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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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The Phantom Detective, February 1942, with "Streamlined Murder"
The Phantom races to pursue the greedy perpetrators of shocking crimes! Mystery stalks the weird, baffling death of an aging silk mill tycoon!
JACKLIN ARMSTEAD, retired millionaire, was afraid. Fear was in his eyes as he looked from the window of the crack Miami-New York train that was crossing the last miles of New Jersey. Fear twisted his wide lips as they moved stiffly in the harsh whispers that only he could hear.
"If only the Phantom received my call and can meet the train!" was one whisper he repeated many times.
Then his bleak eyes would turn to a small, expensive traveling case lying on the seat beside him. For an hour or more he had been alone in his stateroom with that leather case.
"I'll never give in!" was another whisper. "But if that should happen to Lara—" And he would slowly add, "I would rather be dead."
Armstead was a hale and hearty man in his early sixties. He was retired now, after a lifetime as a silk mill owner, during which he had built a great industry fairly and honestly, and had amassed millions. Jacklin Armstead would be believed to have many years of happy life before him. Yet here in this stateroom he crouched with bent shoulders, and his full face was haggard.
Several times the millionaire carefully unlocked the little leather case. When he looked inside it, again his stiff lips would repeat his whisper: "If that should happen to Lara—I would rather be dead. But it's the kind of evidence the Phantom can use. I must see that he gets it."
He locked the leather case carefully after each opening. Each time the blood was drained from his face and his eyes appeared to be more sunken. He kept the case close beside him, as if he feared someone might enter and snatch it from him.
He looked out at lights of passing towns. The flying Silver Meteor, he saw, was nearing Elizabeth, New Jersey. This was not a stop, but the crack train usually slowed in the city yards.
Jacklin Armstead kept his eyes fixed upon the window as the Silver Meteor lost speed. He seemed to be holding his breath until the train came to a full stop, a mere ten seconds, then slid smoothly ahead and on through the Elizabeth station.
"The Phantom could have come aboard!" he whispered. "If only I can identify him and let him know they are on this train, all around me, ready to strike! If I can't, though, for they say the Phantom can use a thousand faces, I must be sure to have him find me...
BACK in the luxurious observation lounge of the rear car, nearly all of the seats were filled.
Several soldiers were in the extreme rear of the lounge. Three well-dressed Orientals, appearing to be Japanese tourists, were seated together. They talked in low voices. Their slanted black eyes kept furtive watch upon the forward part of the coach, as if they were expecting someone to enter.
A pretty red-haired woman, probably in her early forties, also watched the forward doorway. She was an attractive woman who apparently was aware of that fact, and when she was not watching the coach ahead, her eyes turned with unmistakable interest toward the men about her.
Claudia Ramer was a widow. She knew how to arrange her svelte figure in the low lounge chair to the best advantage to display her most intriguing charms. Her red lips seemed an invitation as her eyes smiled at each man who noticed her.
But as the Silver Meteor neared Elizabeth, the pretty widow's lips twisted petulantly. She spoke to a heavy-set, red-faced man seated near her.
"I hoped Jacklin would come back here before we reached New York," she said. "Perhaps I should see if he is all right. The poor darling was feeling down about something."
"You're doing all right," the red-faced man said gruffly. "And Jacklin will be along. You look out pretty well for yourself, don't you? An old man and his millions have always been your weakness."
"And tell me why not?" challenged the widow, smiling.
Except for the low-voiced, watchful Japanese, the occupants of the Silver Meteor lounge were gay, and in expectant mood. They would soon be rolling through the Hudson Tube and into the Pennsylvania Station, New York!
But back in his stateroom, Jacklin Armstead was not gay or expectant. A man with every right to be carefree, he still crouched with fear. His eyes moved from the black window to the small traveling case, back again to the window.
His fear might have lifted some if he had known that a lone passenger had swung aboard the train during its brief ten-second stop, had spoken briefly with a trainman and moved on into a coach. For that passenger who had boarded the Silver Meteor at this non-stop station was the world famous Phantom Detective. And he was aboard in answer to the strange message that had come to him in New York from Jacklin Armstead in Miami Beach.
But the Phantom was not to find the fear-ridden millionaire in his stateroom where the great detective had expected him to be. Already Armstead had gone to the observation lounge, unknowing that the Phantom was seeking him quietly through the many cars of the long train.
Just before the Silver Meteor, running late, reached the Elizabeth station, a young man and a willowy, glamorous girl walked through the aisle of a Pullman car.
"That's Lara Armstead," passengers said, and smiled. "The young fellow with her is that poor Professor What's-His-Name she is going to marry."
"Yeah, sure. She turned down a dozen other guys as rich as old Jacklin Armstead himself for that professor fellow. Name's Curtis Lesher. Heard he was once an errand boy in her father's mills."
If the beautiful Lara Armstead heard the whispers, she did not turn her well-poised head as she walked behind the tall Professor Curtis Lesher.
LESHER was light and quick-moving. His clean-cut face was dark with sun-tan. But he must have heard the whispers, for his dark eyes continued to look straight ahead, and a flush crept up the back of his neck.
