoarse masculine voice. "You would, would you!"
The weight of the metal cylinder of a vacuum cleaner landed with crashing force on the back of Van's head. Stunned, on the verge of going out, he voiced a protest.
"Hold it," he muttered. "I'm the law. This man—"
"Shut up and get on your feet!"
A fat man in overalls held the vacuum cleaner poised for another blow. Because he saw the man belonged in the house and might be the husband of the stricken landlady. Van kept his hands down as he got to his feet.
He was aware that the front door had opened and closed. The man with the deadly air-gun had escaped.
VAN glanced at the head of the stairs behind him. Danny, the man who had had the malacca cane was sprawled head downward on the top step. Van's experience with violence told him that Danny was dead. He saw the bright feather of a dart sticking out of the man's cheek.
"I'm a detective, and I came to see Miss Bingham who rooms here," said the Phantom, thankful that he had learned the name that Martha Lemore was now using. "She will tell you that. I ran into this trouble."
"That's true, Mr. McCarthy," agreed Martha as she passed the body on the stairs and came down to the second floor. "He is a detective friend of mine. If he hadn't arrived when he did I might have been killed." She glanced at the woman. "Why, Mrs. McCarthy, what's wrong?"
The big woman who had fallen over the stair rail was getting ponderously to her feet. But she was looking at the others with a strange light in her eyes, as if she were not seeing them. McCarthy dropped his vacuum cleaner weapon and put out his hands to his wife.
"Katy, in heaven's name, what's happened to you?" he demanded.
The woman ignored his hands. She moved toward the stairs, eyes fixed ahead as if she were walking in her sleep.
"She's had a shock," Van said quickly, but he knew differently.
He was positive that the woman had been suddenly and effectively drugged. He remembered the glittering object with which Danny had fried to stab him in the face, and the Phantom decided it was a hypodermic needle the man had held.
Van started toward the lifeless, figure on the stairs with the intention of searching for the needle. Suddenly a brilliant and blinding explosion in front of the Phantom brought him to an abrupt halt. It seemed to have come from the bright feathers in the dart stuck in the dead man's cheek.
"Get your wife out of the house, McCarthy!" shouted Van as he ran down the stairs. "Come on, Martha, this way. Quick! Keep your eyes away from that fire—it's deadly!"
Blue and white flames enveloped the body on the stairs, jumping swiftly to the flimsy woodwork and ceiling.
With McCarthy holding his wife's arm and guiding her down the stairs, and with Van half-carrying Martha Lemore, they descended to the lower hall, and went out into the street through the front door of the old house.
"How many others in the house?" demanded Van as he stared at the place that was swiftly becoming a blazing inferno. "They'll have to try and escape through the windows."
"There's only a couple of other boarders," said McCarthy. He uttered a shout of relief as a man and a woman appeared-on a fire-escape at the side of the house and came rapidly down the iron ladders. "There they are. They're safe. But what about our house? Everything we own in this world is in there!"
INTENSE, devouring flames billowed from the front windows on the second and third floors. Van realized that there was no hope of saving the old brownstone front.
"Everything in there will be ruined before the fire department can possibly arrive. They'll be lucky if they can keep the flames confined to just this one house in the block," said Van. "That was the most destructive fire bomb ever invented, thermite and magnesium."
"And the insurance we have on the place will hardly cover half our loss," wailed McCarthy.
"Here, McCarthy." The Phantom reached into his pocket and drew out a hundred-dollar bill. He handed it to the stout workman. "Take this to tide you over until you are able to collect your insurance."
Van ignored McCarthy's dazed thanks and looked around in search of Chip Dorlan. He found Chip gazing up at the burning house. The boy appeared to have no interest whatever in the Phantom or those with him.
"Come on, Martha," he urged the dark-haired girl who had regained her composure and was standing beside him. "We must not be detained. I want you to go with me. Get into that coupé parked across the street, please."
"I can't return to Dad Lemore," Martha said, a pleading look in her dark eyes. "I just can't. But I was going to meet someone at the store when it closed for the night." She nodded. "All right, I'll go with you."
"We'll talk on the way, Martha," Van called after her as she ran across the street and climbed into the car.
Van walked over to Chip. The boy glanced at him with dull eyes, wholly without interest.
"What happened, Chip?" asked Van sharply. "Don't you know me? I'm the Phantom!"
"Aw, gee!" muttered Chip paying no attention to Van as fire trucks with sirens wailing rolled into the street. "They ain't gonna let the old firetrap burn. Some screwball turned in the alarm."
The Phantom realized what ailed Chip. The boy had been doped as had Mrs. McCarthy.
In his present condition Chip might prove hard to handle, and there was no time to waste. Deliberately the Phantom aimed a punch at Chip's chin and knocked him unconscious.
Van caught the boy as he was about to fall. Carrying him to the coupé, he placed the limp form on the floor. Martha sat watching, wide-eyed.
"One of them?" she asked as the Phantom climbed behind the wheel.
"No." Van shook his head as he started the car and drove away. "He works for me—but he's been doped. I had to knock him out. It was the only way to take him along with us in a hurry."
The coupé rolled out of the street as the firemen went to work fighting the flames pouring out of the burning house. The Phantom drove three blocks away, then parked in a quiet spot and devoted his attention to Chip Dorlan.
MARTHA LEMORE quietly arranged her raven-hued locks in the tight hair-do.
"Why did you come to the house after me, Phantom?" she asked, watching Van take a bottle and a hypodermic needle from a small compartment in the car.
"I wanted to talk to you," the Phantom replied crisply as he rolled back Chip's sleeve and thrust the needle into the still unconscious boy's forearm. "It's a good thing I arrived when I did." He frowned. "Unfortunately, we haven't much time to talk now. The store will close soon and I have an important appointment there."
"At least you can tell me what you wanted to discuss," said Martha.
"It was about Rufus Lemore." Van put the bottle and the needle back into the compartment. "I believe he is losing his mind because you have gone away from him."
"I don't believe it," said Martha as Van started the car and they drove across town. "I mean it isn't on account of me. I have seen Dad Lemore several times when he didn't know I was in the store. I'm sure it is not because I have left. Other people have also noticed a change in him. I—I don't understand it, Phantom."
"Neither do I," said Van. "You were going to the Lemore Department Store to meet someone. Is it a secret?"
"Well, yes, it is, in a way," Martha said. "But I feel that I can trust you, so I'll tell you the truth. I am meeting Pat O'Hara the chief store detective, He has been keeping a check on Dad Lemore for me, and—well—we like each other."
Chip Dorlan's eyes were wide open as he sat up on the floor of the car. The hypo of colorless liquid that Van had injected into his arm was clearing the boy's brain. He stared at the Phantom and then at the girl with a puzzled expression on his thin face.
"What happened, Phantom?" he demanded. "I was standing in front of that house watching the door. I didn't see anyone near me, but I suddenly felt a sting on the back of my neck—and that's all I remember."
"You were very cleverly drugged, Chip," the Phantom told him. "I'll tell you about it later. We've only a little time to spare. Miss Lemore and I have appointments with different persons at the Lemore Department Store."
He parked the car outside a drug store and got out. "You try entertaining Miss Lemore for a few moments while I make a phone call."
ENTERING the drug store, the Phantom slid into a phone booth, dropped a nickel in the slot and dialed the number of the private telephone of the owner of the New York Clarion. When Frank Havens answered Van identified himself over the wire.
"Glory, Dick!" exclaimed the publisher, for he always called Van Loan by his first name in private. "Inspector Gregg has been burning the wire all afternoon pleading with me to have you get in touch with him at once."
"In the meantime a house and a corpse burned up and I've had an interesting experience," stated Van. "I have an appointment at the Lemore Department Store in a few minutes. What's worrying Inspector Gregg?"
"Diamonds, Dick," replied Havens. "A hundred thousand dollars' worth taken from a Philadelphia salesman. He was left hanging outside a window at a cheap hotel. A note in his writing indicated suicide, but Gregg thinks that's phony. The hotel clerk said a little man brought the salesman in, and the salesman seemed to be drugged or hypnotized."
"Check," said Van instantly. "This is warming up fast."
"There's another one, Dick. Mrs. Lothan of Park Avenue lost her fifty-thousand-dollar necklace and her life. It happened very quietly in her own apartment, surrounded by servants. She was drugged, too. Her physician said her heart was about through and the stuff finished her quickly."
"What has the inspector uncovered on these cases, Frank?"
"Nothing that means anything, except a description of the man who may have been working with the killers. This man was seen at Grand Central Station by a business acquaintance of Cort Hanlon, the dead diamond salesman.
"The witness reported that he saw Hanlon come from the train and go to the upper level information booth as if he expected to meet someone there. Hanlon waved to the business man but did not speak to him."
"Go on, Frank," said the Phantom. "What was the business man's name?"
"Jones. He was waiting to take a train, so he watched Hanlon. He saw a light-haired young man also apparently watching Hanlon. But it was a small individual who looked like a clerk that spoke to the jewelry salesman. The two men left the station together."
VAN grunted and his voice crackled with an aroused interest.
"What else?" he asked.
"Well, Mrs. Lothan's chauffeur was out in front of the apartment building. He saw a young man come out hastily and jump into a car that was waiting. The car was driven by a light-haired young man who answers the same description as the one that Jones saw in the station."
"And both Mrs. Lothan and Hanlon were drugged," mused the Phantom, "That ties up with something else. Did the light-haired man have thick straw-colored hair, look a bit younger than he actually is, and have hard blue eyes?"
"He did," said Havens. "But how did you know that, Dick?"
"Because I believe I've also met the same man," answered Van.
"Hanlon was supposed to be taking some diamonds to the Lemore Department Store, and Mrs. Lothan had just returned from shopping there," added Havens. "It might be a coincidence."
The Phantom considered that, his face stiffening with the bleakness of his thoughts.
"Then again it might not," he said quickly. "How about sending Steve Huston over to the Lemore Department Store as soon as possible? Have him stick around the Fifth Avenue entrance."
"Right, Dick," agreed Frank Havens. "You have something?"
"I'm not certain yet," Van said. "At the moment I'm chiefly interested in the state of mind of Rufus Lemore, I'll call you later."
As the Phantom hurried back to his coupé he had but one dominant urge for haste. It was a sudden hunch that Robert Donaldson and perhaps Rufus Lemore himself were in deadly danger.
"I'll see this Pat O'Hara, Martha is interested in and warn him to be on guard," said Van musingly.
He got in the car and drove across town. Chip was seated beside Martha and they moved over to make room for the Phantom.
The coupé was only a block from the Lemore Department Store when they heard the wild clamor of a burglar alarm and the screaming of police car sirens.
"Sounds like trouble at the store!" exclaimed Chip.
As the car swung into Fifth Avenue and the Phantom saw the crowd milling in front of the big store there was no doubt in his mind that Chip was right.
TWENTY minutes before the Phantom's coupé rolled into Fifth Avenue the Lemore Department Store was going through its usual hectic but well-managed routine. It was Thursday, the night on which the store remained open until 9 P.M. instead of the usual 5:30 P.M. closing time.
There were plenty of customers in all the departments of the big seven-story building, but a "One Hour Sale" in the costume jewelry section on the fourth floor was thronging the aisles.
Between this section and the executive offices at the rear of the fourth floor was the high-priced jewelry department. Here business was slack in comparison to the mad rush that was going on in the other section.
At a point between the two sections a tall, athletic, red-haired young man stood watching all that went on around him. His Irish gray eyes frequently ceased their inspection of the milling mob of woman bargain hunters to glance at the big clock over the main door leading into the executive offices of the store.
It was near closing time and Pat O'Hara, chief of the Lemore Store private detective force, was becoming impatient. He was eager for his work to be finished so that he could meet Martha Lemore.
O'Hara let his gaze wander over the long glittering showcases of jewelry. He saw dark-haired, pleasant Bob Donaldson, the manager of the jewelry department, frowning at the enforced idleness of his four clerks.
The bedlam that came from the costume jewelry section was like the buzzing of angry hornets heard through a loud speaker. Women were fighting their way through the crowds, trying to be first at the counters.
"Fifteen minutes until closing time," Robert Donaldson said to one of his clerks. "You can start putting the more valuable stock in the safe."
Two young men started carrying trays of gleaming gems to the small room of the night safety vault. Donaldson glanced at the clock and scowled. From the way the manager of the jewelry department had cast frequent glances at the clock, and then looked from time to time at the door of the executive offices, Pat O'Hara had decided that Robert Donaldson had something on his mind.
"Maybe he's got a date with a colleen just like I have," decided O'Hara with a faint smile. "He's sure excited about something."
The door of the executive offices opened. Rufus Lemore stood there, looking out at the activity going on in the costume jewelry section of the floor.
The dapper, gray-haired store magnate appeared only mildly interested in the sales being made as he peered at the bargain-hunting scene through his gold-rimmed glasses.
HIS face brightened when his new secretary, a tall and stately blonde appeared and said something to him. He smiled and nodded, rubbing his thin hands while he talked to the girl. O'Hara frowned as he watched them.
"I hope to Christmas the old man isn't getting ideas about that new secretary of his," thought O'Hara. "That Miss Brinkley is smart as a steel trap, and some looker though there's something about her I don't like."
The door of the executive office closed, and Lemore and Miss Brinkley disappeared from view. O'Hara turned to watch the elevators disgorging groups of women.
"Have to cut 'em off soon," decided O'Hara. "We'll be an hour clearing the floor when the closing gong rings."
The aisles of the jewelry section were completely deserted. But in the other department the bargain-hunting women continued to create a mob scene due to the briefness of the special sale.
A few men who looked and felt out of place, stood to one side with their hats in their hands.
A pair of such men, their hats held respectfully, walked casually toward the main jewelry section. When they reached it they looked casually at displays in the cases.
One man held up a hand upon which a large diamond flashed as Robert Donaldson stepped toward them. The man glanced from the diamond on his finger to one of the display trays inside the case, and spoke to Donaldson.
"I see an oddly cut stone that appears to match this one in my ring. May I examine it?"
"Certainly, sir." Donaldson smiled, opened the case and placed the small tray of unset stones on top of the counter. "There you are."
The second man's hand moved just a little under his hat. An ugly-looking gun with a small silencing cylinder on the barrel was pointed over the edge of the showcase at Donaldson.
"Keep your hands by the tray," the man with the gun said quietly. "This is a stick-up!"
The man wearing the ring slowly scooped the half dozen diamonds from the tray, dropping them into a pocket. He stood with his back turned so that his actions could not be observed by O'Hara.
Robert Donaldson's dark eyes went to the figure of Pat O'Hara some thirty or forty feet away. The manager knew that one cry from him would bring the chief of the store detectives down upon the thieves, or he could place his foot on one of the burglar alarm buttons built in the floor beneath, the counter.
With the silenced gun menacing him from beneath the hat Donaldson decided it would be safer to sound the alarm. His foot reached the button, but he was too slow in ducking down behind the counter.
The gunman must have sensed the manager's intention. His eyes narrowed and his face twisted into a snarl.
SHRILL voices of bargain-buying women drowned out the vicious sound of the silenced gun. Robert Donaldson looked puzzled, then his gaze grew blank.
A red circle appeared on his white shirt over his heart and he went down slowly, the hands of a dead man slipping off the showcase.
"Keep going, Scabrow," grated the killer.
The two men moved so casually and quickly that they were merged in the crowd in the costume jewelry section before a shrill scream startled, everyone.
A woman had seen Robert Donaldson lying with his face upturned as he sprawled at the end of the jewelry counter, and the sight of the blood on his chest had frightened her.
That one scream was enough to start a panic. Hysterical cries filled the air. Several women promptly fainted. Most of them did not know what was wrong, but they were thoroughly terrified.
Pat O'Hara left his post and hurried forward. At first he saw only the two bare-headed men moving away, and did not pay any particular attention to them, for they looked harmless.
He did not see Robert Donaldson at once, and took it for granted he had dropped behind the counter after setting off the alarm that was clamoring all through the store.
O'Hara knew the alarm would set his detective staff into action on every floor, but the next thirty seconds were all mixed up for the young red-headed Irishman.
The bargain-hunting women had become a wild mob, and the din increased. Women were still screaming. Some of them had fallen, and were in danger of being trampled in the feverish stampede.
The floorwalker and the male clerks from the jewelry department went into action, calming the excited women and heading them toward the elevators and the escalator. Soon they had created a semblance of order, and the crowd started departing from the fourth floor.
It was only then that O'Hara saw the dead man sprawled behind the counter in the jewelry department. The store detective cursed under his breath as he realized that the two men who had calmly walked away with their hats in their hands most likely had been the killers.
"And I let them go," muttered O'Hara. "All I noticed about them was that they wore dark suits and were carrying their hats. There's a hundred men still in the store that would answer that description."
The department store detective knew that he could not order the store exits closed and attempt to hold all of the customers in the place. That would be a colossal and practically impossible job.
He turned and glanced at the door leading into the executive offices. As he did so, he was positive that he saw two men dressed in dark clothing break away from the crowd that was still leaving by the elevators, and step in through the office door.
O'Hara moved swiftly toward the offices, edging around men and women who got in his way, but making no attempt to run for fear he might create some more excitement. He reached the door and entered the corridor beyond. As soon as the door closed behind him O'Hara drew his gun.
He walked past the offices of the advertising and art departments, the mail order department, and the adjustment section until he reached the door of Rufus Lemore's private office. O'Hara remembered now that there was a small private automatic elevator here. Perhaps the two men had escaped that way.
PAT O'HARA pulled open the door of Lemore's private office and stepped into the small reception room with his gun still in his hand. He was surprised to see the blonde Miss Brinkley sitting quietly at her desk. She glanced at him with cool, questioning green eyes, her wide, painted mouth twisting into an expression of surprise.
"Why, Mr. O'Hara!" the girl exclaimed. "You've got a gun! Don't tell me a few wild women bring out your primitive nature? I heard them start the usual panic when time came to clear the store."
"Listen, Miss Brinkley, it was more than the usual panic," snapped O'Hara. "Donaldson has just been murdered. I saw two men come through here. Did they go into Mr. Lemore's office?"
"Mr. Donaldson shot!" gasped Ann Brinkley, her green eyes widening. "Good heavens, the shock will about finish Mr. Lemore," She looked intently at O'Hara. "But you said that two men came in here? Why, they couldn't, without my seeing them."
"I saw them," repeated O'Hara grimly.
He went to the door of Lemore's private office, but Miss Brinkley controlled the electric release of the catch and prevented O'Hara from entering.
"Wait a minute, Mr. O'Hara," she said firmly. "Don't be so hasty. You know Mr. Lemore is ill, and can't stand shocks."
"Open the door or I'll be forced to break it open," ordered O'Hara. "I saw those two men come this way. I can't be wrong."
"Have it your way, Mr. O'Hara," Ann Brinkley said resignedly as she released the catch on the door. "But if anything happens to Mr. Lemore it will be your responsibility."
O'Hara looked at her, then pushed through the thick, soundproof door.
Rufus Lemore was seated quietly at his desk, his thin, blue-veined hands sorting some papers. He glanced up, blinking in surprise through his thick-lensed glasses as the chief store detective entered.
"I usually prefer to have callers announced, O'Hara," said Lemore quietly. "What is it? And why the display of the gun?"
O'Hara glanced all around the sumptuous private office. The place was richly furnished and several doors closed off smaller private offices at the back. The chrome steel shaft of the private elevator was visible in one corner.
"Sorry, Mr. Lemore," said O'Hara finally. "But did two men come through your office?"
The amazement upon Rufus Lemore's thin face was answer enough. O'Hara was beginning to feel extremely foolish. He glanced at the gun in his hand and then hastily thrust it into his pocket.
"Two men, O'Hara?" Lemore shook his head. "No one has been in my office for the past hour. Why should you think that?"
O'Hara decided that he might have been wrong after all. It was barely possible he could have been mistaken. Perhaps the men had entered one of the other offices along the corridor and escaped by the fire exit stairs.
"Sorry, Mr. Lemore," he said, and then added carefully. "We have had a little trouble in the jewelry department. Mr. Donaldson has been—ah, hurt."
"Donaldson hurt!" exclaimed Lemore getting to his feet. "I must go to him at once."
"Not now, Mr. Lemore," said O'Hara quickly. "He doesn't need any help at present." The detective's eyes grew bleak as he thought of the dead man. "It would be better if you will wait until the store is closed for the night and we get rid of the crowd."
"Perhaps you're right, O'Hara." Lemore sank back into his chair. "I hate crowds—they make me nervous."
WITH a feeling of relief O'Hara left the private office, closing the door behind him. Miss Brinkley sat at her desk watching him.
"Stay with Mr. Lemore," he said as he headed for the door of the reception room. "I wouldn't let him see Donaldson at once. He looks like the shock might be too much for him."
"I tried to tell you that," said Ann Brinkley coldly. "You might have thought of it before breaking in here like a tornado."
The detective left the reception room and went to the nearest fire door along the corridor of the executive offices. He opened it to find Patterson, the night watchman of the store just coming up the exit stairs.
"Hello, Patterson," said O'Hara. "Did you come all the way up the stairs from the first floor?"
"That I did," said Patterson. "The alarm registered that there was trouble on the fourth floor, so I thought I would come up by the exit stairs just in case somebody might be coming down that way."