Young Lesher quickened his stride. He was wishing heartily that he had not come on this trip with the Armsteads. To add to his discomfiture, Jacklin Armstead had been ill in Florida. And Armstead had been too friendly with a pretty widow to suit Lesher's ideas of the fitness of things. Besides, some over-smart columnists had hinted that the Armstead millions might soon be in the possession of Jacklin Armstead's glamor girl daughter, and her one-time errand boy professor.
That had angered Curtis Lesher. But he was more worried about Jacklin Armstead himself now. It troubled him because the millionaire not only was ill, but had been acting queerly ever since the Silver Meteor had left Miami.
Previous to this trip, Armstead had always traveled by plane. This time he had flatly refused, and Lesher was recalling a strange remark Armstead had made.
"I'm not flying. I want to reach New York and my New Jersey place alive."
Lesher, Armstead's daughter, and others close to the millionaire had attributed the unusual stubbornness and brooding to Armstead's illness. Curtis Lesher, however, had been able to see Armstead's real fear of something that bored deeply.
Until within the past few days, Lesher had never known Armstead to be other than his usual jovial, hale, hearty self. Never had he known Jacklin Armstead to be bad tempered, or to indicate that he had either any open or secret fears. Certainly he could have no business worries, for since he had retired from active business, the big Armstead silk mills had been permanently shut down.
Armstead's fortune was as secure as any in America. Apparently the millionaire's one idea now was to enjoy the remaining years of his life that had been so active.
Then had come to the millionaire this inexplicable, brooding fear. In its wake it had brought an irascible temper and impatience.
Walking well ahead of Lara Armstead, young Lesher rapped lightly on the door of Armstead's stateroom. He thought he heard a murmured reply, and turned the knob. The door opened.
Lesher repressed a quick exclamation. His tall, slender body was abruptly interposed between Lara Armstead and any possible view of her father's stateroom. He closed the door quickly.
"What is it, darling?" asked the girl. "What's the matter?"
Young Lesher laughed quickly, nervously. The effort nearly choked him. He had difficulty framing his swift excuse, as again he rapped on the door, but more peremptorily.
"Your father didn't hear me," he said to Lara. "He wasn't quite prepared for anyone coming in suddenly."
The girl's oval face seemed to whiten a little under her coat of Florida tan. She half laughed, but with no humor.
"You're sure, Curt, that's it?"
Then her father's voice said, "Come in!"
Lesher nodded to Lara, but as he reopened the door he still made certain that she did not see into the stateroom too quickly.
WHEN Lesher looked in, Jacklin Armstead was sitting quietly, with a little leather traveling case on the seat beside him. The traveling case was closed—but it had been open when young Lesher had first opened the door. And had Jacklin Armstead, who had not heard Lesher's first rap known his door was unlocked he would never have had the traveling case opened.
For what Curtis Lesher had seen inside that leather case was enough to have caused horror to catch at any man's throat. Even now, looking straight into the sunken, haunted blue eyes of the millionaire, Lesher found it almost impossible to believe the incredible thing he had seen.
"So that is part of his terror," Lesher thought swiftly. "That's why he has never let that traveling case leave his side for one minute since we left our Miami Beach hotel. And that's why he has special guards on the train, keeping an eye upon Lara, and upon me. If I had not seen what I did, I could not believe it! Even now it's too fantastic for belief. No man could carry such a thing as that with him and keep his senses." Unbelievable horror was pervading Lesher's senses.
Only dazedly he heard Lara Armstead say:
"You all right, Dad? Feeling better?"
And Jacklin Armstead smiled. That he could, seemed impossible to Curt Lesher. But in the same moment the young professor was thinking, with the quick decisiveness that was a part of his make-up, how he could assist Armstead.
"I have to get that thing away from the old man! That's what has been driving him close to insanity. No one else must see it. I must get that traveling case. I must see Mr. Armstead alone, and have an understanding."
Because of what he had just seen, Lesher heard what Jacklin Armstead now said with amazement.
"I want to go back to the observation car, Lara dear. Will you and Curtis come along? We'll be in New York soon, and I promised to see Claudia before we arrive."
"Surely, Dad," said the girl instantly, but she could not conceal the swift contraction of her arched brows.
Lesher understood. The "Claudia" of whom Armstead spoke was Mrs. Claudia Ramer, the pretty widow whose newly-made, but close friendship with the retired millionaire had so disturbed Lesher himself.
Armstead and the widow had spent much time together on the beach and elsewhere at Miami Beach. They had been grist for the mills of the columnists who could scarcely be expected to overlook the duo of a pretty red-haired widow and an aging, retired millionaire.
As soon as Armstead announced his desire to go to the observation lounge, young Lesher was instantly hopeful that he would have a chance to get his hands on the leather traveling case. Armstead had kept it constantly beside him, and had even had his meals served in his stateroom, so surely he would leave the case here now. He would scarcely take it with him to the observation salon.
"Go ahead, Lara," said Lesher. He stepped back as Armstead unfolded his lanky frame from the seat. "I'll straighten up things a bit here, and be along shortly."
HE HAD never heard Jacklin Armstead speak as savagely as he did now.
"You'll blame well leave things alone, Curtis!" he growled. "Take my arm. I don't want to go wobbling along the aisles."
Armstead's long, bony fingers gripped the handle of the leather case.
He was taking it with him!
"Dad, what's got into you?" Lara complained. "You'd think you had the family jewels in that case! If you must have it, Curtis will carry it for you!"
"I'm plenty able to carry it myself!" snapped Armstead.
Young Lesher's brain was spinning. He knew well enough why Jacklin Armstead wanted no one but himself to handle that traveling case!
Lesher clamped his teeth hard. Lara who, with her beauty and her fortune had encountered only the pleasant side of life must never know what he had seen.
"To see suddenly inside that traveling case would leave a scar on her memory for life, if it did not shock her to the verge of insanity," was Lesher's grim thought.
But all he could do now was give his arm to the stubborn old man who gripped a shoulder fiercely as they went toward the observation salon in the rear car of the Silver Meteor.
WHEN the Silver Meteor slid silently from the Elizabeth, New Jersey, station, more than a score of persons were in the observation salon. There were murmurs of pleased recognition when the well-known millionaire, Jacklin Armstead, his lovely daughter, and Professor Lesher entered.
The voluptuous red-haired widow, Claudia Ramer, was instantly beside Armstead. In her greenish eyes was a look of possessiveness. She took Jacklin Armstead's arm and snuggled close to him as she smiled sweetly at Lara Armstead.
Seated beside the millionaire, the lovely widow seemed to wish everyone to know that he was her own special property. Her eyes and her red lips were turned provocatively toward him. A sort of envious regret was in the eyes of some of the other men who stirred restlessly, watching the red-haired siren.
As Jacklin Armstead relaxed in a deep chair beside the widow, the big, ruddy-faced, silvery-haired man who had been talking to Mrs. Ramer about Armstead a few minutes before, walked over and spoke.
"Glad to see you around, Jacklin," he said. "But do you think you should exert yourself so much?"
"I'm well able to decide that for myself, Andrew," grunted Armstead, and the ruddy man smiled a little.
The widow held the millionaire's hand, stroking it fondly. The ruddy man looked as if he would like to grunt with disgust. He was Andrew Hamm, attorney, who for years had been Jacklin Armstead's personal counsel.
A week previously he had been summoned to Miami by the retired millionaire. Curtis Lesher had wondered then, was still wondering what had been the subject of that legal conference. And now his interest was more acute than it had been before he had unexpectedly opened Armstead's stateroom door.
"Could Andrew Hamm possibly know what's in that leather traveling case?" was Lesher's tortured thought. "No!" was his decision. "That would be too incredible."
As Andrew Hamm resumed his seat across the lounge, an observer would scarcely have believed him to be any too friendly with Mrs. Ramer. He scowled heavily as the vivacious widow prattled and laughed delightedly to Armstead who had carefully placed the leather traveling case on the floor, touching his leg.
Young Lesher sat down beside Lara Armstead. She spoke to him with low, brittle emphasis.
"I'll see to it that Claudia Ramer isn't entertained in our home at Oldsville," she said. "I'll get Dad out of her clutches if it's the last thing I ever do."
Lesher half nodded. But his mind was not on any romance between Armstead and the red-haired widow. He was thinking:
"If Claudia Ramer knew what's in that leather case her pretty ankle is touching, it would put a grim end to her designing friendship with the old man. If she only knew!"
Lesher glanced at the others in the lounge.
"If anybody here could see through that thin, costly leather," he thought, "how quickly this luxurious lounge of the Silver Meteor would be emptied!" Lara frowned at Lesher's absorption.
"What's the matter with you, Curtis?" she demanded. "You've been acting as if you'd seen a ghost!"
YOUNG Lesher turned so quickly at her casual words, that she exclaimed:
"Good heavens, darling! It must have been a ghost!"
Jacklin Armstead was listening to the red-haired widow, but his deep, sunken eyes were turning this way and that, studying the faces of all about him. When two more men came into the lounge Armstead scrutinized them as if he had been expecting someone. Suddenly disappointment swept his features and he closed his eyes. Then he spoke suddenly, pushing Mrs. Ramer's hand from his arm.
"Claudia, will you please change seats with Lara? I wish to talk with her alone. You'll excuse me?"
Curtis Lesher's nerves, already taut, tightened still more. He ignored the red-haired widow's pettishness as she dropped into Lara's seat beside him, for his mind was on what Armstead could be saying to his daughter in that low tone. One hand covered Armstead's mouth as if he feared someone might read his lips.
Lara Armstead had been more deeply worried than she had shown. First, Mrs. Ramer had been annoying in Miami. Then her father had become ill and the best specialists had failed to diagnose the cause of his trouble. Then he had suddenly and stubbornly refused further medical advice.
Her father's queer actions now were upsetting. His persistence in carrying with him that leather case, as if he alone could guard it, and Lara's discovery that he had employed special guards to watch after her were a matter of alarm.
She had concealed her fears, but the thought that her father's mind had suddenly become affected was terrifying. Lara was a clever girl, though, and could put two and two together. Her father summoning Andrew Hamm, his attorney, and his decision to return home to Oldsville, New Jersey, at once, made it appear to her that possibly some unexpected, outside influence had been exerted upon him.
But Lara Armstead, whose only worry heretofore had been to select places where life could most be enjoyed, was unprepared for her father's hoarse, whispering words.
"Lara," he said abruptly, "you have heard of the Phantom, of course. For you know Muriel Havens so well. And you must know that Frank Havens, her father, is the only man who really knows the identity of the Phantom. They say he has a thousand disguises, Lara, so if any passenger boarded the train back at Elizabeth to ride into New York, he is the Phantom. Perhaps he is right here in this lounge."