"And you saw no one?" demanded O'Hara tersely.
"Not a soul," said the night watchman. "What's wrong?"
"Murder and robbery in the jewelry department," answered O'Hara. "Donaldson was killed. Have you seen any of my staff around?"
"They're all over the place," said Patterson. "But they don't seem to know what's wrong. I guess they're looking for stick-up men with guns and masks just like I been doing."
"The killers weren't masked," said O'Hara. "Just two men dressed in dark suits."
O'Hara returned to the jewelry department. All of the customers had left, and Inspector Gregg and the Homicide Squad had arrived. Close behind the men from the Police Department stood a poorly dressed and rather drab-looking girl. O'Hara's heart leaped at sight of her, and he ignored the two men near her as unimportant as he hurried to her side.
"Martha!" he exclaimed. "It's good to see you, but you shouldn't have come up here. We've had some trouble. This will be a great shock to Mr. Lemore—to your father. Bob Donaldson was—"
"I know," said Martha before he could finish. "We've heard what happened." She looked at O'Hara anxiously. "Has Mr. Lemore been told?"
"Yes, Mr. Lemore knows," said one of the jewelry clerks standing nearby. "He came out a few minutes ago, but he seemed ill and his secretary took him back to his office."
"I think that now is the time for you to go to your father, Martha," O'Hara said quietly when the clerk had moved away. "He needs you."
Martha hesitated, her lovely eyes glistening with unshed tears, and then she nodded.
"You're right, Pat," she said. "I'll go talk to him."
O'HARA watched her as she walked to the main door of the executive offices, entered it and disappeared. Then he went to Inspector Gregg and gave him a report on what had happened.
The Phantom Detective had been standing quietly to one side, since he knew no one save Inspector Gregg to whom he had identified himself, but his keen eyes had missed nothing that went on around him. He had seen the tall, red-headed young man talking to Martha and had become convinced that this must be Pat O'Hara.
Van decided O'Hara looked like a capable and honest young man. He also believed that the meeting between Rufus Lemore and the girl might prove decidedly interesting.
Moving unobtrusively to the door of the executive offices, he stepped into the corridor beyond.
As the door closed behind him Martha appeared from the reception room of Rufus Lemore's private office and there was a blonde girl with her. Martha was sobbing softly. She glanced up, saw the Phantom and hastened to him. Ann Brinkley followed close behind her.
"He—he doesn't know me," Martha said quickly. "He kept insisting that I couldn't be Martha Lemore—that she was young and pretty, not a plain-looking girl like me."
Van said nothing, but he felt that Rufus Lemore should have recognized the girl he had established to the world as his daughter in spite of the unattractive way she had fixed herself up.
"I'm Miss Brinkley, Mr. Lemore's secretary," said the blonde-haired girl. "He hasn't been well lately and I'm afraid it has affected his memory."
"Remain here a moment, Martha," directed the Phantom. "I'll speak to Mr. Lemore."
"Just a moment, please!" Miss Brinkley eyed the Phantom's work-worn attire and other evidence of lowly origin that formed the disguise he had employed on the East Side. "I'm sure Mr. Lemore does not wish to be disturbed."
"I'm with the police, Miss Brinkley," he said. "And I must insist upon seeing Mr. Lemore at once."
"Very well," said the green-eyed girl. "Though I don't see why Mr. Lemore should be disturbed."
Van smiled at Martha who remained in the corridor as the Phantom followed the secretary through the reception room and into the private office.
Lemore was seated at his desk when they entered his office. Miss Brinkley went to his side and stood there. Some inner sense, added to his long experience in judging character told Van that Miss Brinkley had become quite close to the department store owner.
It might be that this tall golden-haired girl with her exotic green eyes possessed too much power over Rufus Lemore. The Phantom mentally decided that Miss Brinkley would bear watching.
"This gentleman is with the police, Mr. Lemore," said Ann Brinkley, with a cold glance at the Phantom.
Lemore looked up, his eyes blinking behind his thick-lensed glasses. One nervous, blue-veined hand toyed with the papers on his desk and Van gazed at it intently.
There was an utter lack of cordiality in Lemore's voice when he spoke, a deadness of tone, as if the store magnate had undergone a shock that had numbed his senses.
"Who are you, sir?" he asked woodenly. "What do you want?"
"It is about your daughter, Mr. Lemore," said Van quietly. "Martha was just in to see you. Apparently you did not recognize her because of the changes she has made in her appearance."
"Martha?" Lemore's tone displayed no emotion. "No, that girl who was just here wasn't Martha." He smiled strangely. "Don't you think I know?" He half rose from his chair. "Martha—where is she?" Abruptly Rufus Lemore dropped back into his chair and his face went forward on the desk. Miss Brinkley barely suppressed a scream.
VAN was beside the millionaire instantly, a finger on his pulse and listening to his breathing. The pulse was slightly accelerated but the heartbeat was fairly regular.
"Stay with him, Miss Brinkley," directed Van. "He appears to have fainted. I'll find the police doctor. You might call the store nurse if she is still on duty."
"All right," said Miss Brinkley. "I told you this was no time to disturb him." She picked up the phone on the desk. "I'll call the nurse. Get the doctor as quickly as possible."
When Van stepped out into the corridor he found Martha still waiting there.
"What's wrong, Phantom?" she asked. "Dad Lemore didn't know me—didn't even recognize my voice when I spoke to him."
"He's had a shock, but he'll be all right," said Van as they stepped out onto the main part of the fourth floor. "You go back and wait for Pat O'Hara. Explain that I am the Phantom and tell him I wish to see him as soon as he has finished with the police. Then both of you wait for me."
Van found Inspector Gregg talking to the medical examiner. When the Phantom had reported what had happened to the store magnate the inspector decided to accompany Van and the doctor to Lemore's office.
Reaching the reception room, they found that Miss Brinkley was seated calmly at her desk although only three or four minutes had elapsed.
"I'm sorry to bother you all unnecessarily," said Ann Brinkley. "But Mr. Lemore recovered and insisted he must leave at once." The door of Lemore's private office was open. No one was inside. "He said he didn't feel up to talking now, but thinks he will be all right in the morning. He has had several sudden attacks like this lately."
"I don't like this much," said Inspector Gregg. "This happens to be murder business. Where can we contact Mr. Lemore?"
"That's hard to say." The girl shook her head. "Recently Mr. Lemore has been staying in the city and he has left no address for us, claiming he doesn't wish to be disturbed when away from the store."
Van glanced in through the open door at the private elevator shaft.
"Mr. Lemore left by the private elevator?" he asked.
"As he always does," said Miss Brinkley, rising from her desk. "Now if that is all I should like to leave myself."
"It isn't all," said Inspector Gregg flatly. "Pat O'Hara says he believed he saw the two men who killed Donaldson come into this office. O'Hara apparently has good eyes. He says you denied seeing anyone, and that Mr. Lemore also stated no one entered his office."
"Could Mr. Lemore have been napping or possibly have had one of his brief attacks at the time, Miss Brinkley, and thus missed seeing anyone?" Van inquired.
ANN BRINKLEY'S green eyes flashed angrily.
"Either one is possible, of course," she said heatedly. "But I wasn't napping and I don't have attacks or loss of memory. No one entered Mr. Lemore's office. I'm positive of that. I heard women screaming and had an idea it was some fool bargain grabbers."
"But Donaldson managed to set off the alarm before he died," said the Phantom. "Usually such alarms are connected so they can be heard on all floors of a department store and in the executive offices. Didn't you hear it in here, Miss Brinkley?"
"No, I didn't," said the blond-haired girl. "I believe there was something said about the alarm in the executive offices being out of order." She glared at Gregg and the Phantom. "I resent all of this questioning. You act as if you actually suspected me!"
"Sorry, Miss Brinkley. Forget it." Van said quickly, signaling to Inspector Gregg. "The police will probably see Mr. Lemore later."
The three men returned to the jewelry department. The body of Robert Donaldson had been taken away after the fingerprint experts and the police photographers had finished their work.
The Phantom stepped over to Chip Dorlan as Ann Brinkley appeared through the main entrance of the executive offices wearing a hat and a light coat.
"That's Miss Brinkley, Lemore's secretary, Chip," said Van indicating the blond girl without appearing to do so. "It's your job to trail her. See where she goes, who she meets and what she does for the next few hours."
CLEANING women were working in the long aisles on the fourth floor of the Lemore Department Store, clearing up the mess that had been left by the bargain hunting shoppers. In the jewelry department the police were getting ready to depart. Chip Dorlan had already left, hot on the trail of Ann Brinkley.
Inspector Gregg was waiting for the Phantom with Pat O'Hara and Martha Lemore standing nearby. The girl had told the chief of the store detectives the Phantom's identity. Van walked over to them.
"You and Martha and I should have a quiet talk this evening, O'Hara," said the Phantom. "There are some angles to Robert Donaldson's death that you may be able to tell me about." He glanced at the girl. "And, Martha, I don't like to speak of this, but there may be something you can do to help Lafe Grimes."
"Oh, I want to do that so much!" exclaimed Martha. "Do you really think that I can?"
"It isn't much of a hope yet," said Van thoughtfully. "But all that happened today and tonight might have some connection. Where can I meet you two?"
Pat O'Hara's clean-cut, Irish face was a thoughtful mask for a moment, then he answered in a low tone.
"How about the three of us meeting at the Easy Money Club in the East Fifties around midnight or sooner, Phantom?" he asked. "I'd like to keep an eye out there. The killers got some fifteen thousand in stones, some specials which Donaldson had shown me, and which I could identify. I've an idea that 'Easy Money' Hogan, who runs the club, might be able to give me some information."
"All right, O'Hara," assented Van. "Make it eleven o'clock at the Easy Money Club."
"I'll do anything I can, Phantom," Martha said worriedly. "Dad Lemore never looked so ill before. I don't want to—but I'll even go home to him for a while if it will do any good."
"We'll discuss that later, Martha," said Van. "After what happened tonight keep your eyes open for any sudden trouble, O'Hara. I have an idea that the leader of the diamond thieves had some reason for wanting to get Martha out of the way."
"They better not try it while I'm conscious." O'Hara said grimly. "Tonight you may have a chance to see one or two of the boys who deal in rocks outside the law, Phantom."
"How's that?" asked Van interestedly.
"Well, Easy Money Hogan had his own hot jewelry mob before he went into the night-club business. His bunch was known as the Glitter Gang, and I'm not sure he isn't still master-minding some of the recent gem hold-ups."
A few minutes later the police had all left the store. O'Hara and Martha had departed, and out on a side street the Phantom sat in a parked police car talking to Inspector Gregg.
"Easy Money Hogan has a record of arrests, Phantom," said the inspector. "But we've never been able to get enough evidence on him, to make the charges stick. He's one of the smartest, never being on the spot where a rap could be pinned on him. We thought for a time he had revived the old Glitter Gang and was doubling up with a newcomer, which brings me to these hold-up murders today and some others recently."
"Your newcomer wouldn't be a light-haired, blue-eyed man who looks younger than he actually is, and appears to be nicknamed 'Sonny' would he?" asked Van. "He was the one who engineered an attempt to seize Martha Lemore early this evening, killed one of his own men trying to get me, and managed to leave a fire bomb that cremated his friend's body and burned a house."
THE inspector's features brightened with interest.
"Sounds like the same man all right. With the Lemore Department Store hold-up and Robert Donaldson's murder, that makes three wide-open robberies and killings today. And our pal Sonny seems to have been involved in two of them."
"Have you anything on him?" asked the Phantom.
"Nothing definite. We suspect him of being Sonny Blade, who was recently imported by Easy Money Hogan."
"You've mentioned the use of some drug, Inspector," said Van. "It seems to have been present both in the death of Cort Hanlon, the diamond salesman, and the killing of Mrs. Dothan for her necklace. How about it being used in other robberies lately?"
"That might be. In and around New York we have had reports of a dozen eases in which the victims appeared to have forgotten what had happened to them. It might be that they were all drugged."
Van was adding up several angles. Early this evening he had seen Mrs. McCarthy drugged and knocked out by the man with the malacca cane. The man called Danny had also tried to jab at Van's face with what appeared to be a hypodermic needle.
But Danny had been killed by a poisoned feathered dart that had been intended for the Phantom. Connected with that dart was a small, powerful fire bomb intended to destroy the body of anyone murdered by the strange weapon.
Chip Dorlan had also been drugged in some way outside the old brownstone house as the boy had stood guard there.
"You have nothing definite on Easy Money Hogan or this newcomer Sonny Blade, that would connect them with the queer use of drugs, have you, Inspector?" demanded the Phantom.
"Not a thing. Sonny Blade has a record of having been in small-time rackets before coming to New York. But there's no prison stretch behind him. As far as we know he never had any connection with the Glitter Gang.
"Easy Money Hogan never seemed to be within miles of the spots where his boys pulled jobs. If one of his men was nailed Hogan let him take the rap, and stayed safe. There's none of this fantastic, clever drugging business in their pasts."
"Rufus Lemore suffered a sudden queer attack today, and he pretended or really failed to recognize Martha," Van spoke musingly, half to himself. "Two persons were robbed of thousands in diamonds. Drugs were used. This so-called 'Sonny Blade' appeared three times. In other robberies drugs were employed. Yet a straight-out gunman killed Robert Donaldson in snatching a few thousands in diamonds from the Lemore Department Store."
"Murder seems to be the cheapest article this diamond mob deals out," said Inspector Gregg.
Van was still adding up facts. "Rufus Lemore suddenly lost his memory, passed out for a few minutes, then walked right away from the murder of one of his most trusted employees without an explanation," stated the Phantom. "That isn't like Rufus Lemore. But let's take the case of Cort Hanlon, You had a chemical analysis made of his blood?"
"Certainly and also with Mrs. Lothan," stated Gregg. "Some trace of an alkaloid known as gelsemium was found in both cases, with some other drug of the narcotic type the chemist could not identify."
"The suicide note of Cort Hanlon was in his own handwriting?"
"Undoubtedly." The inspector nodded. "But the wording was suspicious as I fold you."
"The drug named and some other probably induced hypnosis, but a hypnotic subject cannot be made consciously or unconsciously to do something drastically contrary to his desire," stated Van. "I would say that whoever had Hanlon write that note must have known him intimately, and that he did have serious trouble over some woman. It might even have gone so far as a real desire to end his own life."
GREGG'S forehead furrowed in frank bewilderment as he looked at Van.
"You mean, Phantom, that in Hanlon's case he might have been hypnotized into committing suicide?"
"Only if he was known by the thief to have suicide in his mind," said Van.
"But what about Rufus Lemore?" asked Inspector Gregg. "Are you suggesting that Lemore himself might be under a drug or hypnotic influence?"
"That might be possible," stated the Phantom. "But I must get into the whole thing more deeply before hoping to upset what appears to be a cleverly organized wave of crime. There is one important angle to be considered."
"What's that?" demanded Gregg.
"The killing in the jewelry department of the Lemore Store tonight. For while others were killed during robberies and apparently for the purpose of stealing, I am sure that Bob Donaldson was murdered because he was suddenly dangerous to someone, and the taking of the diamonds was only a cover-up."
"Why do you think that?"
"Because Donaldson was to have met me after the store closed tonight. From the way he talked to me over the phone today I am sure that he had some interesting information. Besides, the thieves' diamond haul from the store was very small."
"And Donaldson was killed before he could talk!"
"Right." Van frowned. "But why can't you have your men pick up Sonny Blade and bring him in?"
"We will as soon as we find him," said the inspector.
"Couldn't he be found through the Easy Money Hogan connections?"
"We tried that, but it didn't work. As soon as Hogan learned the police were looking for Sonny, the night-club owner became as silent as a clam."
"I may know more about Easy Money Hogan when I see you again, Inspector," said Van as he got out of the police car. "I'll call you if I do."
The Phantom headed thoughtfully for the spot on the side street where he had parked his own coupé. He hesitated as he remembered that he had asked Frank Havens to send Steve Huston, one of the Clarion reporters to the Lemore Department Store with instructions to wait at the Fifth Avenue entrance until the Phantom got in touch with him there.
"And if I know Steve, and I think I do, then he is still waiting for me there," muttered Van. "And probably burning up over missing a good news story for the paper while he is doing it."
FROM the moment he entered the Easy Money Club, the Phantom, dressed in well-tailored clothes, but using the same disguise he had employed earlier, was conscious of an air of grim tenseness underlying the atmosphere of gaiety.
The pretty check room girl had been nervous. A waiter had accidentally dropped a dish and received baleful glances from a number of hard-faced men scattered about at various tables.
In one quick glance the Phantom tabulated those men as gangsters and trigger-men.
Out on the small dance floor a dozen couples struggled rather than danced a rhumba. On a stand in one corner of the big room the orchestra made up in volume for what they lacked in skill.
"Not good, but loud," muttered Van softly as he listened to the music.
He discovered that Martha Lemore and Pat O'Hara were not dancing, but were seated at a table not far from the orchestra stand.
"You wish a table, sir?" demanded a headwaiter as he looked at Van with a blank expression.
"I'm to join Mr. O'Hara's party," said the Phantom quietly. "Mr. Briggs is the name. He is expecting me."
"Very good, sir."
The headwaiter led Van over to the other side of the room. As they paused at the table where the girl and the chief of the Lemore Department-Store detectives were seated the Phantom was conscious of numerous pairs of cold eyes around the room surveying him with new interest.
"Nice place, this," said Van as O'Hara got to his feet and welcomed him. "But I don't care much for some of your little playmates around here."
"Neither do I." O'Hara laughed as if Van had just said something amusing. "There seems to be quite a few representatives of the old Glitter Gang here, and also some hard guys that I have never seen before. Afraid I made a mistake in bringing Martha here after all."
"I feel quite safe with both the Phantom and another detective with me," stated Martha quietly. She was still plainly dressed and she had refrained from assuming any of the glamour that might cause her to be identified as the girl who was supposed to be Rufus Lemore's daughter. "But those men do seem to be watching us closely."
"If she could be the means of saving Lafe Grimes, perhaps proving him innocent, her happiness would be restored," Van mentally decided. "But anything happening to Rufus Lemore might be worse for her. Could Lafe Grimes have been thinking of that when he refused to talk?" The Phantom glanced casually around the room. He had found Steve Huston waiting in front of the store, and requested the red-headed crime reporter of the New York Clarion to drop in at the Easy Money Club later in the evening.
Now Huston was seated at a table and acknowledged a sign from the Phantom when Van tugged his left ear lobe gently.
VAN discovered that Chip Dorlan was also seated at a table, sipping coffee. He judged then that Miss Brinkley, the green-eyed secretary of Lemore must have come here and Chip had followed, though the Phantom did not see the blonde girl in the room.
"She is with Easy Money Hogan," Chip said silently as Van read his lips.
The Phantom's slight nod was not noticeable as he looked at the dancers on the floor. A slender man who held a girl's dark head close to his shoulder, glided past. The Phantom caught the man's eyes, noticing they were small and close set on either side of a thin nose. Suddenly they went blank and the dancer stumbled.
Van leaped to his feet when the man's arms fell limply from about the girl's shapely white shoulders. Then the girl screamed wildly as her partner slid lifelessly to the floor, his close-set eyes staring blankly up at her.
Swiftly the Phantom stepped out onto the floor among the dancers, wedging them apart with his powerful arms, clearing a path to the stricken man.
"Dead!" grated Van. "Just like that!"
As he reached the body the club lights winked out on a sudden loud blaring of the orchestra. Panic spread as black darkness engulfed the big room. Women screamed hysterically and men shouted.
Van whirled as a bedlam of blows, slamming chairs and overturning tables broke loose. Those sounds were coming from the direction of the table where he had left Martha and O'Hara.
A sapper grazed Van's ear in the darkness. He shot up a fist with his powerful weight behind the short punch. His knuckles crunched satisfactorily against a bony jaw and he heard a thud as a man dropped. He edged his way back toward the table, shoving people out of his way as he advanced.
"They've got—" he heard Martha cry out.
The Phantom lunged toward the spot where the girl's voice was abruptly choked off. He jammed into a bulky man whose hands were extended as though gripping something. Van touched a silk dress and his quick, sensitive fingers discovered the bulky man was clutching the girl.
Van rammed one fist into a yielding paunch. The extended hand dropped, and the Phantom sent a fast uppercut to about the place where the man's chin should be. The chin was there. Van's knuckles tingled as if the bone had cracked. He caught the girl as she fell against him.
"I'm the Phantom, Martha," he said in a low voice as the girl started to cry out again. "Where's O'Hara?"
"I don't know," she whispered huskily. "Two men fell over our table and then someone grabbed me."
"The lights, Alfredo!" commanded an easy, unexcited voice as the brawl suddenly quieted. "Turn them on at once!"
The swirling patrons and attaches of the Easy Money Club were almost immediately bathed by renewed illumination and they began to relax.
Van turned, looking for the man who had been holding Martha but he was gone. Red marks on her throat showed where cruel fingers had choked her.
Pat O'Hara was lying motionless on the floor beside the overturned table. Van saw a short, bright tube the size of a fountain pen beside O'Hara's right hand. The Phantom's action was lightning fast.
Protecting the little tube by catching it at one end, he flipped his silk handkerchief around it to save fingerprints and slipped it into a pocket.
O'Hara groaned and sat up, rubbing a swelling chin.
"Pat," Martha exclaimed. "Are you all right?"
"Sure." O'Hara got to his feet. "Somebody socked me on the jaw and knocked me out. I'm all right now."
PEERING around the room, Van noted that a number of the hard faces he had seen before were missing. He was sure the men who had started the brawl had escaped, and that a killer had departed with them.
Two policemen had already pounded into the club. The girl appeared to have remained beside the corpse during the black-out. She was still there, staring at the dead man, her lips parted and her brown eyes wide and scared.
"I don't know what happened," she said breathlessly to one of the policemen. "I don't know the guy. He bought me a drink and asked me to dance with him."
The policeman was looking at the dead man's face and thumbing in a little book, making a comparison with the description written there and the corpse on the floor.
"He is or was Sands Riker," said the officer. "He was one of Sonny Blade's heisters. He was a high man in Blade's jewel mob." The patrolman moved away. "I'd better report this to Homicide."
The other policeman was doing a bit of investigating without disturbing the body. He bunched the dead man's coat and two big gleaming unset diamonds popped out onto the floor.
Van stood close by, taking in every thing, noting every face about him, but keeping Martha by his side. He saw Pat O'Hara start forward, looking down at the dead man and the unset diamonds that had come from the pocket of the corpse.
"Has he got a rod?" demanded O'Hara. "I have an idea about those stones, if he has—or perhaps if he hasn't."
The policeman patted the dead man's body, and then nodded.
"Holstered gun under his left arm," he responded. "But what got him?—Anyone hear a shot?"
"There might have been one," said O'Hara. "With all that loud wild rhumba music it wouldn't have been heard, especially if they used a silencer on a gun. More than one mug was in on it. I think that's the reason for the brawl in which I picked up a fast one on the chin."
Without moving from where he stood the Phantom's eyes had been working for him. Now he noticed something the policemen had missed. It was a bit of purple feather sticking out behind the dead man's left ear from something apparently in the back of his neck. The Phantom knew that the slender man had not been killed by a bullet as soon as he saw that feather.
Van saw Easy Money Hogan, the club owner, standing at one side giving quick quiet directions to the head waiter and a captain as if a murder and a brawl in the Easy Money Club were but part of the night's business.
"Phantom! Look!" urged Martha anxiously.
"What is this?"
She indicated a purple feather protruding from the back of the chair in which she had been sitting. It was fixed upon a steel point that was stuck into the chair.
"Never mind it, Martha, and say nothing," Van whispered quickly removing the little dart and adding it to the steel tube in his pocket. "I'll take care of this."
MARTHA nodded as they again moved closer to the dance floor. At this moment the dark-haired girl who had been dancing with Sands Riker when he was murdered appeared to think it was about time she cleared herself further. She was looking at the two diamonds that had come from the dead man's pocket as the policeman picked them up from the floor.
"I didn't have anything to do with this," the girl said. "I'm Sally Thorpe. This fellow you say is Riker was telling me a crazy story about having been robbed here in the club before he met me." Sally Thorpe frowned. "He said he had some big diamonds, but I thought he was just raving like drunks will."
Steve Huston and Chip Dorlan had moved over near the Phantom without it appearing that they even knew him, but now Steve stepped close to Van and spoke out of the corner of his mouth.
"I think the girl might have something on that diamond robbery report, Phantom. Riker was Sonny Blade's head man in the old racket days, and probably still was working with Blade."
The crowd was moved back as a Homicide Squad arrived with grim-faced Inspector Gregg in charge. Turning the dead man's head, the medical examiner spotted the purple feather Van had seen. A close scrutiny revealed that a steel dart attached to the feather had entered Hiker's neck. The medical examiner drew it out and examined the end.
"Poison, apparently," said the police doctor. "Dart from an air-gun or maybe a blow-pipe."
"Another poison death," snorted Inspector Gregg disgustedly. "It's becoming an epidemic!" He glared at O'Hara and the Phantom whom he recognized because Van was still wearing the same disguise he had used when he had talked to the inspector after the murder at the Lemore Department Store. "Have you two any ideas about this killing?"
"I wouldn't say for sure," said O'Hara, "but this Riker could have been one of the holdup killers who got Donaldson at the store. The unset diamonds might have come off that tray one man cleaned out. They can be matched up later."
"We'll check on it, O'Hara," growled Gregg. "Stick around."
RESOLVING that he had been a passive onlooker far too long, the Phantom decided on immediate action. He touched Chip Dorlan as he passed the thin-faced youth on his way to the phone booths.
"You trail Sally Thorpe from now on and don't lose her if she leaves here," Van said in a low tone. "I'll check on Miss Brinkley."
Steve Huston managed to be near the door when the Phantom headed into the small room where the telephones were located. The red-headed reporter listened silently as Van gave him a terse order.
"Don't let Martha Lemore out of your sight, regardless of what Pat O'Hara may do," commanded the Phantom, "That girl is in danger, so keep your gun hand clear, Steve." Van stepped into a phone booth and called the Lemore Department Store. He waited a long three minutes, then an operator broke into the line.
"Sorry, sir," she said. "But the Lemore Department Store switchboard is closed."
Van hung up, looked through the directory and found the night watchman's number, listed as night emergency. An irritated voice answered after a long interval.
"I was to call Mr. Lemore in his office at this time," said Van, "but the switchboard is closed."
"Mr. Lemore has a private blind number for personal calls," replied the watchman, supplying the number.
Van dialed the blind number and got an instant reply.
"Yes, Rufus Lemore speaking," came over the wire.
The store magnate's voice was as clear and as calm as it had ever been.
"The Phantom speaking, Rufus," said Van. "I've learned that you had trouble at the store and that poor Bob Donaldson was killed."
"Yes, Phantom, yes." There was a slight break in Lemore's voice, as if grief were heavy on his mind. "I've tried to reach you. I've been having dizzy spells. Right after what happened at the store tonight I was ill for awhile. My secretary told me I fainted, I had to get out and walk around, Phantom, before my brain cleared up."
"You're all right now, Rufus?" asked Van, being forced to admit that Lemore's explanation sounded convincing.
Yet in the very fact that Lemore offered an explanation lay a suspicion that he might have been informed that the detective who had appeared in his office was actually the Phantom. The store owner's next words confirmed that surmise.
"Pat O'Hara called me and told me you were here tonight, as was Martha and that I did not recognize either of you," said Lemore. "Something serious has happened to me, Phantom. If Lafe Grimes dies and Martha doesn't come back to me I'm afraid I'll lose my mind entirely."
"Nonsense, Rufus," said Van cheerfully. "Suppose I see you and have a little talk? There are several things we might discuss."
"Fine, Phantom," exclaimed Lemore. "That's what I wanted. But when can we make it? It's late and I'm very tired tonight. Say tomorrow morning, early. I have to go over some store business with my trustees later in the day."
"Make it tomorrow morning," said Van. "I'll see you then."
HE HUNG up and stepped out of the booth. As he did so the door of the booth next to the one he had been in opened, and the Phantom felt the hard barrel of a gun thrust against his back.
"This way, pal," said a low gruff voice behind him.
A quick glance showed Van that he was alone in the telephone room with the man with the gun. Heavy curtains across the entrance hid them from view of anyone in the main part of the night club.
There was a closed door to Van's left and the man behind him prodded him toward it.
"Through that door, Phantom," commanded his captor.
Van walked calmly to the door and opened it. Beyond was a long hallway. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that the man behind him had a thin, hard face and wore a Panama hat.
"I don't believe we've met," he said ironically as he strode along the corridor, followed by his captor. "I didn't get the name."
"Yeah?" evidently the Phantom's attitude appealed to the gunman's sense of humor for he chuckled. "Fancy Butch Mason making a social blunder like that. That's me, Butch Mason, and the rest of the boys will be delighted to meet you."
"Then you're having a party?" asked Van.
"Well, not exactly." Mason's tone grew grim. "We're figgering on holdin' a wake, and we need you for the corpse."
The Phantom had suspected something like this might be the case, but the threat of death caused no trepidation. There had been many violent attempts to take his life during the course of his hectic career, and mere words meant nothing.
He decided that this corridor must have been built back during the old Prohibition days when the Easy Money Club might have been a speakeasy and the hidden hallway permitted an escape from the place to another building.
They reached another door at the far end of the long corridor and Van opened it at an order from Butch Mason. The Phantom stepped into a large room that had been converted into what looked like a business office.
Three hard-looking men occupied the place. The man stationed behind a flat-topped desk was rather stocky and wore a stiff-brimmed straw hat. The other two men looked like typical slick-haired gangsters.
"Well, I got him," said Mason proudly. "When I stuck a rod in his back he came along as meek as a lamb."
"So this is the Phantom," grunted the man behind the desk. "He doesn't look like I expected he would, at all."
"That's where he's smart," said another mobster. "From what I've heard he never does."
"Let's not waste time about this," said Mason. He dropped his gun into his pocket, and leaned against an iron safe at one side of the room. For the first time Van noticed that Mason's right hand was bandaged. "Our orders were to get the Phantom, blast him out, and not fool around about it."
"Yeah," said one of the other men. "This old office is soundproof and one shot should do the trick."
"Go ahead," said Mason languidly. "One of you boys take care of him. I can't shoot so good with my left hand."
THE Phantom deliberately let his eyes dilate in simulated fear, and he made his voice tremble when he spoke.
"You can't let them do this to me!" he howled. "I don't want to die!"
"Aw, go on, put a slug in him," said Mason disgustedly. "The guy's yellow—and I've been told the Phantom was afraid of nothing."
"Okay." One of the men drew his gun. "Me and Tappy will take care of this right now."
Van whirled, his automatic flashing out of the shoulder holster into his hand like a streak of lightning. This was showdown, and the only way out of the trap was to shoot and shoot fast.
The Phantom's automatic roared, and the man called Tappy pitched forward on his face as a bullet tore into his heart, The other man who had his gun ready fired also. But the bullet whistled by the Phantom's ear as he ducked his head to one side.
A slug from Van's automatic caught the second killer in the head. The gun dropped from his hand and his knees gave way as he fell.
"You should have searched him!" Clark was shouting as he remained motionless behind the desk. "You should have got his gun!"
Butch Mason had been stunned by the swift action that went on around him and had remained motionless. Now he suddenly snapped into action, mouthing a string of oaths.
Van shot him before Mason could raise the gun he had drawn from his pocket. The remaining thug uttered a wild cry of terror and lunged toward the window. Throwing up the lower sash, he leaped through as Van swung around with the smoking gun in his hand.
He frowned as he looked at the three dead men on the floor.
"I didn't want to kill any of them," he murmured, "but there was no time to hesitate when it was my life or theirs."
Glancing out the window, he saw it was not much of a drop to an alleyway below. The surviving mobster had disappeared completely.
As he stepped through the curtains and into the big main room of the night club a moment later, Van realized that not more than a quarter hour had elapsed since he had hung up the receiver after talking to Rufus Lemore over the phone. Apparently no one had even noticed that he had been gone.
The police were still gathered about the dead man. Easy Money Hogan had vanished as if the corpse on the floor was the least of his interests. Van guessed one other interest that might be greater at the moment was probably Miss Ann Brinkley.
Moving through a curtained doorway opposite the place where the telephone booths were, he found himself in a short, dimly lighted hallway. He felt a sudden draught of air and saw an outside door open at the other end of the hall.
For a second or two a tall, stately figure in a tightly drawn cloak with hood attached was outlined in the doorway. Van had a brief glimpse of bright yellow hair and the hard, pretty face of Rufus Lemore's secretary.
EASY MONEY HOGAN, himself quick moving and competent, turned back from the door leaving Miss Brinkley standing there. Van glided back through the curtains. Nothing could be accomplished now by accosting Miss Brinkley, he decided.
"Whatever this crossed up game may be, not enough cards have fallen to break it up," Van mentally decided. "On the face of it, one of Sonny Blade's men being killed in Easy Money Hogan's club might appear to be because of a feud between them. But if it were, this is the last place Hogan would pick. And whose gang did those four men who were so anxious to rub me out belong to, anyway?"
Van returned to the main room and mingled with the police. He decided not to tell Inspector Gregg about the three men he had been forced to kill until he got a chance to talk to the police official alone.
He also planned to change his present disguise as soon as possible. If Butch Mason and the others had been sure he was the Phantom then others might feel the same about it.
"How in thunder did she fade out?" suddenly roared Inspector Gregg as one of his men reported to him. "Who was supposed to be keeping her in sight? Have an alarm sent out for Sally Thorpe."
Several policemen looked at each other. They were puzzled, for the girl who had called herself Sally Thorpe and had been dancing with the dead man was suddenly missing.
Van looked around quickly and saw that Chip Dorlan was also gone. He breathed a sigh of relief, for he had ordered Chip to trail the Thorpe girl and evidently the boy was obeying instructions. Pat O'Hara was with Martha and Steve Huston was nearby. Van walked over and joined the chief of the department store detectives and the girl.
"By the way, O'Hara," said Van. "I hear you phoned Rufus Lemore after we left the store and told him that it was the Phantom who was talking to him when he passed out. I just talked to Lemore over the phone a little while ago and he seemed all right."
"But I haven't talked to Rufus Lemore and I didn't tell him you were the Phantom," protested O'Hara. "I did phone twice, trying to ascertain if Mr. Lemore had been found, but I didn't get to speak to him either time."
Van said nothing further, but he mentally wondered why Lemore had said that O'Hara had phoned him if it was not true. The Phantom could see no reason for the young store detective lying about it.
Inspector Gregg motioned to the Phantom to join him as the police official moved away from the corpse on the floor.
"Death by poison dart is the verdict, Phantom, as you heard the medical examiner say," announced Gregg. "Where did you go? I noticed that you've been missing for about fifteen minutes."
"I had to fight a gun battle with four hoods who were determined to kill me," said the Phantom quietly.
"What?" Inspector Gregg glared at him in amazement.
VAN smiled and swiftly related what had happened. As soon as he had finished the inspector called some of the Homicide men and issued terse orders for them to investigate the office at the end of the corridor and to check up on the dead men.
"This is just swell!" exclaimed Gregg when he was again standing alone with the Phantom. "Riker, who is said to be Sonny Blade's right hand man is rubbed out and the poison dart makes it look as if it were done by the Blade outfit. Why should Blade have one of his own men bumped off?"
"It might be simple enough, Inspector," stated Van. "Sands Riker was drunk and boastful. The girl he was dancing with says he was talking about having been robbed of some diamonds. He was in the wrong place to be talking too much. Blade may have ordered him silenced permanently."
"Maybe you're right." Gregg nodded. "I doubt that Easy Money Hogan would order a murder committed so openly in his own club or that he would use the Blade gang's poison method on the kill."
"Here's something else." Van produced the steel dart that he had taken from the back of Martha Lemore's chair. "This was evidently aimed at Martha but it struck the back of the chair in which she was sitting instead of hitting her. Apparently the Blade outfit has a good reason for wanting Martha Lemore out of the way. This is the second attempt on her life tonight."
"But why?" demanded the inspector. "What harm could the girl do them?"
"There may be some tie-up with the fact that Rufus Lemore refused to recognize Martha when she visited him in his office this evening," said Van. "And there is a possibility that someone who knows she is the real daughter of Lafe Grimes, now in the death house, may have cause to fear that Martha will reveal too much if she talks. She is holding something back, all right. I'm sure of that."
"But what does she know?" asked Gregg. "It doesn't make much sense to me, Phantom."
"It does to me," said Van grimly. "So much so that I intend to pay a visit to Lafe Grimes at Sing-Sing tomorrow!"
A LOOK of surprise crossed Inspector Gregg's face when he heard the Phantom's statement. Yet, so great was the police official's respect for the mentality of the great crime Nemesis that he did not doubt that the Phantom meant exactly what he said.
"You said that Easy Money Hogan had permitted some of his boys to take raps without risking himself to save them," remarked Van thoughtfully. "Do you happen to know one of these men who might be coming out of Sing-Sing about this time?"
Gregg thought for a moment, then nodded.
"Yes," he said. "Slug Bolton—one of the toughest. Manslaughter rap for which he got five to ten years. Due back in circulation within the next few days. Why?"
"Well, this Slug Bolton probably will come out tomorrow and give you a ring as soon as he reaches New York."
"What?" Inspector Gregg stared at Van. "You mean you will try to take Slug Bolton's place?"
Van smiled. "I'm a fair amateur cracksman, a jewel expert, a quick hand with a rod and would make a good, all-around crook. Besides, it is time I changed character. The members of somebody's mob have been too anxious to kill off the Phantom in his present disguise."
"You'll probably get away with it at that," said the inspector in frank admiration.
Van turned back to Steve Huston and Pat O'Hara. He gave quick instructions to the chief of the department store detectives.
"I'm putting Martha, under the protection of Steve Huston, O'Hara," Van said as he introduced the two men to each other. "Your job is at the Lemore Department Store. Try and keep your eye on Miss Brinkley and Rufus Lemore, even to the neglect of other duties."
"All right, Phantom." O'Hara cast an adoring glance at Martha. "But of course I'd rather have Huston's job of taking care of Martha."
"We need you more at the store, Pat," said the Phantom. He turned to Steve Huston. "Stick as close as possible to Martha Lemore, Steve. I would advise her going to some obscure hotel under another name than the one she has been using."
"Just as you say," agreed Martha who had been silently listening. "I want to do what you think best, Phantom."
"And Steve, I made up something this evening that might be useful in case you happen to be caught by the drug killers."
Van passed Steve a tiny glass ampule attached to a clip that would hold it to cloth. It was a stimulant he had prepared when he had changed his clothes after leaving the store.
"Fasten this under your armpit so it will be crushed and absorbed in the event you are partly knocked out, and can still think of it."
"Thanks." Steve took the ampule and fastened it under his arm. "I hope I won't need it."
"No objections if I stick around with Martha and Steve tonight, is there, Phantom?" asked O'Hara.
"None whatever, O'Hara." Van smiled.
The police were permitting known guests to depart. Van hoped that Chip Dorlan would not run into serious trouble trailing Sally Thorpe. As for Martha, Van believed her to be in serious danger, but Steve Huston was one of the best when it came to a job as a bodyguard.
The Phantom's thoughts were interrupted by the sudden blasting of an automatic. The shots came from behind the curtains and door of the hallway where Van had last seen Easy Money Hogan and Ann Brinkley.
VAN raced for the door with Inspector Gregg and his men following close behind him. Blue smoke still drifted upward at the far end of the hallway as Van thrust the door open and stepped into the corridor.
Beside two rows of clothing lockers stood Easy Money Hogan. The night club owner held an automatic in his hand and he was staring down at a body on the floor in front of one of the lockers. The dead man had on a waiter's uniform, and two spots of blood showed on his white shirt front.
"Got him!" muttered Inspector Gregg as he took in the scene. "Hogan won't be able to talk himself out of this kill."
The Phantom was ahead of the policemen, and Inspector Gregg was nearest him. Van put out his hand when several feet from Easy Money Hogan and the dead waiter, holding Gregg back.
"Hold it a minute, Inspector," he said quickly, his eyes darting to the floor, then about the space of the lockers.
Van noted a window between the lockers was partly raised. The light was bright and brought out the pattern of the thick rug. Van silently marked where Easy Money Hogan was standing and then let his gaze travel back across the rug.
Eyes less trained than the Phantom's would have failed to read what he saw. For a distance of some six feet the nap of the rug was still slowly rising in places where feet had pressed it down.
It proved to Van that Easy Money Hogan had just changed his position, perhaps moving as he had heard the door open.
Hogan turned, the light gleaming on his dark hair. The tall, sallow-faced man in evening clothes calmly reversed the automatic in his hand and handed the weapon to Inspector Gregg, butt first.
"It's on me this time, Inspector," he said quietly. "My first time to have anything to do with a killing, and I did it myself. It was forced on me when I caught Burney, this waiter, sneaking out here to hide something in his locker. He shot twice before I got at my own gun, for which I have a permit, and which I put in my pocket when the trouble started out front."
Inspector Gregg listened to Hogan's drawled explanation with his mouth tightening as he took the gun and handed it to one of his men.
"Sounds reasonable, Hogan," said Gregg. "I take it the waiter missed you, or do you carry slugs easily?" Hogan shifted slightly. There were two bullet gouges in the wall. They were almost in line with his head, as he was now standing.
"I felt the slugs breeze by before I used my own gun," said Hogan. "The bullets in the wall will check with Burney's gun."
Van was sure Hogan spoke the truth. The slugs would cheek with the gun which lay near one of the dead waiter's hands. But to Van that was as far as the truth went.
The rising nap of the rug had told him that Hogan had been standing at least six feet to one side when those bullets had hit the wall. Judging this deception instantly, the Phantom said nothing. It might be just as well to have Easy Money Hogan temporarily in the clear.
INSPECTOR GREGG himself started checking the locker of Burney, the dead waiter. Easy Money Hogan smiled faintly as the inspector pulled down a small canvas bag.
Then the night club owner uttered an exclamation of surprise as did every other man in the hallway as Gregg poured the contents of the bag into his hand. Unset diamonds gleamed in the inspector's palm.