"Dad!" exclaimed Lara. "What on earth are you talking about? Of course I know Muriel Havens, and of course I have heard of the famous Phantom. But—why should you be interested in him?"
"Lara," her father said gravely, "I must see the Phantom. In some way I must find out if he got on the train at Elizabeth. I wired Frank Havens, telling him how important it was for me to get in touch with the Phantom at once, and that he must not fail me. Lara, if anything happens before I see him—no one, absolutely no one, must open my traveling case except the Phantom!"
"Dad! Please! You're excited! You'd better go back to your stateroom. We'll be in the station in a few minutes."
Curtis Lesher could not hear the conversation topic, so he turned his attention, wandering from the sulky Mrs. Ramer, to the others in the lounge. Idly he watched two of the three Japanese tourists get up and leave the car. The third Japanese stood by the narrow rear window, watching the forward end of the Silver Meteor as it swung around a long curve.
Four soldiers, apparently with the idea of preparing to leave the train shortly, also started to leave the rear of the lounge. And then calamity struck.
One of the soldiers was the first to fall. He pitched forward on his face. A woman whose eyes had been admiringly watching the soldier, screamed. Then suddenly Mrs. Ramer covered her eyes with her hands and fell forward from her chair.
Lesher's first thought was that Mrs. Ramer had fainted—or was putting on a show. He had just bent forward to help her when another woman fell to the floor.
Andrew Hamm, the lawyer, arose suddenly. He staggered, but kept forging toward the midway door, wholly ignoring Mrs. Ramer and the others on the floor.
There were more cries.
"Dad!" Lara Armstead cried. "Someone! Quick! Curtis!"
Jacklin Armstead's lanky figure seemed to fold up. He fell, huddling across the traveling case on the floor.
Still more cries then, and hard oaths. A few of the lounge's occupants were rushing toward the door which led into the forward half of the car in which there were coach chairs.
The confusion, the shouts and the panicky rush created a sudden bedlam among the passengers in the coach chairs. Some who had leaped to their feet shoved forward to look into the observation lounge—and saw women and men sprawled on the floor. It looked as if every person in the lounge who had not managed to reach the midway door had been struck dead. Someone pulled the emergency cord.
Curtis Lesher reeling as he straightened up saw Lara Armstead collapse over her unconscious father. And as much as he thought of the girl, at that moment another thing was of paramount importance in his mind. Dizzied, fighting to keep on his feet, he pulled the leather case from under Armstead's heavy body.
What could have happened he could not at first guess. There was no odor of any sort of gas that he could detect. But he was beginning to see double—and it came to him then. He was chemist enough to know that that meant odorless, invisible carbon monoxide.
He cursed wildly, fighting his way into the coach part of the car, clutching the leather case. Once he had a wild idea of smashing a window and hurling the case through it. Yet he could not. For if this all should turn out to be wholesale murder on the Silver Meteor, the horrible contents of that traveling case might be the only lead to the killers! He had to hang on to it!
Lesher knocked a man down, getting to the wash-room. Inside, he thrust the leather case up among the loose towels in the rack. He whirled then swiftly, furiously fighting his way back toward the observation lounge through the press of bodies, for the forward part of the car was being rapidly emptied.
THE train lurched around a wide curve. And it was because of this wide curve that, strangely enough, a man named Adrian Parsons who was seated in a car eight cars ahead of the observation lounge, saw clearly what was happening in it. Wide windows revealed its lighted interior.
"There's trouble in the last car!" the man exclaimed. "A lot of people are falling down! There's a man wearing a mask!"
He touched the shoulder of a woman ahead of him. She stared at him and left her seat quickly. She thought he was demented.
Parsons shut up. He was a small business man from Brooklyn who wanted to get home quickly. He was sorry he had spoken to the woman. Adrian Parsons had no means of knowing that his unexpected view of the observation lounge and his brief words had signed his death warrant.
Back in the observation lounge, Curtis Lesher was beside Lara Armstead. Eight or ten others were unconscious on the floor.
Someone had opened the rear emergency door. Fresh air poured into the car as the Silver Meteor slid into the tube under the Hudson River and came to a stop.
Lesher heard Lara murmuring, and breathed a sigh of relief. She was not even completely unconscious.
"Dad—yes," she was muttering disconnectedly. "But what will I tell the Phantom?"
The name of the noted manhunter was no strange one to Curtis Lesher. He, like thousands of others, knew of the amazing exploits of the famous Phantom who for years had brought terror and dismay to the underworld, to the cleverest of criminals. But why should Lara be mentioning him now? That, Lesher could not guess, unless her mind was wandering.
Others on the floor were regaining their senses now. Men and women were sitting up, holding their heads, staring. Lesher's own head had cleared, although he still saw double. He realized then that the gas which had been shot into the car must have quickly been cut off. And the train was now in the tube, where it had stopped.
Lesher saw Andrew Hamm, Armstead's attorney, coming back into the observation lounge. Apparently Hamm had not been put out by the gas, whatever it might be. Lesher recalled then that the attorney had left the lounge in a hurry when Claudia Ramer had fallen to the floor.