"Great Glory!" snapped Gregg. "That Sally Thorpe was telling the truth. She said Riker claimed he had been robbed!"
Van moved closer to the inspector and extended his hand. Gregg passed him the diamonds. Easy Money Hogan watched them and frowned.
"Just a minute, Inspector," declared Hogan, looking closely at Van. "Who is this fellow? I've seen him around the place most of the evening. Is he one of your men that you planted here because you expected trouble?"
Inspector Gregg looked at Van, and the Phantom's lips moved slightly in a warning not to reveal his identity to the night club owner.
"Well, yes, Hogan, he's one of my men," said Gregg quickly, "We had a tipoff on your club for tonight. Sometimes it pays to have a man on the spot."
"If you were expecting trouble you knew more than I did," said Hogan.
Van had an idea that Easy Money Hogan was acting. He was convinced that the night, club man somehow knew his identity, that Hogan had known the Phantom was supposed to meet Martha and Pat O'Hara here.
Van swiftly examined the assortment of valuable diamonds. He was convinced these had come from the Lemore Department Store, that they were the loot taken by the two men who had murdered Robert Donaldson. As usual, the Phantom built up a quick, tenable theory.
Easy Money Hogan would not have a rival mobster, or a man who had quit him killed in his night club. Right now Hogan had killed a waiter who it seemed had at least robbed Sands Riker, and perhaps murdered him.
Then this dead waiter probably was working for Sonny Blade. And Hiker had talked too much, perhaps boasted. There must be something it was feared he might divulge for Hogan to hear.
Yet there was Miss Brinkley also to be considered. Evidently the tall blonde with the green eyes had left the club, for Van had not seen any sign of her for some time. If the secret of some operation of the Blade gang had caused the killing of Sands Riker, was it directly connected with the big department store and the strange behavior of Rufus Lemore?
If so, Easy Money Hogan might know a good deal about it already through information supplied him by Ann Brinkley. Van gave up his mental gymnastics and passed the diamonds back to Inspector Gregg.
"Possibly the clerks in the jewelry department or Pat O'Hara could identify these stones if they came from the Lemore store," said Van. He looked at the night club owner. "You were standing just where you are now when you shot this waiter in self-defense, Hogan?"
"I didn't move any." Hogan nodded and gave Van and the police a crooked smile. "I wanted to be sure it could be seen how close I came to being shot before I used my own gun."
"Your story sounds good," said Van. "Now when we have the prints off the waiter's gun, it will put you in the clear."
HE WAS talking for Inspector Gregg's benefit. It was possible that the dead waiter could have fired the slugs which had gouged the wall. Van believed otherwise, but he was sure the waiter's fingerprints would be on the gun beside his hand.
"Okay, Hogan," said Inspector Gregg. "But you'll have to come down and tell your story at Headquarters. You may be charged, but your lawyer will fix that probably so you won't be locked up."
This was exactly what the Phantom wanted.
Hogan willingly agreed to accompany a Homicide man to Headquarters, and they departed. The rest of the Homicide men went to work taking photographs of the waiter's body and checking for fingerprints.
Inside Hogan's office the Phantom had a few quiet words with Inspector Gregg. Van told him about the rug and Hogan having changed his position.
"At that, Inspector, I don't believe Hogan himself killed the waiter," said Van. "The position of the slugs in the wall indicated they were fired through the window and not from the spot where the waiter fell. I believe Burney was one of the Blade gang. He killed Sands Riker to shut him up."
"How does Hogan fit into that picture?"
"Hogan then had the waiter shot, suspecting the real setup. Burney took the diamonds because the Blade gang did not want the stones connected with the Donaldson murder and the Lemore Department Store."
"All you need to add to that is to claim all of this puzzle goes back to the murder committed by Lafe Grimes six months ago, and I'll buy sleeping pills before I go home," said Inspector Gregg.
"I think it does," stated Van musingly. "Yes, if and when the case is cracked, I'm hoping it may open the door of the death house for Lafe Grimes."
"Then we have a rap to pin on Hogan," said the inspector grimly. "We can't let him get away with this, Phantom."
"It might be wise to let him think he is putting it over," advised Van. "It may be interesting to see where he goes and what he does when he is turned loose."
"It's against my better judgment," muttered Inspector Gregg. "But you win, Phantom!"
LEAVING the Easy Money Club, the Phantom climbed into his coupé, and glanced at his wrist-watch. To his surprise it was just twelve o'clock. Hardly an hour had passed since he had entered the club to meet Martha and O'Hara.
Acting on a sudden hunch he stopped at a drug store phone booth and made a quick call on Rufus Lemore's blind number at the big department store on the chance the millionaire might still be there. He received a prompt reply.
"Yes, Phantom," said Lemore's thin, nasal voice. "I'm glad you called. Is Martha all right? Tell me that first."
"Martha is fine, and has gone to a little place in the country," said Van instantly and with deliberate evasion.
It seemed that every new move, every contact with Rufus Lemore added some puzzling angle to the complicated setup. Now Lemore had inquired instantly about the welfare of Martha as though he had been informed that the girl had been in danger.
"O'Hara called you then, and told you of the killings at the Easy Money Club?" Van asked over the wire. "About Martha being endangered?"
"Yes, O'Hara phoned me about it, but said he would tell me the details in the morning, Phantom," replied Lemore.
Van found himself puzzled. This was the second, time that Lemore had reported having received a phone message from Pat O'Hara, indicating the chief of the store detectives had called him twice. Yet O'Hara had denied the first call. The Phantom was sure that someone was lying. Was it Pat O'Hara or Rufus Lemore?
Van realized that undoubtedly the Easy Money Club murder could have been heard on the radio in a news flash. But such a report would not include the matter of the attempt upon Martha's life with a poisoned dart.
The Phantom had carefully refrained from saying anything to Pat O'Hara about the dart which had missed Martha. Yet Van had not forgotten the small metal tube that had been close to O'Hara's hand as he had been lying apparently unconscious on the floor near the table. Of course, someone could have tried to frame O'Hara by deliberately dropping that tube there in the dark.
"Someone very close to Rufus Lemore must be keeping him informed, and that could be Ann Brinkley," Van mentally decided. "And she secretly left the club right after the killing of Sands Riker, I believe."
Van snapped to attention as he realized that Lemore was talking.
"I've been holding a special meeting of my trustees here at the store tonight instead of waiting until tomorrow morning," said Lemore. "I've suggested that we have you join us now, if you are willing. Aside from the personal angle, our jewelry department had advertised and is about to conduct one of the biggest diamond sales in its history. It is bad business, after Donaldson being killed, but the trustees insist all that has happened will double the sale. I don't like it but—"
"I see what you mean," interrupted Van. "I can be there in twenty minutes, Rufus."
"Good! Drive to the side door on the south side and I'll let you in myself," said Lemore. "I'll tell my trustees you're coming."
JUST as Van turned into the deserted crosstown street on the south side of the department store he saw a big car jump into sight in his rear view mirror. It was coming fast. The Phantom pulled over to permit the car to pass, then saw what appeared to be a black rubber hose poked suddenly through an open rear window of the other car.
Van ducked below the bullet-proof driver's door. At the same time he slammed down the accelerator and twisted the steering wheel. He sent his coupé rocking over the curb and along the narrow sidewalk.
With a loud crash a fender was ripped oft the coupé as it careened along a building rail. But Van's quick action undoubtedly saved his life. The rubber hose was actually a tommy gun that cut loose a stream of lead.
The ripping slugs came close enough to shatter one rim of the steering wheel above the Phantom's hands, as the big car rocked past.
Van's black automatic jumped into his fist, frothing redly. There were two exploding reports as the big car's rear tires burst. It skidded from curb to curb, but the driver managed to hold it in the street.
Once again Van heard the machine-gun racket wickedly. This time he saw a streamer of red flame directed at the side loading door of the big department store. A shadowy figure rolled into view, falling across the sidewalk.
Unable to extricate his coupé from its jam with the iron rail, the Phantom sprang into the street, gun in hand. Although the killers' car swayed and made a hideous, screeching sound with its flattened tires, the driver swerved it out of sight around the block.
Van hurried anxiously to the prone figure sprawled on the sidewalk as Rufus Lemore appeared, wiping blood from one cheek.
"Great heavens, Phantom!" gasped the millionaire. "What is happening to us? Is Patterson hurt badly?"
The Phantom flicked the beam of his flashlight upon the bloody, bullet-riddled body of the night watchman. The latter still seemed to be alive, and something the Phantom saw on Patterson filled Van with an aroused interest.
"Can we take him inside anywhere?" Van demanded.
"Yes—there's a small room off the elevator shaft where Patterson sometimes sleeps when, he doesn't feel like going home."
Quickly Van lifted Patterson's inert body and carried it into a small, crudely furnished room. There was a gun in the night watchman's left hand, and it dropped to the floor as the Phantom set him down.
"Patterson, can you hear me?' " asked the Phantom tersely. "Did you get a look at those men in that big car?"
PATTERSON'S slender body lifted spasmodically, and his eyes were blank and staring. His lips moved, but only an incoherent muttering came from him. Suddenly an ominous rattling sounded in his throat. Blood welled from his mouth and his whole body stiffened before he sank limply back to the floor.
"He's dead," murmured the Phantom gravely, rising to face the department store head. "Looks like you got nicked by one of those wild bullets yourself. We'll have to call the police. But tell me, how could the killers in that car have known about you coming to the door?"
"No one could have known," Lemore retorted, trembling violently. "Are you sure you were not followed? I heard shooting just before Patterson and I opened the door."
Van agreed the killers might have been trailing him, for they had fired at his coupé first.
Going inside the store, the two men found a pay station telephone not connected with the closed store switchboard.
When Van got Inspector Gregg on the telephone he spoke in a low tone, sure that Lemore was standing too far away to hear his words, "Patterson, the watchman at the Lemore Department Store, has just been killed in what looks like an attempt to get Rufus Lemore," said the Phantom. "The body is on the south side of the store."
"Another killing!" exclaimed Gregg disgustedly. "And the Lemore Department Store is tied up with it as usual."
"You'd better send a Homicide Squad here," said Van. "And Inspector, when the body is removed, keep Patterson's overalls. I have a reason. I believe this murder was guided in a queer way." A thought struck him. "Have you had a report on the poison on the dart that killed Sands Riker?"
"Yes," answered Gregg. "The dart poison is cyanic."
The Phantom hung up, stepped out of the phone booth and accompanied Rufus Lemore up to his private office in the store magnate's personal elevator.
Four men, unknown to Van, were seated around Lemore's big desk. Their eyes showed some surprise when the well-dressed man with the toil-worn face was presented to them as the great Phantom.
"We've just been through a terrifying experience," said the store owner as he seated himself in his desk chair.
Lemore's thin hands fingered the papers on his desk nervously as he recounted the shooting downstairs and the death of Patterson.
It required no great insight to read deep concern for Rufus Lemore's health in the attitude of the three trustees. Van saw there was a feeling among the other men that the millionaire required special care.
"Jay Rockham has come to us at an opportune time," said Lemore, glancing at the fourth man, a dark-skinned slender individual with intense black eyes that seemed to probe under the Phantom's disguise. "He has a reputation as a jewel expert. He will take poor Rob Donaldson's place."
"It's one job I would rather have missed. I don't enjoy stepping into a dead man's shoes as it were," murmured Rockham.
Van nodded as he looked the other men over. Hal Drake, director of the store, purchasing department, and one of the trustees, was a small, waspish man of immaculate appearance.
Carl Blanton, a big, suave, dark-haired man who had charge of the financial matters of the store, seemed extremely capable and able to handle any sort of a difficult situation.
Wilton Andrews, the third trustee, handled vital matters pertaining to the store personnel. He had the look of a chronic dyspeptic. His face was thin and he had a nervous habit of swallowing before he spoke.
"I'm glad you've consented to help us, Phantom," said Hal Brake. "We are getting unpleasant notoriety and the police do not seem to have made much progress in apprehending killers involved in other recent diamond robberies."
"Excuse me a moment," Rufus Lemore said rising from his chair. "I think a bit of my medicine will help before the police arrive. They'll be here any minute now."
THE trustees arose. Carl Blanton walked beside Lemore to the door of one of the inner offices. Lemore opened the door and the two men stepped inside, closing the door after them. Blanton reappeared in a moment, shutting the door softly behind him. He walked over to Van.
"I'm glad of this chance to talk to you, Phantom," Blanton said. "I understand you've been Mr. Lemore's close friend for a long time. Something strange has happened to him since Lafe Grimes was convicted."
"In what way?" asked Van.
"Well, sometimes he's like he is now, normal and easy to understand," said Blanton, "There are other times when he seems strangely changed. He fails to hear direct questions. He issues orders and carries out his routine work as if he isn't even thinking about what he is doing."
"I think perhaps we're overwrought," said Wilton Andrews. He swallowed and then went on. "We know the behavior of Martha has grieved Rufus very much. He has had several slight attacks which seem to be more of a nervous disorder than heart trouble, for every examination has shown his heart to be sound. A specialist we called found nothing wrong."
"Anyway, Phantom," said Carl Blanton quietly, running his fingers through his thick dark hair. "In the past few weeks our job has been extremely difficult. It is like working with someone who has lost all interest in his business. Take these special diamond sales coming up, as the result of some remarkable buying of stones by Brake. Rufus is enthusiastic part of the time. At other times he doesn't seem to even remember we have a jewelry department."
Rufus Lemore's appearance ended the conversation concerning him. Except for the bruised cut on his cheek, which he had neatly covered with a patch of adhesive tape, Lemore looked refreshed as he again seated himself at the desk.
"How long has Pat O'Hara been chief of the store detectives?" asked Van casually.
The trustees and Rufus Lemore appeared surprised at the Phantom's question. Andrews swallowed and then spoke.
"O'Hara has been with us for two years," he said. "I hired him myself. He came from Chicago with excellent references. He had his own detective agency there but gave it up."
"Surely, Phantom, you don't suspect O'Hara?" demanded Lemore in amazement.
"Not in the least," said Van calmly. "I find O'Hara a good man. I was about to ask his home address. I may want to contact him later. I have some evidence concerning the diamonds stolen from the store this evening I would like to pass along to him."
For the moment Van feared that Rufus Lemore was about to suffer another attack. The store magnate's face went blank and he stared strangely at Van through his thick-lensed glasses.
"You mean you may have a lead on poor Donaldson's murderers?" demanded Lemore.
"I have a direct lead, Rufus," stated Van bluntly. "O'Hara himself suggested what I found to be true."
"Here's O'Hara's home address," said Carl Blanton, thumbing a notebook. He drew out a pencil. "I'll write it down for you, Phantom." He did so and handed Van the paper.
The arrival of the police ended the conversation, but Van left with the impression that Rufus Lemore was much disturbed by what the Phantom had revealed concerning the diamonds.
QUIET descended upon the big Lemore Department Store after a Homicide Squad, again commanded by Inspector Gregg, had completed an investigation of the murder of the night watchman.
As soon as they had answered police questions Rufus Lemore, the three store trustees, and the new manager of the jewelry department had departed.
Patterson's body had been removed to the morgue. In talking to Gregg the Phantom had explained his reason for suggesting that the police be sure and save the overalls the old watchman had been wearing.
It was because Van had noticed that the overalls had been marked with the latest brand of luminous paint that glowed in the darkness.
"You mean, someone here at the store marked the old man for murder, Phantom?" Inspector Gregg had exclaimed in surprise when Van had told him about the overalls. "Are you sure?"
"It certainly looks that way," Van had said.
In talking to the inspector and also to the trustees individually Van had learned a few other details that he considered important. The first of these was that Easy Money Hogan had been released by the police. The night-club owner's attorney had found Hogan's story of self-defense sufficient to get him out.
All three of the trustees had seemed entirely satisfied with Pat O'Hara as chief of the store detective's force. They knew that since Martha had left home she had been meeting O'Hara, and had thought at first that Rufus Lemore had ordered the young Irishman to keep watch on the girl. However, lately they had begun to suspect that the store magnate did not want O'Hara to become too friendly with Martha.
Blanton, Drake and Andrews had also supplied Van with some interesting information in regard, to Ann Brinkley. While the tall blonde had assumed the duties of Lemore's private secretary she was also a trained nurse whom the trustees had engaged to guard the store owner's health.
The Phantom had also learned that Jay Rockham, the new manager of the jewelry department, had been with the diamond firm of Young and Randall for many years.
It developed that the Lemore Department Store had bought the bulk of their diamond stock from Young and Randall for several years. Since Harry Young was the man that Lafe Grimes was convicted of killing, the Phantom felt that here might be another tie-up between the big store and the prisoner in the Sing-Sing death house.
Now, on the fourth floor of the Lemore Department Store the shadowy figure of the Phantom moved noiselessly toward the closed door of the reception room outside of Rufus Lemore's private office.
When the Homicide Squad had departed he had arranged with Gregg to be left behind. He knew that Patterson had merely acted as a watchman outside the store. Some of O'Hara's detectives were doing night guard duty on the various other floors. But at the Phantom's special request none of these men were on duty on the fourth floor.
VAN felt that he might learn something interesting by a quiet unmolested investigation of Rufus Lemore's private office, and of the other offices adjoining that of the store magnate.
He had discovered that Lemore's private elevator could be reached by a private entrance to the store on the ground floor. The store owner needed only to unlock this door with his key, step into the automatic elevator and be brought quietly up to his office without anyone even knowing that Rufus Lemore was in the store. It was because of this fact that the Phantom was proceeding so cautiously.
Silently Van pushed the door of the reception room open. His keen eyes narrowed as he saw the lamp on Miss Brinkley's typewriter desk was still burning.
The door of Rufus Lemore's private office stood open. Evidently the electric control on the catch of the door had been switched off. The Phantom stepped cat-footedly to the open door and saw that there was no one inside, though a ceiling light was burning.
From, beneath the snap-brim panama hat that shaded his eyes Van looked around the office. He stared at the handset telephone resting in its cradle on the expensive flat-top desk, and realized this was Rufus Lemore's direct wire that could only be reached by calling the blind number.
Peering at the ornamental screen standing in one corner of the room not far from the desk, he suddenly grew tense as he heard an unexpected sound.
It was the faint rumble of the private automatic elevator. Someone was coming up!
He thought of stepping into the hall, then decided against it. He moved around in back of the desk and stood there calmly waiting for the elevator door to open.
"If it is Rufus Lemore perhaps I may be able to learn something by talking to him frankly alone," muttered Van.
The automatic elevator stopped, and the door slid open. The Phantom found himself gazing at the strangely young face of the blond-haired Sonny Blade.
There was a small, dark man with Blade who looked like a typical gunman.
Behind these two strode a sharp-nosed man dressed in a dinner jacket and trousers with a cummerbund around his waist.
"Who are you?" demanded Sonny Blade as he stepped into the office with his two men close behind him. He scowled as he got a good look at the Phantom's disguised face. "Oh, yeah, the same lug that messed things up for me at that old brownstone house over on the East Side early tonight."
"Too bad you failed to burn up all of us in that house, Blade," said Van calmly.
"I heard you tell that dame you were the Phantom. At first, I thought it was a bluff, but I know better now," said Blade, his eyes altogether cold and wicked.
Ever since his first encounter with the blond-haired man on the stairs of the old brownstone house the Phantom had decided that Sonny Blade was a dangerous antagonist. Yet the former cheap racketeer did not appear to have quite enough brains to be the man who had planned the clever methods used in the series of jewel robberies and murders.
"Don't try it!" snapped Blade abruptly, glaring at Van.
THE Phantom reluctantly moved his right hand away from the lapel of his coat.
His fingers had been close to the butt of the automatic he wore in a shoulder holster.
"What's the matter?" asked the Phantom. "You sound jittery, Blade."
"Maybe." Blade scowled. "Better keep him covered, Spike."
The small, dark-haired man with Sonny Blade drew an automatic from his pocket. But he seemed nervous as he pointed it at the Phantom.
The Phantom's gaze rested for a second on the half-open middle drawer of Rufus Lemore's ornate flat-top desk. His heart leaped as he saw there was a revolver in the drawer.
"So you expected Rufus Lemore to return here tonight," he said calmly. "And when he did, you and your men planned to murder him. Isn't that it?"
"You guessed it." There was a strange note in Sonny Blade's voice, a tone almost akin to relief. "That's just what we figured on doing."
To the Phantom's exceptionally acute ears came a faint click that might have been made by the catch of the lock as one of the office doors nearby closed silently.
"Lemore is getting careless," said Van looking down at the half-open desk drawer. "He has left a handful of unset diamonds in this drawer. Look!"
ABRUPTLY the Phantom reached into the drawer.
His hand came out again with the gun roaring.
The man called Spike uttered a howl of pain as a bullet seared his wrist and the automatic dropped to the floor. He grabbed his wounded wrist and stood holding it and cursing wildly.
"Keep still, all of you!" commanded Van.
His gun was pointing at Sonny Blade as he picked up the phone on the desk with his left hand. To his relief it was not a dial phone but connected directly with an outside operator.
"Get me Police Headquarters," said Van over the wire. "Inspector Gregg of Homicide."
Blade and the two men with the gang leader were watching the Phantom with baleful glances but they remained motionless. Van placed the receiver to his ear as his call was put through.
"The Phantom," he said tersely. "I have Sonny Blade and some of his men here at the Lemore Department Store. We are in Lemore's private office. I'll hold them until you get here."
He lowered the phone quickly when Blade's hand dropped toward the side pocket of his coat. At the same time another man whom Van did not even know was there, stepped out from, behind the ornamental screen with a heavy vase that he lifted above Van's head.
"Don't try to get your gun. Blade," snapped the Phantom.
Abruptly everything went black as the man behind him crashed the heavy vase down on the Phantom's head. Falling behind the desk, Van thought at first that the darkness was caused by the fact that he was lapsing into unconsciousness. Then he realized that someone had turned off all of the lights in the office.
"Get out of here, you fools!" snarled a voice that the Phantom did not recognize. "The store detectives will be coming to investigate that shot, and the police are likely to arrive any moment."
Sprawled on the floor, the Phantom heard the elevator door open and close and the car descending. Then there was nothing but silence in the black darkness.
He finally managed to stagger to his feet as the lights came on again and some of the men of O'Hara's staff came rushing into the office with guns in their hands. The Phantom explained what had happened.
A rapid search revealed that Sonny Blade and his hirelings had escaped.
VAN did not wait for the police. Instead, he rushed back to his penthouse apartment to telephone Frank Havens. His call brought quick results. By morning all arrangements had been made with the governor and the warden at Sing-Sing for the Phantom to have private interviews with Lafe Grimes and the other prisoner, "Slug" Bolton.
Van had changed his disguise to that of a middle-aged man who might have been a business executive and had taken a train to Ossining within two hours after he had left the Lemore Department Store.
At eight o'clock the next morning the Phantom found himself alone with Lafe Grimes in the prisoner's cell. To his surprise, his reception by Rufus Lemore's former chauffeur when he identified himself as the Phantom was cold and indifferent.
"I've come here to do everything in my power to get you free," the Phantom said, peering intently at the other man. "And I'm asking you to help me by telling me all you know."
"I had a fair trial, Phantom," retorted Lafe Grimes without emotion. "I have nothing to tell."
Although freshly shaved, Grimes' blunt-chinned face was a gray, unhealthy mask. His hair seemed even grayer than usual, but the only sign of inner tenseness was in the way his fingers were locked together, the knuckles whitened with the tightness of his grip.
"But you must talk, Grimes," insisted the Phantom. "Don't you realize that by your very silence you are endangering your own daughter's life."
"Martha!" exclaimed Lafe Grimes tensely. "Then you know that she is my daughter and not the child of Rufus Lemore?"
"Of course," said Van. "I've always known that."
SWIFTLY Van related the details of the attempt on Martha's life in the hallway of the old brownstone house on the East Side.
"You are sure that this Sonny Blade and the other man actually planned to kill Martha?" Grimes demanded, an odd excitement breaking through his restraint.
"No, I'm not," said Van. "But at least they were trying to drug her and kidnap her. And I do know that they came close to killing her with a poison dart at the Easy Money Club last night."
"What else?" Lafe Grimes' voice had grown cold and hard.
Van told him all about the murder of Robert Donaldson, the killings in the Easy Money Club and the attempt on his own life, and the machine-gun slaughter of Patterson, the watchman at the store.
He also mentioned that Rufus Lemore had barely escaped death when a bullet had grazed his cheek.
"Lemore—" muttered Grimes. "And yet Martha's life is in danger. No, he wouldn't dare—he was giving her a future, that's why I was willing to let him adopt her. But now—"
"Now you realize that you have made a mistake," said Van quickly. "From the first I have suspected there could only be one reason for your silence. That was because there was a third person in the car the night that Harry Young was killed!"
"There was no one else in the car, I tell you!"
"You're lying, Grimes," said the Phantom gently. "Some mistaken sense of loyalty has kept you from talking even though you realized that silence meant your own death. I'm certain that you have done so for your daughter's sake."
GRIMES leaped to his feet and began pacing up and down the cell. His whole body trembled to some violent emotion.
"You think that Martha was the third person in the car that night?" demanded Lafe Grimes.
"No, I don't believe it was Martha. I know that she would not have remained silent during your trial if she had been in that car." Van gave Grimes a penetrating look. "No, Lafe, it wasn't Martha who was in that car—it was Rufus Lemore!"
The prisoner halted, his eyes wide with shock, then he nodded.
"It was Rufus Lemore," he admitted slowly. "From, the very moment I was arrested and charged with the murder I have waited for him to come forward, to admit his part in what happened that night, but I have waited in vain."
"And yet Rufus Lemore was and apparently still is your friend. He hired the best attorney he could get to defend you at your trial," said Van. "He has been a changed man ever since you received your sentence."
"I know." Lafe Grimes nodded as he dropped down on his bunk. "He talked to me when I was first arrested. He pleaded with me to tell him what actually happened that night in the car, just as if he had not been there."
"What did happen?" asked the Phantom.
"Mr. Lemore had ordered me to have the car waiting at his private entrance to the store. I was there with the car when he came out with Mr. Young. They got in, apparently on quite friendly terms. Mr. Lemore told me to drive to Forty-third and Second Avenue."
"Had he ever had you drive over there before?"
"No, but I thought he might be going to visit someone he knew in Tudor City. We reached the corner of Second Avenue. Suddenly I heard a muffled shot. The glass window at my back was closed.
"I looked back over my shoulder. To my amazement Mr. Lemore was no longer in the car. He must have leaped out when I slowed down at the sound of the shot. I thought a tire had blown out at first, and didn't want to take a chance of skidding."
"Why didn't you stop the car then?" asked the Phantom.
"Because there was a flash that blinded me, and the tonneau of the car suddenly burst into flames. In my excitement I pushed down on the gas pedal and ran the car into the retaining wall at the end of the dead end street.
"I was dazed and leaped out of the car. As I did so I saw a briefcase on the running-board and the gun lying beside it. I grabbed them up and ran, for I expected the car to explode any moment. I tripped over the curb, hit my head and was knocked out."
"I believe every word you have told me, Lafe. I always suspected Rufus Lemore was in that car, and I also believe there must be some explanation for his silence."
"It looks like he has been protecting himself," said the prisoner. "But what is the reason for these other murders?"
"We'll find out about that, too," stated Van. "I understand why Martha left Rufus Lemore now. She must have suspected that he knew something which might save you and was refusing to talk. She could not bear to remain in the same house with a man who was willing to let her own father go to his death."
"And yet she has always been devoted to Rufus Lemore," Grimes pointed out.
"I know," said the Phantom. "Your information, has helped me and, what is more important, greatly increased your chance of becoming a free man."
He smiled at the prisoner. "All I ask is that you remain silent to the world until I tell you it is time for you to talk."
"I'll do it, Phantom."
Lafe Grimes got to his feet and extended his hand. Van's fingers gripped the calloused knuckles.
"Grimes, you've renewed my faith in human nature," declared the Phantom with a warm grip. "Martha will be all right and you will not go to the chair. I shall find a way of saving Rufus Lemore from the stigma of murder that you and I know hangs over him now!"
After leaving Lafe Grimes, the Phantom visited another cell and studied a scarred, ugly face that belonged to a convict named Slug Bolton. Van listened to Bolton's rasping voice, and fixed his features in his memory for future use.
"I am placing a thousand dollars with the warden for you, Bolton," Van said. "You will be released in a few days. For keeping your mouth closed and on your promise to use that thousand to go straight, the money is yours."
"Yuh wouldn't be framin' Easy Money Hogan, would yuh?" snarled Bolton. " 'Cause if yuh are, I'd do what yuh say for nothin'. That double-crossin' rat was to be my first business when I got out."
"By the time you come out, I hope you'll not have to worry about Easy Money Hogan," promised Van.
UPON his return to New York, the Phantom phoned Frank Havens at the Clarion office on the publisher's private wire. Van imparted some, but not all of his information.
"First, we'll need action to reprieve Lafe Grimes," he said. "Then some extra attention must be paid to publicity about Slug Bolton leaving prison in a few hours."
"Right, Dick," said Havens. "But what did you learn from Grimes? Aren't you holding something back?"
"You wouldn't want to take a chance on printing in the Clarion today that Rufus Lemore was in the murder car, now would you, Frank?"
"That Rufus Lemore was in the murder car!" exclaimed Havens. "Good Lord, Dick. Is that true?"
"It could be," said Van. "But I expect Lemore to be able to produce an alibi to account for the time he might have been in the car."
"Then how in heaven's name can Lafe Grimes be cleared?"
"Publish a story of a reprieve for Lafe Grimes, and his sudden death might clear him," said Van cryptically. "Unless those who might attempt to take his life are outwitted."
"Which doesn't make any sense to me," said Havens. "But it probably does to you. Here's something else. Chip Dorlan phoned in. He has been trailing that girl, Sally Thorpe all night and fears trouble. Chip thinks there are also others watching the girl."
"What's the address?" asked Van. "I've an appointment to keep with Pat O'Hara this morning, but I'll get in touch with Chip first."
Frank Havens supplied an address of a boarding house far down on the lower East Side in which Chip had reported that Sally Thorpe was living. The Phantom jotted it down, said a few more words to the publisher and hung up.
Van had mentioned that he intended meeting Pat O'Hara in a short time. He recalled that he had made a similar announcement to Rufus Lemore, the three trustees and Jay Rockham, and in doing so the Phantom felt he might have baited a trap for himself.
With the information he had gained from Lafe Grimes, confirming his own suspicion of Rufus Lemore, Van regarded the keeping of his supposed appointment with Pat O'Hara more important than ever.
But first he got his fast coupé and headed downtown toward the lower East Side. The address that Havens had received from Chip proved to be in a rather squalid section.
Two cars were parked in the block. They were some distance apart, and just as Van turned his coupé into the street one of the cars moved away. Chip Dorlan was not in sight.
Noticing a woman walking toward a small drug store, Van recognized her instantly as the night-club girl, Sally Thorpe. He parked his coupé quickly, got out and strolled along the far side of the street. Since he had changed his disguise again he had no fear of arousing suspicion.
VAN was almost opposite the drug store now. He glanced in through the open door and saw Chip Dorlan seated at the soda counter.
The Phantom decided that, having seen Sally Thorpe emerge from the rooming house, Chip had been smart enough to duck into the drug store, waiting for the girl to either pass or come into the place.
Sally Thorpe entered the drug store. Van stopped and pretended to be busy tying his shoelace. He was watching the other parked car slowly move away from the curb. The men inside also appeared to be watching the girl.
Sally Thorpe went directly to the telephone booth in the store. The moving car slid past the drug store and parked near the corner.
Two men alighted and walked back. Evidently they intended to wait outside the drug store to pick up the girl when she came out.
Van sensed trouble and loosened the automatic in his shoulder holster. The two men reached the open door of the drug store and then suddenly guns were in their hands roaring as they fired into the place.
The Phantom was halfway across the street with his automatic in his hand when he saw Chip Dorlan roll from the soda counter stool and drop to the floor. Bitter rage swept over Van.
His gun crashed redly as he aimed deliberately at the legs of the killer nearest him. The man screamed and fell down. The other man whirled to face this unexpected attack.
In a flash Van saw that Chip Dorlan had not been hit. He had merely dropped off the stool to get out of the way of the bullets. Now Chip rolled over and his automatic jetted fire. The man in the doorway threw up his hands and pitched forward on his face to sprawl there motionless.
"Chip—stay back!" Van shouted.
His warning came too late. Chip jumped lightly over the thug he had shot. The wounded man on the sidewalk fired at the boy, knocking him down. But as he fell, the quick-acting Chip triggered his gun.
His aim was perfect, too perfect for Van's purpose, for he had wanted to question the gunmen, but now they were both dead.
Van saw Sally Thorpe stagger from the phone booth door and then fall limply to the floor. Rushing inside, he helped Chip to his feet as the terrified drug clerk raced out through a rear door shouting for the police.
"Gosh, Phantom, I didn't recognize you in that disguise," said Chip as Van identified himself. "I'm glad you're here."
"Hurt badly, Chip?" asked the Phantom, examining Chip's leg wound."
"It's only a scratch," replied Chip. "I'll be all right. I got 'em, anyway."
"Yes, you got them," said Van dryly. "You were on a spot and I don't blame you, but dead men can't talk."
Sally Thorpe was dead. Her pretty face was like gray wax. Her dark eyes were open and staring, and her throat was a horrible sight where a ballet had caught her.
Chip suddenly bent down and removed a scrap of notebook paper from the girl's lifeless hand.
"This must have been the phone number she was calling," he stated, passing it to Van.
The Phantom stared at the exchange and numbers. Sally Thorpe had been calling the blind number of Rufus Lemore at the big department store!
POLICE car sirens were screaming outside. Van went to the door and discovered the car which the killers had been in had driven away. With the arrival of the first squad car, Van produced a small domino-shaped badge that identified him to the police as the Phantom.
"This is connected in some way with the series of diamond robberies," stated Van. "Perhaps you can identify the dead men. I can assure you they had committed murder, and were killed in self-defense." After cautioning the sergeant that the Phantom's name must not be mentioned in connection with what had just happened, and also suggesting the men might be affiliated with Easy Money Hogan, Van and Chip got into the coupé and drove away.
The Phantom took Chip home and ordered the boy to stay there and rest after a doctor had taken care of his leg wound. Then Van drove to his laboratory in an old building far out in the Bronx. Here the Phantom was known only as Dr. Paul Bendix, a scientist—who was supposed to carry on mysterious experiments.
Even members of the F.B.I. would have been amazed at the completeness of the crime laboratory, the extensive library and new crime-fighting devices in that old building.
When Van left the place he put a strangely-shaped pipe in his coupé.
Later he called Frank Havens again and informed the publisher of the murder of Sally Thorpe.
He revealed that members of Easy Money Hogan's mob might be involved, and stated that he had a strong suspicion that Hogan was in the car which had rolled away from the girl's street before she was shot.
"Maybe you'd better play that up strong in the news story, Frank," suggested Van. "If Easy Money Hogan is not picked up, this will make him take cover while the heat's on. Particularly if it is stated he was seen with Sally Thorpe shortly before she was killed."
"What are you getting at, Dick?" asked Havens.
"I want Hogan holed-up, but I'll have Inspector Gregg pick up some of his boys at the night club and sweat the location of the hideout out of them. What's the latest report from Steve Huston?"
"All quiet," stated Havens. "Martha Lemore is being well guarded. In fact Pat O'Hara is sticking around taking turns with Steve this morning."
"Good!" Van snapped. "I'll go call on O'Hara at once."
AS HE drove to the small hotel where Pat O'Hara lived the Phantom believed he had prepared for any emergency. Knowing the character of the Blade gang, their clever use of drugs and poisons, he had supplied Steve Huston with a weapon.
This was an ampule containing a powerful stimulant and antidote against chemicals of a hypnotic character, such as those which had been identified by police chemists as being used by the Blade gang.
When he left his laboratory with the strange equipment he had taken, including what appeared to be an ordinary metal pipe, the Phantom had been careful to safeguard himself as far as possible against being drugged. He was convinced that his visit to Pat O'Hara's address was attended by danger, and he wanted to be ready for anything.
Reaching the front of the small hotel where Carl Blanton had told him O'Hara resided, the Phantom pulled in toward the curb.
His only warning of peril was a hissing explosion as if a tire had blown out softly. Because his own tires were protected against such accidents, he slid out from the wheel, ready for trouble.
It was like stepping into an abrupt black haze that stung his eyes and shut off his breathing. He was conscious of his foot reaching for the running-board and of missing it. He went down in the street.
The Phantom knew nothing of the figures that came from among other parked cars, or that one of them was blond-haired and chewing gum. The blinding, stunning gas that had spread from a small time-bomb had been quickly dissipated.
Van was still unconscious when he was lifted into one car and his own coupé was brought along by one of Sonny Blade's men.
WHEN the Phantom finally opened heavy eyelids, he felt as if his arms were held down by huge weights. A closer study of his plight, however, showed that he was unbound, and that his numbness was caused by intense cold rather than by some drugging chemical.
Van slowly regained consciousness, but he lay quite still. He was convinced that he had been given some powerful injection after he had been overpowered by a chemical bomb planted in his own car, or at least tossed near it as he had parked in front of the hotel.
But he was thinking clearly. Except for the peculiar numbness he felt, normal. He could smile to himself at this, for he had prepared at his laboratory against exactly what had happened, with the exception of the surprise chemical gas.
From the sensation he judged he had been treated with the same drug identified by Inspector Gregg's police chemist. It was gelsemium, a powerful alkaloid, a potent and sometimes a fatally toxic drug. It contained elements which, when combined with a narcotic, affected both mind and nerves.
What Van's captors did not know was that he had employed certain powerful stimulants of his own formula, which to a great extent had rendered him immune to the hypnotic drug.
Yet now the intense cold was something against which he had not prepared. There was an odor of skin and hair which told him he was in a storage vault, probably in some warehouse used for keeping furs.
A single small bulb overhead gave a dim light. Van could see curved pipes and hear a slight throbbing sound as something was pumped through them.
"I was brought here drugged; possibly left with the idea of being frozen to death," he whispered to himself. "Or more likely to soften me up to extract information.
"Someone might have found out in some way that the Phantom visited Lafe Grimes in the death house and wants to know why. Even though I have changed my disguise they must have identified my coupé and planted the bomb as I parked the car."
Van flexed his muscles and discovered he could move easily. He suddenly grew still, listening intently. A door had opened and shut nearby. Two men were talking.
"The old guy won't feel safe until Lafe Grimes is finished off," a man's voice said. "Our biggest plan has to wait until there is no chance that Grimes might hear of it."
"Lafe always said he wanted to go quickly when his time came." The other man laughed harshly. "Now he has waited months. He may get a reprieve and wait more weeks or months."
"Not according to Blade's plan," said the man who had spoken first. "If there is any delay Lafe Grimes will never walk to the chair."
"Yeah? How are you gonna bump off a guy in the death house? It can't be done."
"That's what you think, but you don't know Sonny Blade. That guy has some bright ideas."
"Oh, sure—but he didn't used to be so smart."
The voices trailed off. Van had gotten a glimpse of the two men as they passed beneath one of the few lights on the single electrical connection across the low ceiling. Although the temperature in here was well below freezing, the two men were in their shirt-sleeves.
FOR a moment Van thought this was strange, then he recalled the opening and closing of a door he could not see. These two men had undoubtedly been working in a heated room that was hidden in the cold-storage warehouse.
"That proves they're afraid Grimes will talk and involve the man who may be running this whole murder show," mused Van. "Grimes is dangerous to their game, and in some way this goes much farther than the mere stealing of diamonds."
Van could hear sulphur dioxide being pumped through the many pipes surrounding him. While he had a chance, he worked his muscles, getting the chilled numbness out of them.
Moving about cautiously, he saw a place where some repairs had been made upon the cold-storage pipes. Workmen had left a heavy wrench near a pipe that ran not far from floor level.
The pipe, two inches in diameter, was covered with the frost produced by the sulphur dioxide being pumped through it under high pressure. Working fast, Van loosened a coupling sleeve. He was careful to leave it holding just enough to prevent any of the fumes escaping, but loose enough for instant release.
Hearing an outer door open, he lay back close to the pipe, the heavy wrench under his body. His arms relaxed and his eyes assumed the half-closed, sleepy look of a drugged person.
Three men appeared. One of them was Sonny Blade. The gang chief stared down at the still figure on the cold floor, then began to speak slowly and deliberately.
"You are cold, very cold, Phantom, understand?"
Blade spoke in the tone of a professional hypnotist who believed his subject was thoroughly under his control, yet able to respond to suggestion. Van took his cue from that and acted accordingly.
"Cold—cold—" he repeated without the slightest change of expression.
"That's good, Phantom," said Sonny Blade. "Tell me all Lafe Grimes has told you."
"Told you," muttered Van, repeating the last words Blade had said.
"You will tell me about it now, Phantom."
"Grimes said—" Van's tongue was thick and slow.
Blade scowled and glared at the two men with him.
"You've used too much of the stuff!" Blade snarled. "He's nearly out. Get the other junk from the car and bring him around, and leave me alone with him."
The two men departed to carry out their orders and Van heard the door open and close. Blade again attempted to make the Phantom talk, but Van only appeared sleepier.
Sonny Blade bent over him. He slapped Van's face with the hard palm of his hand. The gang leader got an instant and unexpected response. Van's fist struck and never was a neater knockout punch placed on the point of a jaw.
Blade gave an imitation of a fighter taking a full count. Van hoped he could avoid having to employ the strategy for which he had prepared, but the gangsters' car must have been close outside, for the two men returned quickly.
THE big door opened and closed again. Voices of the returning men came to Van. He fixed their exact position in his mind when one of the gangsters uttered a shout.
"Hey, look out! Something's wrong! He's got Sonny. Burn him!" The two killers rushed forward dragging out their guns. Born mobsters, any silent weapons they may have had were forgotten in an emergency. A gun blasted and slugs glanced wickedly off the curved pipe which Van had knocked loose and was bending with his powerful hands.