Lesher saw that Lara would be all right, and glanced toward Mrs. Ramer. She was sitting up, laughing hysterically.
The conductor, other trainmen and porters were hurrying through the front door of the car. Andrew Hamm halted the conductor as he reached the lounge.
"Everyone passed out," said Hamm. "I missed it by leaving when I started to get dizzy, and I pulled the emergency door cord. But it begins to look as if everyone will be all right—whatever it was that happened."
He glanced up as two men pushed their way to Lara. "Ah!" he said. "Miss Armstead's guards. Lucky for you that you were guarding her in another car."
A big, blond man who might have been a traveling salesman came into the lounge right after the conductor. In his marble-like blue eyes was a somewhat bewildered expression. But his voice held authority as he touched the conductor's arm.
"KEEP everyone back," he said. "Hold everyone who was in this car. And—er—I don't hear the blower of the air-conditioning unit. Why was it turned off?"
"The air unit?" repeated the conductor. "I didn't know it had been turned off."
"Put a guard over the blower shaft in here," ordered the blond man. "The police will want this car set out, for investigation. I would say that carbon monoxide gas came through the blower, but there was not sufficient of it to do more than temporarily knock out those in the car."
"Just a minute, Mister!" snapped the conductor. "Aren't you handing out too many orders? You're the fellow who jumped the train at Elizabeth with mighty little explanation. What's the idea?"
The blond man smiled grimly. "I am known as the Phantom Detective," he said. "I had good reason to meet the Silver Meteor. But it seems that I was a little too late. The man I came to meet is dead."
For the Phantom's keen eyes had needed but once glance at Jacklin Armstead's mummylike features to see that the retired millionaire owner of the big Oldsville, New Jersey, mills was dead.
As he spoke, he stopped beside Jacklin Armstead. Lara was already on her knees beside her father, sobbing. The Phantom's strong hands lifted her suddenly and set her to one side as if she had been a child. "Sorry, Miss Armstead," he said, "but there may be something more dangerous than carbon monoxide here now... Conductor, empty the lounge quickly! There's a strong odor of cyanide. And cyanide gas was not used before, or all in here would have been dead!" He glanced sharply around. "Who was with Mr. Armstead—the nearest to him?"
"I was with Dad," sobbed Lara. "He fell over. Then I don't remember what happened. But Dad had a traveling case he thought was important—and it's gone!"
THE Phantom's quick investigation of the corpse revealed that Armstead's inside coat pocket and his shirt front were saturated with cyanic acid. With his chin buried on his breast, the millionaire had inhaled the deadly fumes.
Fragments of glass proved that a vial had been broken, apparently inside Armstead's pocket. The Phantom decided that the fatal poison had been spilled close to the dead man's mouth even before the vial had been broken.
Andrew Hamm came forward. "Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "This looks like Jacklin meant to commit suicide! He must have had that cyanide in his pocket, and the vial was broken when he fell from the effects of the other gas. I am Andrew Hamm, his attorney, Phantom."
"I know you, Mr. Hamm," the Phantom said calmly. "But I don't agree with you. My belief is that Jacklin Armstead was murdered. Perhaps that was why all in the car were knocked out—so no one would see the vial being put in his pocket, and the acid saturating his skin."
"Murdered?" cried Lara. "Then whoever took that traveling case is the killer!"
"But how can you be so positive he was murdered, Phantom?" demanded Andrew Hamm. "He could have had that vial in his pocket, and it could have been broken when he fell. The gas that knocked out everyone might have been an accident to the heating system."
"It isn't a heating system, Mr. Hamm," the Phantom said dryly. "It is an air-conditioner with a blower. In some manner, the gas was injected into the air-conditioning stream."
The blower grating had just been taken off. A trainman pulled something out.
"Nothing here but a bit of rubber hose," he said. "It was caught inside the grating. Probably it was pushed through from the outside."
The Phantom had picked up and pocketed a small object from the floor near Jacklin Armstead's body—a rounded piece of glass-like plastic. And it was his strongest reason for stating that Jacklin Armstead had been murdered.
"The traveling case, of which you spoke, Miss Armstead?" he asked. "What did it contain?"
"Only my father knew that," said the girl. "He had not left it out of his sight since we left Miami. Just before the gas came, he told me he wanted you to have the case. He said that was why he had sent for you, Phantom."
The Phantom nodded and paused to listen to the conductor who informed him that several who had been in the lounge had escaped the effects of the carbon monoxide. But it had been impossible to find out the names of all who had been there.
"Claudia Ramer was here," said Lara. "And Professor Lesher. He was—" She glanced around. "Curtis!" she called.
But Curtis Lesher had suddenly disappeared.
Claudia Ramer suddenly proved that venom lay beneath her intriguing charms. She spoke as might a woman who unexpectedly had been robbed. Possibly she felt that to be the case. At least death had abruptly put an end to her designs on the Armstead millions.
"I saw Professor Lesher sneaking out, Phantom," she declared. "He probably knows something he doesn't want to tell."
LARA ARMSTEAD had a temper. Her hand slapped across the red-haired widow's cheek.
"That's a deliberate lie, Mrs. Ramer!" she cried. "You've been doing your best to trap my Father! Now there's no reason for you staying around any longer. I wish you'd get out of my sight!"
"But I wish to question Mrs. Ramer," the Phantom intervened. "Professor Lesher must be in some other car. He'll return, I'm sure."
Trainmen were attempting to clear the coach half of the car, but passengers from other cars were jamming in. To stop the press of curious humanity, the Phantom suggested the train be run into the Pennsylvania Station.
He started back through the cars. Trainmen were busy everywhere, trying to keep passengers from jamming the platforms between cars.
Suddenly the Phantom's quick eye saw a shadowy, furtive figure reflected against the dimly lighted wall of the tube at one side of the train. It was only a glimpse, but even the dim light in the narrow space showed him a flattish dark face. The features were those of a Japanese, or a Formosa Islander. Then he saw that the man, moving fast, was in pursuit of another man.
In the strong light from one of the train windows, the Phantom saw that the man who was speeding ahead of the Jap was the tall, dark Professor Lesher who had been with Lara Armstead. And he was carrying a small traveling case!
That one glimpse sent him to the nearest platform. But as he landed beside the track, in the narrow space between the cars and the tube wall, the Silver Meteor started to move.
The Phantom saw the running Jap raise a gleaming knife in one hand. And he was near enough to chance a throw at Curtis Lesher.
A heavy automatic snapped into the Phantom's hand and he pressed the trigger. The explosion was magnified by the close confines of the tube.
The Jap leaped into the air. His knife spun away and his arm jerked. The Phantom's aim had been accurate and he had only wounded the man's hand, as he had intended. The Jap shot a glance backward, saw the Phantom, and dropped beside the track. It seemed as if he meant to commit suicide, for he rolled directly under one of the silver cars of the slow-moving train.
Before the Phantom could reach the spot, the train gathered speed and was moving faster than he could run. He caught the grab-iron of a passing platform and clung.
There was no evidence along the track that the Jap had been crushed. The Phantom was convinced he was either clinging under a coach, or was now on the other side of the train.
Still more important to the Phantom, Curtis Lesher and the traveling case also had disappeared. The Phantom's guess was that Lesher, too, had found a hold on the train somewhere.
The Phantom wanted to be in the forefront of that train when it reached Pennsylvania Station, for that would be his best chance for grabbing the bag. To do that, however, he could not chance pushing through the jam of passengers in many cars, all eager to get away. The Phantom glanced up, estimating how many feet were between the train roof and the top of the tube.
"Whatever is behind all of this mystery, it has some connection with that traveling case," he told himself, "so I've got to get my hands on it."
HE SWUNG himself to the train roof with a fingerhold where most other men could not have found a grip. Swiftly he glided along the top of the fast-moving train, and was just back of the electric engine when the Silver Meteor pulled alongside its station platform.
The Phantom dropped down, some distance ahead of the passengers pouring from the cars. He thought he saw the Jap he had wounded. The fellow was running toward the exit gate.
The Phantom looked back along the train. Curtis Lesher had either dropped off somewhere, or had stayed back to mingle with the passengers. The Jap was his best bet now.
Two uniformed policemen were at the exit gate as the Phantom dashed ahead, drawing his automatic. Too many persons crowded the gateway for him to risk a shot, but he judged the policemen would halt the Jap if he shouted that the Jap was escaping, and fired a warning bullet in the air.
He was just passing a small motored baggage truck as he lifted the gun. The truck was suddenly swerved to one side. The Phantom had a glimpse of a falling colored porter and of two other men who had diverted the motored truck.
He had to make a flying leap backward to avoid being trapped by the truck as it crashed into the nearest coach. And as instantly the two men who had diverted the truck were disappearing across the tracks, passing around another train.
"This is beginning to be far from an individual murder," the Phantom thought grimly, as he went on toward the passenger gate. "Jacklin Armstead appears to have been justified in his seemingly fantastic call to Frank Havens."
The call that had come from Jacklin Armstead to Frank Havens, publisher of the New York Clarion and a string of other nationwide newspapers, had requested the aid of the Phantom. It had been necessary for Havens to be contacted because, although the Phantom was so widely known to be the world's outstanding enemy of clever criminals and killers, Frank Havens was the only man aware of his real identity.
And 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 of all other playgrounds where his society friends collected for frivolity. To them, he was looked upon as a cynical waster, bored with life, seeking surcease in never-ending play.
But years before 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 had an interest in life. He started training, a form of rigid discipline and education that went beyond that of any other man-hunter, 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 expertness at disguise. 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, and to its perfection he had added many scientific instruments he had himself invented. His library on criminology contained hundreds of volumes.
Ventriloquism and mastery of Oriental studies in hypnotism likewise were 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. He had entered the lists to battle against crime well girded.
NOW, as he reached the exit gateway, to Pennsylvania Station from the Silver Meteor, the Phantom swiftly reviewed the information that had come from the murdered Jacklin Armstead to Frank Havens only forty-eight hours before.