Very few men would have had the strength to bend that loosened pipe, as did the Phantom, thrusting its freed end upward toward the ceiling. Blinding, stupefying fumes of sulphur dioxide hissed into the room.
Van's eyes were tightly closed. He was holding his own breath, releasing it slowly, as if he were diving. His record under water was amazing. He was good in the midst of the fumes for at least two minutes.
Two guns were roaring now, the bullets, coming dangerously close to Van as they buzzed among the pipes. His powerful hands released the pipe and grasped the single pair of electric wires as he made a quick leap from the floor. There was a bluish flash, then the room was plunged in darkness.
"Get him!" shouted one of the gangsters in a choked voice, that ended in a cough.
Before he would be forced to breathe and risk being overcome by the gas Van groped his way through the gloom and reached a heavy door with a slotted bar on the inside. He drew back the bar, opened the door and stepped outside.
He found himself on a Hudson River wharf. A small fishing boat lay in the dock and only one man appeared to be on board.
A black sedan standing on the wharf with the front end pointing toward the river was evidently the Blade gang's car. There was no one in it and Van reached the driver's seat of the sedan before the warehouse door opened.
With the man in the boat watching him, Van attempted to turn the car to head it for the street, but the Phantom's plan was not to escape openly. A daring idea had entered his agile brain.
He waited until he saw Blade's men pulling the door of the warehouse open, staggering and coughing from the deadly fumes. Swiftly he headed the sedan straight for the side of the wharf and sent it plungingly down into deep water.
Van had the front door partly open as the car dived. He saw the man in the boat shouting and waving his hands. He judged that Sonny Blade and his men would be running across the wharf, if the gang leader had recovered from that knockout punch.
The Phantom stayed in the car until it was on the bottom, perhaps twenty feet down. There he kicked free and swam under water. He stayed below the surface until he gained the piling of a wharf on the other side of the open dock.
In a dry spot under the wharf the Phantom occupied himself with a water-tight, body-fitting make-up case which included a tiny light and mirror.
Above him and to one side he could hear a police car arriving at the other wharf where Sonny Blade's sedan was anchored in some twenty feet of water.
"The Blade gang has probably faded out," decided Van. "The man in the boat must have called the police. The driver's door is open and a body could have been carried away on the tide. I'll have Frank Havens publish that story. Sonny Blade will feel safe to go ahead when he believes the Phantom is dead."
Van was quickly altering his appearance. His hair changed color to a pale, tumbled mop. Light eye-shells gave him the expression of a dangerous tough. Wax moulages broadened his cheeks, changed the shape of his nose. The clothes he wore had been nondescript and the wetting they had received in the river had not improved their appearance.
Within five minutes or so after emerging from the Hudson, Van was as tough a looking character as Hell's Kitchen had ever produced. He had assumed the role of an ex-convict just released so perfectly that the Sing-Sing warden himself would have sworn that Van was Slug Bolton.
A little later the Phantom emerged on a waterfront street. As Slug Bolton he was supposed to have been a member of Easy Money Hogan's old jewel mob, the Glitter Gang.
And now as a convict just released from prison, Van was contriving a plan whereby Rufus Lemore, the three trustees of the big department store, and perhaps Jay Rockham, could be tricked into desiring an interview with the man from Sing-Sing.
After what he had learned from Lafe Grimes in the death house many detectives with lesser insight than the Phantom would have forced a showdown with Rufus Lemore. But Van had his own reasons for going slow now. He believed Lemore to be innocent of any crime and in the gravest danger.
Van found a phone booth and called Frank Havens.
"Thank heavens you're alive, Dick," exclaimed Havens. "I just got a report from Steve Huston who was tipped off through some underworld sources that you went down with a car the police have just raised near the Lemore Department Store's fur storage warehouse on the Hudson River. It is thought by the police that your body was washed away."
"Couldn't be better, Frank," stated Van. "That's just the way I wish it. The Phantom died as far as Sonny Blade is concerned, and Slug Bolton has just been released from Sing-Sing."
"But what happened?"
"Take too long to tell you all about it now, Frank. That store warehouse is a hot-spot, but should be left alone for the present. If Martha Lemore is all right, and Steve Huston is sticking to the job of watching over her we'll let it go at that for the present. I'll be in a waterfront hotel."
"What if you are needed, Dick?" demanded Havens.
"I'll get in touch with you, Frank. A great sale of diamonds started at the Lemore Department Store today, and it will be a good idea to let it continue. I'll contact Pat O'Hara myself and find out what has been going on later. I told him to watch Rufus Lemore even if he neglected his other duties to do so."
SHORTLY after the Phantom's arrival at Sing-Sing, the great Lemore Department Store back in New York was opening for the day.
Pat O'Hara had his staff working on all floors of the store as usual. But when he arrived later in the morning after finally leaving the job of guarding Martha to Steve Huston he had arranged matters so that he was again stationed on guard at the entrance of the jewelry department.
He had posted two or three detectives about with instructions to be on the watch for petty thieves and shoplifters.
As the Phantom had instructed him to do, the young Irishman intended to devote all possible attention to keeping a constant watch on Rufus Lemore.
Under the intent gaze of the black eyes of Jay Rockham, the new manager of the jewelry department, two dozen clerks were being rushed to handle the first of the morning buyers.
Pat O'Hara noticed that some of the customers were from other cities, and others were jewel buyers from nearby stores.
"This doesn't quite make sense," muttered O'Hara. "I don't know diamonds so well, but I do know buyers. They wouldn't be taking stones if they weren't getting a price as good or better than wholesale."
The chief of the store detectives noticed that the three trustees were present and taking an unusual interest in the sales that were going on in the jewelry department.
Hal Drake, small and waspish and immaculately dressed, was strolling about watching everything that went on. Wilton Andrews seemed more dyspeptic and sour-looking than ever. Carl Blanton, tall, dark-haired and suave, seemed as interested in what was going on as were the other trustees, but he did not make it so obvious.
Drake walked over and spoke in a low tone to the chief detective.
"O'Hara, I wish you would keep an eye on Mr. Lemore if he comes on the floor," said Drake. "A few moments ago he was signing up the day's orders and making out checks and was all business. But just now I took in a rush order and Mr. Lemore said it could just as well wait until tomorrow."
"He sure has been acting strangely, Mr. Drake," said O'Hara.
"Yes, I know." Hal Drake nodded. "Miss Brinkley may be a trained nurse and be taking good care of him, but it seems to me that Mr. Lemore should be in a sanitarium."
"I'll keep an eye on him, Mr. Drake," O'Hara said. "Maybe the boss would like a report from me as to how the jewelry sale is progressing."
"Good idea," said Drake.
O'Hara passed through the main entrance to the executive offices in the rear of the fourth floor of the store. Miss Brinkley was not in the reception room so he went to Lemore's private office door which was ajar, and peered inside.
Sudden shock rolled through Pat O'Hara. At the moment Ann Brinkley was seated beside Rufus Lemore, gently rubbing her white hands over his eyes. Lemore was nodding, seemingly pleased, rather than ill.
O'HARA was so amazed that he almost uttered a loud oath as he saw Miss Brinkley lean over and kiss Rufus Lemore tenderly on the lips. The store magnate seemed extremely pleased.
Then Ann Brinkley had Lemore's checkbook in front of him and was holding a pen out to him. O'Hara watched Rufus Lemore sign a check, and saw Miss Brinkley tear the check out of the book and place it in the bosom of her dress.
O'Hara swung around swiftly as he heard a quick step and a cough behind him. Wilton Andrews, sour-faced and displeased, stood in the reception room glaring at the chief of the store detectives.
"Is spying part of your duties, O'Hara?" demanded Andrews tersely.
"No, sir," retorted O'Hara, his temper flaring up. "Not any more than it is for Miss Brinkley to be making passes at Mr. Lemore."
"You mean she was attempting to make love to him? Nonsense!" Andrews drew himself up. "I should have you discharged for suggesting such a thing, O'Hara. Miss Brinkley is a trained nurse. Mr. Lemore has been needing special care."
"Yes, sir," said O'Hara meekly. Then he mentally added to himself. "She certainly is giving the old man special care."
Andrews stepped past O'Hara and entered the private office. The big red-headed detective lingered a few minutes longer in the reception room.
"Well, have him lie down, Miss Brinkley," said Andrews suddenly, apparently in reply to something the blond girl had said. "He should not be here today with all this disturbance over the sale."
O'Hara could not resist again peering through the crack in the door. He saw Miss Brinkley supporting the slight, gray-haired figure of Rufus Lemore as the store magnate walked toward an inner office.
"If I wasn't crazy about Martha for herself and not because of what Lemore might give her," decided O'Hara, as he strode out of the reception room, "I'd have a showdown with this Brinkley dame. But that might get me fired and then I couldn't help Martha by watching Lemore."
When the detective returned to the jewelry department, Jay Rockham handed him a sheaf of orders that apparently needed some credit approval.
"O'Hara, will you please take these to Mr. Lemore? One or two are orders he might okay without delay for the credit division."
O'Hara took the papers, then retraced his steps to the executive offices as Andrews stepped out onto the floor. Miss Brinkley had not returned to the reception room, and the inner door was still open an inch or so.
As he moved into the office O'Hara heard a sharp cry that came from Miss Brinkley. Gray-haired Rufus Lemore was back, standing at the end of his desk. Evidently he had just slapped Ann Brinkley, for the marks of his fingers were visible through the fiery flush on her right cheek.
"Try something like that again and see what happens!" snapped Lemore in his thin voice. "Now get out until I send for you!"
EVEN though Ann Brinkley was tall and topped Rufus Lemore by inches she seemed to be visibly shrinking as she backed away. At that moment Carl Blanton came in from an executive office door, holding a paper in his hand.
Blanton halted, aware that something was wrong. Lemore whirled and glared at him.
"You get out, too," he fumed.
Carl Blanton nodded surlily and went back through the other office door, closing it silently behind him. O'Hara stepped back and waited judiciously until Miss Brinkley, her green eyes blazing with anger, came into the reception room.
"I have some papers for Mr. Lemore," said O'Hara.
"Mr. Lemore is not signing any more papers this morning, Mr. O'Hara," responded Ann Brinkley coldly.
"Bet these are jewelry orders to be approved," insisted O'Hara. "Mr. Rockham sent them."
"Well, why didn't you say so?" snapped the girl. "Take them in then."
O'Hara entered the private office. Lemore was seated at his desk, slowly polishing his glasses. The store magnate was so calm that O'Hara thought what he had seen might have all been a mistake.
"Some orders in the diamond sale from Mr. Rockham," said O'Hara, placing the papers on the desk.
"Yes, indeed!" Rufus Lemore put on his glasses and was actually rubbing his hands with pleasure. "Keep a keen watch for possible crooks, O'Hara. We mustn't forget what happened last night."
As he departed Pat O'Hara wondered if the store owner was actually insane.
STEVE HUSTON enjoyed his assignment of guarding Martha Lemore. They had established themselves at an obscure hotel, and had had lunch and dinner together while they waited to hear from the Phantom.
Frank Havens had informed Steve of Van's new role of Slug Bolton, former mobster of the old Glitter Gang, and in the evening O'Hara had phoned to inquire about Martha.
"There have been some strange things going on at the store, and I've been watching Lemore as the Phantom told me to do," stated O'Hara when he learned the girl was still safe.
"And Steve, if by any chance that green-eyed dame from Lemore's office happens to discover where Martha is staying keep her away."
"Don't worry, Pat," said Steve. "Martha couldn't be found here."
In that Steve Huston was mistaken, and it was Martha's fault that he was wrong. The warm-hearted girl had called Rufus Lemore's office in her anxiety over his health after his sudden attack of the previous night.
Miss Brinkley had answered the call and assured Martha that Rufus Lemore was all right. But Martha had made the mistake of phoning from her room in the hotel. It was a call that could be traced, and the blonde didn't pass up the opportunity.
Thus, Steve Huston, keeping a close watch in the hotel lobby and hoping for word from the Phantom at any time that evening, was unaware that Martha had received a call from outside sometime after she had phoned regarding Rufus Lemore's health.
All Steve knew was that an hour after darkness, he saw Martha Lemore attempting to leave the hotel by a side door without attracting his attention. Steve moved fast, but he was not quick enough in getting out to the street.
He saw Martha enter a closed car, which whirled away quickly from the side street. The best Steve could do was hail the nearest taxicab and order the driver to follow the other car.
The hackman succeeded in trailing the dark sedan through the Bronx, but lost it on the Boston Post Road. That left Steve with only a guess as to Martha's destination.
"Rufus Lemore's country home is on the shore of Mamaroneck," decided the police reporter who possessed plenty of brains. "Martha's real father, Lafe Grimes, was Lemore's chauffeur and lived there. It's as good a guess as any."
Steve's deduction was confirmed half an hour later. He paid off his taxi driver when they arrived at a crooked, private road leading into Rufus Lemore's estate. At the gateway of the exclusive shore district Steve Huston questioned a private policeman stationed there.
"Yes, a sedan went in," said the officer. "I let it go by because Martha Lemore was with the driver. No, 1 didn't know the driver or two other men in the car."
The reporter made his identity known. He had the foresight to use the telephone in the policeman's small gatehouse. Calling Frank Havens, he told the publisher what had happened.
"Right, Steve," said Havens. "I have been waiting to hear from the Phantom, I'll tell him when he calls. Give me another ring later."
The great, sprawling residence of Rufus Lemore was in darkness when Steve Huston crossed the grounds. He noticed a light glowing in second-story windows above the big stone garage which had an outside stairway.
MOVING stealthily through the shrubbery, the reporter saw a slanting roof leading up to the windows. He could hear voices now.
It was then that Steve made a mistake. There was a dark sedan parked under a tree, and he assumed that its occupants were in the quarters above the garage.
Martha's musical voice, lifted in protest, reached him as he gained the low edge of the slanting roof. Unfortunately, he failed to see the figure gliding out of the bushes and holding what appeared to be a metal pipe in one hand.
Drawing his automatic, Steve edged toward the window. As he did so, something struck the back of his head and the world went black. The capsule under his arm which the Phantom had given him to prevent his being drugged, was useless in this sort of an attack.
Opening his eyes against a haze of pain, Steve found himself lying on the floor of a room. He was bound and gagged. Not far away he saw Martha similarly bound with a strip of tape over her lips.
There were two hard-faced men seated near the girl. Now one of them spoke out of the side of his mouth to his companion.
"Sonny should be here soon. He didn't know this was coming up until the dame called him. He's been trying to get a line on Easy Money Hogan's hideout, figurin' Hogan is killin' mad and may try a raid on our place."
"We've got all the cards in our hands now," said the other man. "The drowning of the Phantom was a good break."
Tough as was the spot he was in, Steve smiled. He knew all about how the Phantom had been "drowned." Suddenly a car stopped outside and steps sounded on the outside stairs. The boyish-faced Sonny Blade stepped into the room, his features hard and grim.
"So the dame fell for a yarn that we had something that would help Lafe Grimes," said Blade, gazing at Martha.
This enlightened Steve. Evidently Martha had been tricked into coming here by a promise of something that would help save her father.
Sonny Blade wasted little time. He seemed to realize that compelling Martha Lemore to talk would be a difficult job and he wanted to get started on it in a hurry.
Blade cruelly tore the tape from the girl's lips. Blood welled over her round chin, but Martha was defiant.
"You'll not be hurt, sister, if you tell us what we want to know," said Sonny Blade. "What close kin has your old man? We happen to know that Lafe Grimes is innocent, but he will die, anyway. Perhaps we might be able to save him."
"You can kill me, but I'll tell nothing," flared Martha.
Sonny laughed mockingly as his hand slowly twisted out some of the girl's long dark hair.
"Hasn't your old man got a brother?"
Martha's eyes blazed, but she refused to speak. Blade grasped one of her small ears. He chewed gum slowly and his hand twisted in rhythm with his working jaws.
Steve fought the cords holding his arms and leg's. Martha's pretty face was contorted with agony.
"What's the use of wasting time?" said Sonny Blade coldly. "Give me that hypo."
He ripped away Martha's sleeve. The needle went into her arm. Steve saw the girl's head droop. Sonny waited a few minutes, then, lifted Martha's head with his hand under her chin.
"You want to tell me now about an uncle," he said.
"Yes," the girl said dully, as if half-asleep, "my uncle, Arthur Grimes."
"Where does he live, sister?"
"In Buffalo," said Martha.
"Has he visited your old man?"
"No, he wrote me that he would, but he has stayed away."
"You have a good photograph of your Uncle Arthur, sister?"
"Father had one, in the second dresser drawer over there," said Martha.
HUSTON was furious. He knew that Martha had been given some drug that exerted a hypnotic spell, for she was obeying Sonny Blade's every suggestion. Blade took the photograph one of his men drew out of the drawer and studied it.
"Does your uncle still have a mustache?" demanded Blade.
"I think so. I haven't seen him for two years."
"This will do it," said Sonny Blade. "Okay, boys, wrap her up. We'll have to entertain the little lady until it's all over."
One of the men bent over the girl, lifting her from the floor. Sonny Blade walked over and stood looking down at Steve Huston.
"The Phantom's newspaper snoop, eh?" he said. "Too bad for you that the great Phantom won't need you again, redhead. So we'll have to write your final autograph ourselves!"
Cold perspiration broke out upon the reporter's brow when Blade took what appeared to be an ordinary fountain pen from an inside pocket.
Even before the war Steve had seen "fountain pens" like that. A few had been used in defense works sabotage.
That pen was a miniature incendiary bomb. It could start two kinds of fire that water would not extinguish. An impact fuse would light thermite which burned at the terrific temperature of three thousand degrees centigrade.
Above one thousand, two hundred degrees the thermite ignited a filling of magnesium powder. The thermite, powder aluminum, would burn out in a minute or two. The magnesium would burn for fifteen minutes.
Two of Blade's men who had followed him into the upper story of the garage had carried Martha out of the place and disappeared. Two more gangsters still remained with their leader. Sonny Blade paused thoughtfully with the fountain pen bomb in his hand.
"I wonder if you would know anything worthwhile," he mused.
Steve nodded violently. He judged it was the only means whereby he might have a slight chance of prolonging his life.
Blade laughed tauntingly.
"Nuts to you," he said, and kicked Steve viciously in the ribs. Huston's breath nearly burst from his lungs, and his taped mouth did not help in the least.
Suddenly there came the crackling roar of a tommy gun from outside one of the windows. Two of Sonny Blade's men whimpered with pain and dropped to the floor as bullets tore into them.
Sonny Blade whirled, cursing wildly as he flung the fountain-pen fire-bomb at the man with the machine-gun. There was a squashy explosion and flame flared up. In one window Steve saw the face of Easy Money Hogan.
"Get out!" shouted Hogan. "It's a bomb!"
Feet pounded on the outside stairs as the bluish flame flared higher and became blindingly brilliant to Steve. The little bomb had fallen through the window, landing on the roof outside. Steve Huston rolled over, for the squares of both windows were suddenly too lurid to be faced.
"So long, Snoop!" Sonny Blade's voice rang out mockingly. "This is one story you won't write for the Clarion!"
A few more shots cracked outside. The spreading fire was making a roaring sound. The room about Steve seemed awfully empty. He opened his smarting eyes to slits. He did have some company.
Two of Sonny Blade's gang had remained behind. They were not good company. Steve had a feeling that he would be better off if he were one of them. A corpse would not feel the fire...
WITH Pat O'Hara beside him, the Phantom slammed a swift-moving gray coupé into Rufus Lemore's private roadway. A car came rushing head on around the curve and Van sent the coupé into some bushes.
Gunfire rattled. Another car skidded around the curve. Reddish-blue streamers sliced from a chopper as slugs drummed the bushes, but both cars continued their dash.
Van would have turned in pursuit, but the trees and sky ahead were suddenly lighted with brilliant white fire.
"The Lemore place!" exclaimed O'Hara. "It's just over the little hill!" One side of the Lemore garage was a mass of blue and red flames. The Phantom hit the ground running as his coupé stopped. O'Hara pounded after him.
"There's someone tied up in there," shouted an old man who appeared to be a butler, as he vainly fought the blaze with the feeble stream of a fire extinguisher.
The Phantom ran to the dark side of the garage. He jumped and caught the rough stone wall.
Fire on the other side had consumed the porch and was eating into the main building.
Van pulled himself onto the tile roof. His hands were like iron claws as he tore the tiling loose. He smashed the lumber underneath with his doubled fists. A board broke and heat blasted his face as he tore the opening wider, ignoring his bleeding fingers.
He had just room enough to drop inside. Three limp bodies lay on the brilliantly lighted floor. Van was compelled to close his eyes. No man could face that lurid magnesium flame more than a few seconds and retain his vision. His feet struck the floor and he shielded his eyes with one arm, groping about.
The first body he touched in that searing heat was that of a corpse. A large section of the stone wall fell out. Then his hands encountered a figure that was bound, and touched a face with tape over the mouth.
The split-second opening of his eyes to make sure this was Steve Huston was infinite torture. Magnesium light will burn out the cornea of the human eye in less time than telling it.
Van had no time to ascertain if Steve could help himself, or to get the cords off him. He simply heaved Steve's rigid body from the floor, risking his sight long enough to locate the hole he had ripped in the roof.
The Phantom's skin felt as if it were blistering. His clothing was afire. He was under the hole in the roof now.
Fortunately the ceiling was low. Van made a superhuman effort. He balanced Steve's one hundred and sixty pounds on his hands for a few seconds, then hurled the bound figure upward.
Steve's head and shoulders went through and Van gave a final heave to Huston's legs. He realized that Steve, bound and helpless, must roll down the roof and drop to the ground.
"Better to die of a broken neck than be cremated," grated Van, beating out the fire on his coat.
He jumped, more by instinct than by sight. His fingers caught and held to the edge of a sagging board. Pulling himself up and over onto the roof taxed every highly trained muscle.
He permitted himself to roll down the slanting roof. As he left the edge, he turned, falling feet first, and landing with the elastic spring of a cat.
VAN saw Pat O'Hara rising from the ground. Steve Huston was sprawled nearby. O'Hara had saved Steve's life, or at least prevented serious injury by catching the helpless reporter as he fell.
Working swiftly, the detective released Steve Huston and removed the gag from his mouth, as the fire reduced the garage to hot rubble.
"They've got Martha," exclaimed Steve when he could talk. "They took her away just before Hogan's men attacked Blade's gang and Blade started the fire with a fountain-pen bomb. How did you get here?"
"I phoned Havens, and he told me what had happened," answered the Phantom. "I've an idea where Martha may have been taken but I can't be sure. Steve, I want you to phone Rufus Lemore and his trustees. Say that your newspaper has been tipped off that Slug Bolton has been released, if they haven't already noticed the story."
"And then, Phantom?" asked Steve.
"Then ask each of them if Slug Bolton called them about a message supposed to have been given to him by Lafe Grimes when Bolton, working as a trusty, was scrubbing the floor of the death house."
"What about me?" demanded Pat O'Hara. "I've got to find Martha."
"No, O'Hara," said the Phantom. "You'll have to sit tight and stay on the job at the store tomorrow. Anything you might do now may cost Martha her life, and perhaps the life of Rufus Lemore."
"All right, Phantom, if you say so," muttered O'Hara reluctantly. "But I want to do something!"
"You can," said Van. "Tomorrow at the store check up and make sure that Rufus Lemore is in full control of the business and signs all his own checks."
"He does," said O'Hara. "I told you about seeing him sign one and give it to that Brinkley dame after she kissed him this morning."
"Make sure of it, anyway," Van insisted, "I'll phone you sometime during the day and give you further instructions. Meanwhile you and Steve had better return to New York by train, I'm using the car because I still have some special work to do tonight."
The Phantom left Steve and O'Hara to explain what had happened on the Lemore estate to the police and fire department that were just arriving and drove away in the coupé.
He was using another of his cars, because the other battered car was being repaired.
Rolling along the Boston Post Road and headed for the Connecticut line, the Phantom had a hard gleam in his eyes. Posing as Slug Bolton, released convict, he was framing a deal he was sure would interest Rufus Lemore and the three trustees of the big department store.
He finally drew up in front of a red-painted cabin that had once been a Connecticut barn. There were many of its type in the hills above Greenwich.
A full moon lighted the cleared space about the cabin while the Phantom eased his coupé into a stone enclosure off the side road he had followed. He unlocked a heavy padlock and stepped into the red building.
The interior of the barn might have been the studio of a sculptor, for here the Phantom kept wax pieces, casts of unusual clues in various important cases.
Van quickly removed all of this material in a secret little cellar beneath the floor. When he had finished the interior of the cabin had a different appearance.
It now gave the impression that its owner had been long absent. Some of its furnishings suggested his occupation had been none too lawful.
THE Phantom, in the character of Slug Bolton, was now ready to receive visitors. Last of all he brought out what appeared to be a four-foot length of inch pipe.
This was connected with a metal base and placed in the barn attic, it's end pointing into the room below, and well hidden by the rafters. A small storage battery was attached.
"The latest and the best silent witness," said Van softly. "Now the cheese for the trap to catch a murder rat."
Using the stub of a pencil, he wrote three nearly identical notes on plain cheap paper. In substance, each note said:
I hear old Lemore is too sick to come and see me, so I write all three of you trustees as I found out who you was. Lafe Grimes has give me word for his girl he says is Martha Lemore. It will be bad for your store business if I give her this message.
I thought if you three meet me at the old red barn in first lane off Cross-River Road past old stage inn it might be fixed so I would not give girl this word. I will not say about how as I am smart not to use the mail to do wrong but you three come at 2 p.m. today, Saturday, and don't fail.
I will wait only to this hour then I will see girl or maybe Easy Money Hogan. I worked for him before I was in stir and he might fix things for me.
Slug Bolton.
Van placed the notes in envelopes and addressed them to Hal Drake, Carl Blanton and Wilton Andrews at the Lemore Department Store. Then he locked the cabin and drove back to New York, mailing the three letters in Greenwich, on the way.
It was early morning when he finally reached Manhattan. Leaving the car in a private garage, he went to his penthouse apartment.
A bath and a change of clothing, and a bit of first-aid for the burns he had received from the fire and for his bruised fingers, refreshed him and prepared him for action again.
After a hearty breakfast he phoned Inspector Gregg at Police Headquarters.
"Any luck in getting information about Easy Money Hogan?" asked Van.
"Not on his hideout," said Gregg. "Hogan seems to have vanished again. But we obtained some information that may help you. When Slug Bolton was sent up he hid a lot of hot diamonds, planning to retrieve them when he came out. We're holding Rod Clark, a Hogan man who works at the Easy Money Club."
Van's mind was working with lightning rapidity. He thought of one person who was most likely to know the hideout of Easy Money Hogan.
"Keep Rod Clark there, Inspector," said Van. "I'll be with you as soon as I make a change. I want to see Rod Clark and hear him talk without his knowing it."
When he entered the precinct station the Phantom was no longer tough Slug Bolton. He was a slightly stooped, middle-aged clerk with heavy shell-rimmed glasses and sedate clothes.
Five minutes later Van could have converted himself into a replica of Rod Clark in features and voice. For his purpose, the voice was all that he wanted, and it could not have been better for imitation. Rod Clark had a scarred lip and talked with a distinct lisp.
After he left the police station Van stepped into a telephone booth and called the Lemore Department Store, asking for Miss Brinkley.
He had to skip over the possibility of the girl being known to Hogan's men by some other name. When she answered the call, he employed Rod Clark's lisp.
"I've got somethin' Hogan has got to know, and I can't reach him," Van said, talking low and fast. "I run into Slug Bolton and he is celebratin'. I told him I'd quit Hogan. Slug wants me to go with him at dark this afternoon to help him dig up the ice he put away. I'm goin', but I'm scared. Tell Hogan it's up in Connecticut. This is the place."
Van gave the address of the red barn on the side lane, then hung up abruptly.
"It may or may not work," mused Van as he left the booth. "But if the girl is playing along with Hogan she knows where he is and will get a message to him. Hogan will be more anxious to rub out Slug Bolton than he will be to get the diamonds."
ONCE more assuming the role of Slug Bolton, the Phantom swung a battered car into the Connecticut side road near Cross-River shortly before two o'clock in the afternoon.
The three trustees of the Lemore Department Store had been given adequate reason for appearing at the red barn for which Van was headed.
The Phantom was also sure that Easy Money Hogan had a straight tip-off from Miss Brinkley that a hidden cache of diamonds was to be sought there by Slug Bolton around sundown this same evening.
"Three trusted men," mused Van. "Perhaps two of these men will arrive around two o'clock to meet a supposed convict, out of their honest interest in solving the murders that concern the Lemore Department Store. Perhaps one man will not desire to arrive with the others. He may be far ahead of time."
It had started raining at noon and now had settled into a slow drizzle. The dirt road was narrow and tricky, and Van's car skidded when he slowed down for the turns.
Hearing the loud roar of a motor, he realized that another automobile was approaching, and being driven far too fast for safety on the dangerous road.
Van quickly decided that something must have happened up ahead. Since the red barn was the only building on this side road, the trouble must have occurred there.
Although the coupé he was now using was a ramshackle-looking vehicle, it was one of the Phantom's own special-built jobs, and it's appearance was deceptive.
He had found it advisable to own a number of cars in his work, and they were all fast motor jobs with a considerable amount of bullet-proofing.
As he swung off the road a small sedan careened into view around the muddy turn. Immediately a tommy gun in the hands of the man seated beside the driver began roaring.
It was well that Van's coupé was made of the best thin steel armor. Lead droned through space, and slugs rattled against the side of the car.
Easy Money Hogan at the wheel, and he was coming out of the side road as if the devil were on his heels. The man beside him was still working the tommy gun, and he had not asked any questions about another car having stopped there to wait.
As a bit of flattened lead stung his jaw and slugs sang crazily through the open coupé window, Van rolled over, opened the opposite door and dropped out. Striking the ground, he snapped his automatic out of a shoulder bolster.
The gunman handling the tommy kept his weapon on the coupé, his aim deflected only by Hogan's wild skidding of the car on the slick mud.
There was every evidence that Hogan had arrived far ahead of the time Slug Bolton might be expected, probably to scout out the place with an eye to a cache of diamonds. And now Hogan was leaving as if he had run info some bind of a trap.
FOR a brief moment the sedan slowed down, and the slugs from the submachine-gun came lower. The Phantom realized it was no time to consider Hogan's value alive. Grimly he fired two shots from his heavy automatic, placing both bullets right above the licking, deadly tongue of the tommy gun.
"He got me!" screamed the man beside Hogan.
The submachine-gun bounced into the road. The Hogan sedan sheered about, paused a split-second, then went over onto the high bank of the small reservoir.
It made three complete somersaults before it splashed into the shallow edge of the pond. Van's deadly aim had clipped both men.
The gunman's body flew out. Van did not hold much hope for this killer. He never hesitated to remove permanently the class of assassins who employed choppers. The gunman sprawled on the sloping bank, very peaceful and very dead.
Van was on his feet, dropping down the steep pitch to the bank of the pond before Easy Money Hogan's sedan ceased turning over the last time. Hogan's body projected through the driver's window, well above the water, when the sedan settled on its final turn.
There was a round black hole in the center of the night club owner's forehead. Easy Money Hogan was finished with all nefarious pursuits. Deliberately Van dragged the body out of the car and pushed it under the water where it would not be easily found.
"Something happened at the barn that needs a quick once-over," decided the Phantom as he hurried back to his coupé and climbed in. "I'd better go see what's wrong there."
As he drove closer to the red barn standing drearily in the rain, Van spotted a figure sprawled in the open doorway of the place. He jumped out of the car, recognizing Wilton Andrews, the sour-faced, dyspeptic trustee of the Lemore Department Store.
Van knew Andrews was dead before he reached the motionless form. The killer had made sure of his victim by pumping all of the lead in his gun into Andrews' body.
Drawing close, he saw that Wilton Andrews had been prepared for trouble. He still clutched an automatic in his stiffening fingers. Van examined the gun and found that several shots had evidently been fired by Andrews before he had been killed. At least, the weapon the Phantom held only had two shells left in the cartridge clip.
Leaving the body where it had fallen, Van stepped into the cabin.
The table in the middle of the room was overturned. A dresser into which he had placed some clothes from his coupé on his previous visit had been ransacked, its contents strewn all over the floor.
Van started toward the place where the hidden ladder gave access to the attic. He would know within a few seconds, at least by sound, what had happened.
"Probably Wilton Andrews got the jump on the other trustees and came out here ahead of time," murmured Van. "He might have intended to see Slug Bolton and start fixing up things his own way, or to try and get a line on what Bolton might have learned from Grimes in the Sing-Sing Death House."
Van put the ladder into place, still mentally reviewing what might have happened.
"Then Hogan must have arrived here early and recognized Andrews. Hogan probably suspected a trap and gunned Andrews down, or he might have killed the trustee because of Andrews having some secret association with the Blade gang."
WITH one foot placed on the lowest rung of the ladder, the Phantom suddenly slipped out of sight as he heard another car coming along the road to the barn
Van now wisely selected a spot where he could watch and hear the new arrivals through an open window without his being seen from outside.
Hal Drake, looking alert and suspicious, and quiet, dark-haired Carl Blanton climbed out of a coupé, their gaze centered on the figure of the dead man sprawled in the doorway.
"Good lord!" exclaimed Blanton. "That dead man back there in the car by the pond—and now this!"
"Who is it?" Hal Drake whispered hoarsely.
"I'm not sure." Blanton moved closer to the corpse. "Great heavens! It's Wilton Andrews!"
"You're right." Drake shuddered as he gazed at the dead man. "Let's get out of here, Blanton. We were fools for coming in the first place. Somebody might kill us like they did Andrews."
"Calm down," urged Blanton quietly. "First you get your car stuck in the mud so badly you can't move it and I have to bring you here in my coupé. Now you want to run away." From his position at the window Van looked closely at Blanton's automobile as he heard the big, dark-haired man's words. There was considerable dried mud high on the doors of the coupé, as if the car had been over the road before Blanton had encountered Hal Drake."
Van wished he had been given time to reach the strange, silent witness concealed in the barn attic, but there was no chance of doing so now. He felt it was time for him to make his appearance as Slug Bolton.
Stepping to the open door, he stood there looking at the two men outside, his automatic held in his hand.
"Glad to see you, gents," he said in the voice of the ex-convict. "Come right in, but don't try any tricks. There's been too much killing around here already."
"You—you murdered Andrews!" gasped Hal Drake, glaring at the hard-faced man in the doorway.
"Shut up, Drake, or you'll get us both killed," growled Blanton. "All right, Bolton, if that's who you are, we'll come inside."
"That's smart," approved Van, and for the moment he left his own identity in doubt. "You're the other two trustees from the Lemore Department Store, huh?" He scowled. "Well, you slipped up in sendin' mugs ahead to take care of me. You see what happened to this fellow Andrews? I just heard you mention his name." The Phantom stepped back and the two men entered the cabin. Hal Drake sank weakly into the nearest chair and sat there nervously watching the man he believed was Slug Bolton. Carl Blanton gazed calmly at Van.
"Don't tell me you expect to get away with this, Bolton," stated the big man with a sneer. "You send for us to come here, saying you have some information from Lafe Grimes that would hurt the store business if it were known, and when we arrive we find you have shot Andrews to death."
"That's right." Drake suddenly appeared to regain his courage. "And Bolton talked about our sending mugs ahead to take care of him." The little man frowned. "He is talking wildly."
"Have a look at Andrews' rod, Mister," murmured Van, directing his attention to Blanton. "But don't get your prints on it. That might be my alibi, see! You'll find your fellow trustee did some shootin' first."
CARL BLANTON quickly examined the gun that the Phantom had replaced in the dead man's hand. Then the big store trustee rose to his feet.
"The gun has been fired, all right," Blanton said. "But that doesn't prove you didn't kill him, Bolton."
Van was thinking swiftly. He had no further use for the presence of Hal Drake and Carl Blanton. He was certain that all he wanted to know was recorded permanently by his "silent witness" in the attic.
"I don't like double-crossers," Van growled in the character of the ex-convict. "So I won't deal with you two guys. This Andrews mug must have been playin' a crooked game or he wouldn't have sneaked out here ahead of the time set. We'll call it a day." Carl Blanton stared down at Andrews' body.
"It seems impossible to believe that Andrews could have been a criminal," said the big man. "He probably had some other reason for coming on ahead." Blanton glared at Van, "Anyway, you'll take the rap for killing him, Bolton."
Hal Drake nodded, his tongue licking dry lips.
"Wilton Andrews always had been honest," he asserted. "I'm sure of that."
"Oh, yeah?" snapped Van. "Well, you guys can argue about it by yourselves. I'm leaving right now!"
His back was toward Drake and Blanton as he walked toward the door. But he was ready for trouble, and whirled and ducked just an instant before a gun blasted behind him.
Hal Drake had leaped to his feet and was triggering an automatic, the slugs droning harmlessly above the Phantom's turning, diving body.
Van hit Drake at the knees in a flying tackle and knocked the smaller man off his feet. Drake's gun bounced on the floor, but he was berserk with rage.
"You didn't think I'd let you walk out, did you?" shouted Drake. "You killed Andrews!"
Van saw Carl Blanton reaching for a gun. Before the trustee could drag the weapon out of his pocket, the Phantom picked up Hal Drake bodily and flung him at Blanton.
Drake's body struck Blanton across the legs, knocking him off balance. At the same time Van catapulted forward and landed a knockout punch on Blanton's jaw.
A moment later the Phantom found that both men were sprawled on the floor, out cold, for Drake had struck his head against the doorsill in his fall.
"So they were prepared to pay Slug Bolton, to either give or suppress any information he might have from Lafe Grimes," said Van as he got the two men's guns. "And just to make it look good for the time I'll take the money."
NODDING in grim satisfaction, the Phantom pocketed a thick roll of bills taken from Carl Blanton's pocket. Hal Drake had come to his senses, but he was shaking with fear as he sat up. Van slapped Blanton back to consciousness.
Both men got to their feet, and the Phantom moved back.
"Into your car and keep rollin'," snapped the man they thought was Slug Bolton, covering them with his gun. "Go on, beat it!"
Hal Drake scuttled toward the car outside and climbed in. Carl Blanton was more deliberate about his departure.
"You rotten killer!" he said over his shoulder as he reached the door. "You won't get out of these hills. I'll see to that!"
"Keep movin', lug!" ordered Van coldly.
He stood in the doorway of the cabin with his gun in his hand as Blanton's car slithered out over the rainy road. He listened when they were a short distance away. He heard the car stop. Then there was a crash of metal.
"Smart at that," he murmured. "They're making sure I haven't the coupé in which to leave. It is well to be prepared for all emergencies."
Positive that the two men had gone, the Phantom climbed up the ladder to the attic of the converted barn and retrieved the long pipe he had placed there, set upon a tripod.
He removed a roll of rubbery ribbon, thrusting it into his pocket. Picking up the small camera, Van detached it from the mechanism which had operated its shutter automatically by waves of sound.
He did not want to be burdened now with the hollow pipe. His silent witness was neither remarkable nor unusual. In the radio and movie business it was the latest in what is termed a "line microphone."
It was a long-distance recorder for radio, television and movies. When extended, it was about six feet long, with a series of quarter-inch pipes encased in a metal sleeve.
Many perforations in the sleeve were pickup points for sound waves. These were carried through pipes to the ribbon transducer which set up electrical impulses.
Unlike an ordinary microphone, it was highly directional. It could pick up all sounds at a distance of at least one hundred feet.
On that rolled ribbon in his pocket the Phantom believed he had an adequate record of everything that had happened in the cabin since the premature arrival of the murdered Wilton Andrews.
However, there was no time to run off the ribbon now because he was anxious to get away. Hal Drake and Carl Blanton would doubtlessly use the first available telephone to set the police on his trail, and they had put his coupé out of commission.
"As if a killer would be dumb enough to try getting out in a car they could describe," said Van. "They would have been smarter to have permitted me to try it."
Carrying the small camera and his record of the Wilton Andrews murder, the Phantom went straight into the thick woods. For a mile he was in a rough stretch where the only living thing he saw was a squirrel.
With the aid of his make-up kit Van paused to make quick but radical changes in his appearance. A description of Slug Bolton would scarcely have fitted him, any more than would the details concerning his coupé have covered the canvas-topped sports roadster he drove out of a side road where he had left it for just such an emergency as this.
HE SMILED thinly when he heard the state police sirens whooping up echoes in the Connecticut hills a few minutes later. The murder of Wilton Andrews had become public property. The manhunt was on.
But Van encountered no interference as he sent his sports roadster through the rain toward New York. Upon his return to the city he telephoned Frank Havens.
"We're getting nowhere, except in deeper," exclaimed Havens. "We have a news association story that Wilton Andrews had been murdered, that a gunman associated with Easy Money Hogan has been found drilled. In addition, a police alarm is out for you, if you are still Slug Bolton."
"Correct, Frank," Van responded calmly, relieved that Hogan's body had not yet been found, for that fitted in with his plans. "That's the way I want it for a time. What about the story of a reprieve for Lafe Grimes?"
"It's in the paper now on the street, but I don't like this. Our story that Grimes will be permitted to live until Martha Lemore is released unharmed has brought no results."
"It will," said the Phantom. "Everything is working out all right."
He hung up, then telephoned Pat O'Hara and gave the store detective some carefully guarded instructions. Afterward, Van returned to his penthouse apartment and was very busy there for a few hours.
It was growing dark, and near closing time at the Lemore Department Store when the Phantom entered a telephone booth in downtown Manhattan. His first call was to Inspector Gregg.
"I'll soon give you the murderer of Wilton Andrews for the Connecticut police, Inspector," stated Van. "In the meantime, it is time to make the move we have discussed."
"I have had men at the cold storage warehouse for hours, Phantom, but we've permitted several persons to come and go," said Gregg. "We are ready to cut off the phone wires instantly. You believe there is a possibility of Martha Lemore being in there?"
"It is possible she is there, but I doubt it," declared the Phantom. "I think the girl is being held where the showdown will come as soon as the warehouse is raided. I'll join you near the warehouse in twenty minutes. Be sure that no one leaving the place, not even Sonny Blade, if he is seen, is stopped."