Armstead's wire had read:
PROBABLE MURDERS AND A KIDNAPPING THAT HAVE ALREADY TAKEN PLACE BUT HAVE NOT BECOME PUBLIC ARE PART OF A DIRECT THREAT AGAINST MY DAUGHTER LARA OTHER MEMBERS OF MY FAMILY AND HOUSEHOLD AND MYSELF STOP ALL OF THIS IS THE RESULT OF MY REFUSAL TO BECOME PARTY AS I BELIEVE TO A PLOT INVOLVING MILLIONS STOP CANNOT GIVE DETAILS BUT URGENTLY REQUEST THAT YOU HAVE THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE MAKE CONTACT WITH ME ON THE SILVER METEOR DUE IN NEW YORK CITY LATE THURSDAY STOP AS RESULT OF ALARMING AND TRAGIC CIRCUMSTANCES I HAVE ENGAGED SPECIAL GUARDS FOR MY DAUGHTER LARA WHOSE LIBERTY AND LIFE MAY BE THREATENED
JACKLIN ARMSTEAD
Quick checking on that wire from Jacklin Armstead, with police authorities in vicinity of Oldsville, New Jersey, where his big estate and idle mills were situated, had developed that no reports of any crime, kidnapping or murder, had been received.
But, knowing the conservative reputation of Jacklin Armstead, Frank Havens had complied with his request, though his bizarre report had seemed to have no foundation of fact.
But now as the Phantom moved into the immense waiting room of the Pennsylvania Station, he knew that Jacklin Armstead had had reasons for fears. His own death had substantiated them. And now the Phantom also knew that a welcoming committee of killers had been on hand to meet the Silver Meteor.
Scores of passengers and others milled about under the great, lighted glass roof of the train room, with its many gates. The Phantom's narrow escape from the baggage truck crash and the strange pursuit he had witnessed and interrupted in the Hudson Tube, had told him of evil forces at work.
If, however, he could find Professor Curtis Lesher, and a missing traveling case, that had been taken from beside the corpse of the strangely murdered millionaire it might be another story. To run the professor to earth would be his first objective.
The Phantom saw Frank Havens, then, a rugged man whose newspapers fought for the justice he so well upheld himself. With Havens was Inspector Thomas Gregg, of the New York police, red-faced and grim of mouth. For word of the tragedy on the Silver Meteor had been flashed ahead.
The Phantom contacted Frank Havens and Thomas Gregg, by his left hand tugging gently at his left ear. As the blond salesman he looked to be the Phantom was in a disguise Havens had not seen. His ear tug always was the signal used for those he wished to know he was the Phantom.
"I've sent a squad down to the train, Phantom," said Inspector Gregg. "I waited to see what you might have learned. We have it that Jacklin Armstead was overcome with gas in a car, with many others, and that he was accidentally killed by the breaking of a vial of cyanic acid in his pocket."
"Murdered," said the Phantom. "By the smashing of a vial of cyanide in his pocket. The killer wore a mask, too. I have evidence of that.
"A mask!" exclaimed Gregg. "Just a minute. We have a woman over here who has been talking about some man she thinks witnessed the murder, if that's what it was. She thought the man was crazy, but she's waiting now to point him out to us.
He turned toward a group near the exit gate. As he did there was an outcry and some confusion. Uniformed policemen were attempting to hold back a sudden panicky rush.
BEING a woman with startling information to divulge, the excited lady Inspector Gregg pointed out was talking volubly. A small crowd had collected.
"I'll know the man when I see him!" the woman declared. "We were in a car in the middle of the train, but he says to me, 'I saw a man with a mask and I saw what happened in the observation lounge.' I thought he was crazy, because how could he see through all those cars?"
"All right, lady," growled a policeman. "Just point him out when he comes through the gate."
Adrian Parsons, of Brooklyn, small business man, was making himself as inconspicuous as possible. He knew he had witnessed a murder. But he was late now for dinner, and he did not want to be detained for hours. Anyway, all he had seen was a masked figure, at a distance. His hat brim was over his eyes as he came through the exit gate.
"There he is!" cried the woman who was watching for him. "That little man in the brown suit! He saw the murder!"
Adrian Parsons lifted his head, saw the woman and the policeman. He wished he had not spoken to her. His eyes sought a quick means of evading detention.
But Parsons' worry about being detained and questioned was quickly terminated. The heavy knife that sped at him could have been thrown only by an expert who snapped it with an accurate underhand cast.
The point of the knife struck with sickening force directly under Parsons' chin. It went in deep. Although Parsons lived several minutes while the life blood pumped from a great artery, he told nothing of what he had seen. The death blade had penetrated his larynx.
Inspector Gregg was swearing fervidly as he reached the fallen man. But already the Phantom had seen that the knife victim would never tell anything. The Phantom was speaking hastily to Havens.
"Organized murder has been turned loose by Jacklin Armstead's message, Mr. Havens," he said. "And if they ever get the knife-thrower I'm betting he will be Oriental, possibly a Jap or from Formosa. Are Muriel, Chip Dorlan and Steve Huston waiting?"
"Yes," said Havens. "They're in the car. Muriel is especially anxious, for Lara Armstead is a schoolgirl friend of hers."
Muriel Havens, the pretty, dark-haired daughter of Frank Havens often aided the Phantom on his cases. But like all others, except her father, she had no faintest idea that he was the Richard Curtis Van Loan she knew so well in her own social circle.
The milling crowd under the great, domed glass roof had made it a simple matter for the latest murderer to escape. No one could be found, either who had seen the knife-thrower. The police had been too intent on watching for Adrian Parsons to have been looking for such an unexpected thing as had happened.