"I'm taking a long chance, Phantom, but you're running this show," stated Inspector Gregg. "In twenty minutes, the street above the warehouse. The phone wires will be cut as soon as you appear."
The Phantom hung up, then dialed the Lemore Department Store. He had timed it to catch the switchboard a minute or two before closing. He asked for Miss Brinkley. The coldly clear voice of the green-eyed young woman answered. Van spoke huskily, hurriedly.
"I'm—" he partly mumbled a name—one of the extra clerks in the jewelry department. "Is O'Hara, the store detective, there?" He knew that O'Hara should be in the reception room, for the store detective chief had his orders. "I must talk to him. It is a matter of life and death!"
"Here is Mr. O'Hara," said Miss Brinkley, and Van realized that she had connected O'Hara on one of the extensions in the reception room of the private office and was still listening. "Go ahead."
"Yes, what is it?" demanded O'Hara.
VAN forced a note of frantic excitement into his voice. "I planted a time bomb in the diamond vault. It will blow off the time combination and it's set for an hour from now. Easy Money Hogan and his men forced me to do it, and they are concealed in the store, waiting. Hogan is just back from a trip. He has Slug Bolton, an ex-convict, who told him something about the store."
"Men hidden in the building?" exclaimed O'Hara. "Time bomb? You're either drunk or crazy."
"No, I'm not. I mean it. For heaven's sake, tell Mr. Lemore that Hogan is out to get him. Warn him to get away if he is still there! I think they mean to raid the vault, then burn the store." Van paused, then his tone grew wilder. "I can't talk any more—I'm afraid I'm being followed!"
Van smiled grimly as he hung up. He was sure that Ann Brinkley had been listening to everything he had said to O'Hara, and that was the reason why he had phoned and given what the chief of the store detectives knew was an entirely false alarm.
Shortly after Van completed his call a watchman and four other men were trapped in the noiseless, efficient raid on the fur storage warehouse of the Lemore Department Store on the Hudson River front.
A small heated room was found fully equipped with diamond-cutting and polishing machinery and tools. The quantity of unset stones on hand brought a gasp from Inspector Gregg as he and the Phantom investigated the place.
"But it's wholesale, business that never could be handled through a fence," said Inspector Gregg. "There must be a million in diamonds right here."
"They were not handled by a fence," murmured Van. "These re-cut diamonds were being disposed of openly at prices five times greater than any fence would have paid, because they were on sale at the Lemore Department Store!"
"Impossible!" gasped Gregg. "You mean all of the jewel murders are linked with the store?"
"Right. All part of an immense plan," said the Phantom. "And the Lemore Department Store books will probably show that the biggest buying has been from the supposedly reputable house of Young and Randall, Hoboken, N.J."
Van looked at the captured workmen, then resumed.
"When these cutters who worked here confess, you'll probably learn they were brought in because honest workmen with Young and Randall would not handle the stones."
"And you say these stones are openly recorded on the books of the store?" demanded Gregg.
"They are," stated Van. "That is one thing I had O'Hara find out for me by questioning various people in the purchasing department."
"Great glory, Phantom!" exclaimed the inspector. "Then Rufus Lemore mast be in this up to his neck!"
"That's right," said the Phantom. "Lemore has signed orders and checks in payment for hot recut diamonds. And don't forget that Lafe Grimes has admitted there was a third man in the car with him the night Young, of Young and Randall was killed."
"Then it's up to us to arrest Rufus Lemore at once," Gregg said. "And I won't find it a pleasure."
"The arrest must wait a little while. Inspector," said Van. "No news of this raid must leak out within the next hour or so. Only by working alone can I hope to save the life of Martha Lemore.
"Hold these men incommunicado and give me one half-hour. At the end of that time, if you haven't received an emergency call in the meantime, cover the Lemore Department Store so that not even a rat could escape. When you do, be sure to have plenty of men at every door ready to shoot."
"But Martha and Rufus Lemore, Phantom?" demanded the Inspector, "What about them?"
"I think the answer to everything will be found right at the store," stated Van. "I want Martha and Rufus Lemore to have a chance to live. That's why I'm going alone."
DISGUISED once more as Slug Bolton, the Phantom reached the south side street alongside the big department store. The narrow canyon between the tall buildings was ominously quiet. Merging with the shadows, Van approached the side door that was close to Rufus Lemore's private elevator. Pausing, he gave a low whistle. He had hoped to find Pat O'Hara waiting, but he received no reply.
"The clever Miss Brinkley suspected too much," said Van grimly. "I only hope O'Hara was prepared."
He touched the big side door. To his surprise it slid open to his hand. Stepping inside, Van's heavy automatic snapped into his hand. Under a vague light near the freight elevator which adjoined Rufus Lemore's private elevator shaft, lay Pat O'Hara.
Beside the detective was another huddled figure. The gray hair and gold-rimmed glasses of Rufus Lemore were stained with blood. A silent weapon had been employed.
Van turned quickly to Pat O'Hara. A long heavy welt showed across the base of the young Irishman's skull. The blow could have been fatal, but O'Hara was still breathing. Rufus Lemore also lived, but his pulse was weak.
The Phantom carried both men quickly into the darkness among the piled boxes of store stock. Making certain they were well-concealed, he administered stimulants from his ready makeup case.
He judged O'Hara would be all right. Lemore had a slighter chance, but Van was compelled to leave them there. Despair rolled through him because his plan had not worked out as he had hoped.
Returning to the private, self-operating elevator to Lemore's private office on the fourth floor, Van wondered if he would be in time. He stood tensely, his gun ready, as he pressed the automatic elevator button and the cage slowly descended. It was empty when he cautiously opened the door.
Van entered and pressed the button for the fourth-floor stop. He was trying to guess what he would find there. He watched the passing floors. Floor two seemed blurred as he passed and floor three was wholly invisible, for the Phantom was stretched lifelessly upon the floor of the elevator!
The cage stopped automatically at the fourth floor, and the door opened.
"Hurry, bring him out," a hard voice said. "But don't breathe. Huh, if it ain't Slug Bolton himself. I was hoping the gas box over the grating would get Easy Money Hogan. Leave the gas working and send the elevator down again."
The Phantom was unaware when he was carried across the private office of Rufus Lemore and through a door into a smaller room.
This was part of a suite that was equipped for sleeping and had a small kitchen. Rufus Lemore had often used this tiny office apartment when he was rushed and stayed late at the store.
SONNY BLADE, his eyes hard, but his jaws working over a cud of gum, was swearing savagely.
"I thought Hogan had Slug Bolton a prisoner," said Blade. "But look at this heater."
He had taken the Phantom's heavy automatic out of the shoulder holster. It was lucky for Van that Sonny Blade thought him to be Slug Bolton or the blond-haired gang leader might have made a more revealing search...
"We've waited too long; we've got to be in the clear when that bomb explodes. Either this is some kind of a gag or Easy Money Hogan was tipped off and sent Slug Bolton ahead to see what was up."
The Phantom heard the words vaguely, as if from a great distance. He awoke, fighting back the nausea that started his stomach muscles retching.
"What about the Lemore dame and this other double-crosser?" another voice asked thinly.
"When the bomb busts that vault, the game is up here as soon as the police horn in," replied Sonny Blade savagely. "And I'm going to be in the clear with my boys. We'll just leave the dames, set off one of the little fire bombs and no one will know what's what."
"But, Sonny, you mean you'll leave the boss on the spot?" protested the thin voice. "If he squeals—"
"Aw, he won't squeal!" snapped Blade. "Ain't we got most of the dough out of the checks already paid over? Let the boss look out for himself."
"But that's not the plan, Sonny," insisted the other voice. "The boss has worked it so when Rufus Lemore goes out, he'll soon have control of the store itself. If we blow the works we won't be in on it."
"You won't blow the works!" A new voice broke in, hard and angry. "I was all set for this, you rats. Don't move any of you. It's too bad, but I won't be needing you any more!" Van was struggling slowly to his feet. He heard Sonny Blade shout an oath.
"Don't!" screamed the other thin voice. "You can't do that!"
Two shots seemed to crack together, and there was the dull thud of falling bodies. There was a loud, harsh laugh. The door leading into Rufus Lemore's private little office apartment was suddenly illuminated by a glaring explosion.
"And when they save all but the fourth floor," the hard voice cried out loudly, "they'll find only some bones!"
The Phantom's quick senses enabled him to observe much as he got to his feet and looked about him. He glimpsed the bound figure of Martha Lemore on a couch at the side of the small room he was in.
Van lunged through the door, holding his breath against smoky, choking fumes and heat. He could see two men sprawled on the floor, dead from bullet wounds.
One of them was the blond-haired gang leader, Sonny Blade. Three or four other men were in the smoke that was now beginning to fill with tongues of flame, and the mobsters were trying to crowd out through the door of the private office leading into the reception room.
From outside a gun blasted and the men fell back. They were so busy trying to save themselves that they did not even notice the Phantom. Van discovered the shadowy figure of Ann Brinkley lying on the floor near Blade and the other man who had been shot down.
THE incendiary bomb apparently was of the ordinary pyrosulphuric acid type, deadly enough, but burning with far less intensity than would one of the thermite and magnesium type previously employed by the Blade gang.
Van discovered that Miss Brinkley was alive but unconscious, and quickly picked her up in his arms. He saw to his surprise that the door to the automatic elevator was open, and realized that the master killer had appeared from that direction and evidently expected to escape down the fire stairs inside the main part of the fourth floor.
Livid tongues of flame flickered across the outer doorway of the reception room as the three surviving members of the Blade gang tried to break out once more, their guns blazing. But again the master killer out in the corridor, who was apparently well-protected, cut into them with blaring lead.
Two of the men collapsed under the withering hail of bullets. But the third gangster made a wild dash out into the corridor, his automatic roaring in his hand.
Suddenly he uttered a cry of mortal agony and pitched forward on his face.
Hastily Van placed Ann Brinkley on the floor of the elevator. Rushing back, he picked up Martha Lemore, carried her to the car and placed her beside the blonde woman.
One of the men the master killer had shot moaned and stirred. The Phantom ran to the wounded gangster and dragged him to the elevator. If the man lived he could be forced to talk, and perhaps tell more of the plans of the Blade gang.
All the shooting had stopped. Evidently the master killer was making his escape, satisfied that he had killed all those who might betray his identity.
The fire was spreading rapidly, licking at the walls and office furniture, devouring the fishing trophies of Rufus Lemore. And in the midst of the fierce flames was the body of Sonny Blade who, like so many crooks and killers before him, had been used and then double-crossed by a clever, greedy boss.
Van closed the elevator door and sent the cage downward. His watch was intact. He was amazed to see that everything had happened so quickly that the half hour he had given Inspector Gregg still lacked seven minutes of being over.
Glancing at his three unconscious passengers, the Phantom noted with relief that Martha Lemore was unharmed, and sleeping heavily under some drug that had been administered to her.
Ann Brinkley did not move, though her breathing was slow and regular. Thinking of the blonde's connection in the entire affair, Van came to the grim conclusion that she had undoubtedly been playing a double game with the two gangsters, Easy Money Hogan and Sonny Blade.
As the elevator reached the street floor, the Phantom's gaze shifted to the wounded gangster.
"If this mobster had been burned in the fire upstairs I'd have a tough time proving that Sonny Blade and his men were actually here tonight," Van mused. "But we'll make this man talk."
Opening the elevator door, he heard the sudden, shrill wailing of fire sirens. At the same instant Inspector Thomas Gregg, leading a squad of policemen, burst into the side doorway with guns in their fists.
BARELY twenty minutes later the firemen reported the fire under control on the fourth floor. The Phantom, still in the role of tough-looking Slug Bolton, was standing with a policeman on either side of him.
"Drake and Blanton, and Jay Rockham will be here in a minute or two," said Inspector Gregg. "Keep your prisoner carefully guarded, men."
The Phantom smiled grimly, for he was the apparent prisoner in one of the big storerooms on the first floor of the store that was now brightly lighted.
Two nearly identical men were seated in chairs that had been brought in by the police and placed around the room.
Pat O'Hara had recovered and was too busy for the moment making sure that Martha Lemore returned to consciousness without too much shock to pay heed to the amazing drama being enacted around him.
Jay Rockham, the dark-faced manager of the jewelry department, entered the storeroom alone. He was wearing evening clothes as if he had been intending to go to a night club.
Carl Blanton and Hal Drake, the two Lemore Department Store trustees entered together. Before they took a good look at the occupants of the room, the dapper little man spoke.
"Lucky that Blanton and I were together when we got the call," said Drake, "I had started home half an hour ago, but remembered something I wanted to tell Blanton and had just returned to his place."
As they became conscious of their surroundings, Drake and Blanton stared at the Phantom and at the two, identical men who were seated in chairs near Inspector Gregg.
"Good lord!" exclaimed Blanton, looking from one man to the other. "They are both Rufus Lemore." The big, dark-haired trustee stepped forward. "Rufus Lemore and his double!" Hal Drake seemed speechless for a moment, then he turned toward the Phantom who stood between the two policemen.
"I don't understand this business of there being two Lemores," said Hal Drake. "But I see you've got Wilton Andrews' murderer, Slug Bolton!"
"Yes, we've got Slug Bolton," said Inspector Gregg. "There has been a fire on the fourth floor of the store and there are some dead men up there. We understand Sonny Blade is one of them."
The inspector looked hard at the two trustees.
"Now, Mr. Drake and Mr. Blanton, what do you know about Blade being in the store or about these two Rufus Lemores?"
"It all seems crazy to me," Drake answered, staring at the two gray-haired men who seemed to be twins. "Which one are you, Rufus?"
Each showing marks of injuries, the two Lemores appeared to be too stupefied to reply.
"Whichever one is the right Rufus Lemore," growled the Phantom in the character of Slug Bolton, "is the guy Lafe Grimes says was with him in the car when Harry Young of Young and Randall was murdered. Maybe this fellow Jay Rockham knows, seeing that one of these Lemores was and is his boss, Clifton Randall of Young and Randall."
ROCKHAM made a quick move toward the doorway, but was snapped back by a watchful policeman.
"I don't know what this convict killer is talking about," Jay Rockham muttered sullenly. "I was only hired here after Bob Donaldson was—"
"Murdered because he knew too much, and so that you could take his place," snapped the Phantom before Rockham could finish, "And Patterson, the night watchman, was rubbed out because he evidently had found out too much about what was going on in Rufus Lemore's private office."
"Why should we take the word of a convict killer?" demanded Hal Drake harshly. "This man tried to sell out to us today and killed Wilton Andrews when he got to Slug Bolton's cabin first."?
"Inspector Gregg," said Van. "You will find a photograph in the pocket of the Rufus Lemore who was shot as he tried to escape down the exit stairs. I discovered it when I examined him then and left it there."
"A photograph?" Gregg looked puzzled.
"Yes, it is a photo of Martha Lemore's uncle, taken from her by Sonny Blade. Steve Huston told me about it. So that Lemore is actually Cliff Randall, who is quite clever at disguises.
"He was all prepared to take the role of Lafe Grimes' brother in a visit to the Sing-Sing death house. He intended to make sure that Lafe Grimes died.
"In fact this Rufus Lemore, or Clifton Randall, has a hypodermic in his pocket already loaded with some slow poison with which he intended to commit a death-house murder to silence Grimes."
"It can't be possible," said Carl Blanton slowly. "Why, Rufus was always in his office. He signed papers." The big, dark-haired trustee uttered a startled exclamation. "Now I understand why Rufus Lemore sometimes changed so suddenly and would not sign his name. The real Lemore was always there, but at certain times he was hidden in his apartment at the store."
"A good guess, Blanton," said Van. "Too bad for Cliff Randall that he did not or could not imitate the calloused scar along Rufus Lemore's forefinger and thumb. Lemore got that from having his hand torn by reel handles when landing big fish.
"I noticed the scar was missing from the hand of the Lemore I talked to when Bob Donaldson was murdered."
"How could you, a convict just released from prison, know all this?" demanded Hal Drake sharply. "I don't understand."
"As the supposedly missing Phantom Detective, I know several other interesting angles of the murders and the diamond sales," responded Van coolly.
"You—the Phantom!" exclaimed Blanton in amazement as he looked at the hard-faced man standing between the two policemen. "But he was drowned when a car went into the river."
"To use a famous quotation, 'My death was greatly exaggerated'," said the Phantom with a grim smile.
He glanced at the blonde girl who had regained consciousness and was sitting in a chair, then went on.
"Miss Brinkley here, who was double-crossing two gang leaders, and tipping off Hogan's mob so that they could attempt to hijack the diamonds stolen by the Blade gang, handled the hypnotic drugs and controlled the real Rufus Lemore. She never permitted him to become conscious enough to realize fully what was happening."
O'HARA had succeeded in reviving Martha, and now that he knew the girl he loved was all right, the store detective was taking a keen interest in what was going on.
"So it was the real Lemore that I saw Miss Brinkley kiss and then have write a check," exclaimed O'Hara. "The blonde dame had the boss so filled up with drugs that she could make him do anything she wanted." The big young Irishman chuckled. "She must have got mixed up once and made a pass at the wrong Lemore and he socked her."
"Or Randall may have discovered that Miss Brinkley was double-crossing the two mob leaders and warned her against it forcefully," said the Phantom. "Anyway, Rufus Lemore was always in his own private office, or in the suite next to it, and drugs kept him stupefied so Randall could take Lemore's place at any time.
"But it required a clever chemist to handle the big end of this plot, which was meant not only to push over millions in diamonds, but eventually to get complete control of the Lemore Department Store."
"So you are the Phantom," stated Carl Blanton as if he still could not quite believe it. "But were you Slug Bolton at that barn? If you were, then who killed Wilton Andrews?"
"Possibly the first of you other two trustees to arrive at the cabin," said Van. "I do know that Easy Money Hogan and one of his men were there and left in a hurry."
"That's it!" exclaimed Blanton. "Hogan must have killed Andrews. Great heavens, Andrews must have been in on this. He had been a chemist."
"We'll know who killed Andrews in a moment," declared the Phantom. "Go ahead, Inspector, let's hear it."
Inspector Gregg reached back and turned on a small machine. A phonographic voice, the sound track ribbon of a special directional microphone started speaking.
The first words carried a startling impact. They were in the voice of the dead Wilton Andrews.
"Blanton? How did you get here? I thought I was ahead of time. Say—You've been going through things. So you're the one back of these—Blanton—listen! Don't! Put down that gun!"
The sound track blurred with crackling gunfire and shouts, then Wilton Andrews' voice turned into a death scream.
Van made a headlong dive. Standing at first as if unbelieving, paralyzed, big Carl Blanton had suddenly snatched a gun out of his pocket.
The weapon flamed, scoring Van's back as he struck Blanton's knees. Blanton went down, his head striking hard against the stone floor. Before he could recover, Inspector Gregg had snapped the cuffs on his wrists.
"A silent witness that you can't dispute, Blanton," stated Van as the big man was helped to his feet. "I suspected it from the dried mud on your car before I heard this recording. Later O'Hara informed me that he had learned Rufus Lemore sometimes gave you power of attorney.
"You were clever. Tonight you thought you were liquidating Cliff Randall and Sonny Blade along with Miss Brinkley and Martha Lemore up on the fourth floor when you shot Blade and one of his men and then escaped."
"Randall is in this as deep as I am," murmured Blanton sullenly. "He got out through one of the private offices and was trying to kill some of Blade's men from the corridor. I won't take the rap for this alone."
"Of course, you won't," agreed the Phantom. "Randall and Jay Rockham will go right along with you. Rockham was brought in after Donaldson's murder to keep an eye on things and help watch the real Lemore. Like most killers, you all overplayed your hand!"
MARTHA LEMORE was beside the real store magnate rubbing his thin hands. The scar on the right one was very plain now. Lemore was slowly recovering from the effect of a powerful drug.
"And my real father has kept silent to protect us," said Martha. "I was sure Dad Lemore had been in the car that night and I have been waiting for him to speak, to admit it. Now I know why he remained silent. He wasn't in the car at all! It was Randall, disguised as Dad Lemore, who killed Harry Young."
"That's right, Martha," replied the Phantom. "Your father was thoroughly convinced Cliff Randall was Rufus Lemore, and that was why he remained silent, until I induced him to talk."
"My real father would have gone to his death without speaking, because of his loyalty to me and to Rufus Lemore?" asked the girl.
"That seems to be the character of Lafe Grimes, Martha."
"From now on I don't care if the whole world knows that my real father was once a convict." Martha raised her dark head proudly, her eyes shining. "I could never again be what I was, and anyway—"
"And anyway you'll be Mrs. Patrick O'Hara when we meet your father as he comes out of jail a free man," broke in the chief of the store detectives.
Martha looked at him, smiled and then nodded.
In that instant while everyone in the room was watching O'Hara and the girl, the Phantom slipped away. He stepped out onto the street and vanished into the night.
But behind him the police would finish the case that he had placed in their hands, and ruthless killers would be sent to their doom.
But even the Phantom could not prophesy how long it would be. Soon another urgent call would come to him from the oppressed, and he would cease being Richard Curtis Van Loan, and again go into battle against the foes of righteousness with all the skill and courage that had made him the Phantom Detective.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.