"Mr. Havens," the Phantom suggested, "it might be wise to have Muriel meet Lara Armstead as if she had come to the train to meet her friend and stick with Miss Armstead until she hears from me. I have urgent business for a short time. In the meantime, Chip Dorlan and Steve Huston can be looking around for any suspicious appearing Japanese."
ALTHOUGH there had been time for a man to be murdered since Van Loan's meeting with Havens and Inspector Gregg, less than five minutes, in fact, had elapsed. Then Van was on his way again, pushing through the excited crowd, heading for the baggage and parcel rooms, his keen eyes questing for the tall, dark Curtis Lesher. Of course Lesher could have left the station, but Van had an idea that Lesher would remain nearby.
"He's supposed to be engaged to Lara Armstead," Van reasoned. "His flight from the train with Armstead's traveling case indicates he must know what the case contains. But he would stick around, if possible, to see that the girl was safe when she came from the train."
That, to Van, meant that Lesher would dispose of the traveling case temporarily. A parcel locker would be the logical place for that.
"Lesher knows the killers want that case," thought Van. "But quite probably he does not know that Armstead called me into the affair."
As Van hastened toward the parcel room his keen eyes not only were looking for Lesher, but for any Orientals who might be around. Then as Van neared the long rows of lockers, he saw Lesher's tall figure. Lesher had just turned from the checking counter and was rapidly mounting the nearby wide stairs toward the street. And from the way he was glancing back over his shoulder he must know that Van had spotted him, and was getting out of the way.
Van went up the stairs with lithe speed, sure he could overtake Lesher before the man could get away in a taxi. But when Van reached the doorway, Lesher had started to run, was wedging through the sidewalk crowd.
Lesher's flight was abruptly stopped then as two men, running after him, caught up with him. The fist of one of them snapped up. He must have hit Lesher a paralyzing blow.
A blue sedan with the motor running was at the curb, its door opened. Before Van could force his way through the crowd, Lesher had been thrown into the sedan. The car door was slammed and the machine leaped ahead into traffic.
On the instant Van was on the seat beside the driver of the nearest taxi.
"That blue sedan just crossing the lights ahead!" he snapped to the startled taxi driver. "Get it!"
"Not for mine!" growled the driver. "I don't hunt trouble! You ain't a cop!"
"I'm the Phantom Detective," snapped Van. "Not a cop, no. But I want that car ahead."
"The Phantom? You?"
The driver took one look and shook his head. Van suddenly palmed a glittering object.
"Any policeman would know this badge," he said. "Perhaps you may." The driver's expression changed. He was looking at a shining piece of platinum in the shape of a domino. It contained many tiny diamonds. It served to identify the Phantom to all law officers, and to many others, who knew of it.
"You bet, Phantom!" exclaimed the taxi-man. "Here we go!"
HE SHOWED his enthusiasm by jumping the first red light and slithering through traffic with only inches for his fenders. The blue car ahead might be faster, but Van knew its driver would have to be extraordinary if he could outdistance any New York taxi-man in downtown traffic.
Even so, the blue sedan had nearly a block start. It was still a block ahead when it reached Fifth Avenue on East Thirty-fourth Street. It turned into Fifth Avenue, heading downtown.
Van's taxi-man was ignoring traffic whistles and the angry expostulations of other drivers when he reached Twenty-third Street. The blue sedan turned eastward there, making toward the riverfront. Van's driver got his first clear shot at overtaking the sedan in Twenty-third Street, between Madison and Third Avenues.
But the other driver had now realized that the taxi was on his tail. The sedan jumped ahead at high speed. Then it suddenly swerved toward the sidewalk and the rear door was slapped open.
"It's a bump-off!" shouted the Phantom's driver. "Look!"
Van was a little sick as he saw Curtis Lesher's long body land on the sidewalk. It crumpled and rolled, striking the front wall of City College. It seemed impossible the man could be alive.
"The sedan!" snapped Van. "We can do nothing for the man they threw out, but we can do something about them!"
The sedan had rocketed ahead, gaining on the slower taxi. It jumped the car tracks of Third Avenue, and in the next block the sidewalk and street were clear.
Van's heavy automatic came from his holster. It was aimed. The fleeing car was under a bright light when the automatic jetted fire and jolted in Van's hand. He cracked out only three quick shots. The sedan was just starting to make a fast turn into Second Avenue when lead tore out both of its rear tires.
"Glory!" ejaculated the taxi-man. "That's shootin'! Look! They're going over!"
The sedan's high speed on the turn and the suddenly collapsed tires had sent it whirling onto the sidewalk. It turned over and the top smashed in as the car crashed into a building wall.
Van was out, running, before the taxicab stopped. One man had been thrown to the sidewalk from the overturned sedan. He was not badly hurt and as he scrambled to his feet, the rod in his hand racketed. Van heard the taxi-man yell and the taxi climbed the sidewalk.
Van threw down on the gunman as slugs meant for him whined off the sidewalk. He shot with intention of sparing the gunman's life, but the gunman caused his own death. He turned to run as Van's automatic flamed. A bullet meant for his shoulder smashed into his chest. The gunman was dying, unable to speak, when Van reached him.
Two other men were in the car. Both men had been in the front seat, and both had crashed into the windshield, were dead.
Van's quick look of the dead faces proved to him instantly that these three men had been above the type of the average mobster.
The Phantom knew the crime world of the big town perhaps better than most of the New York policemen. It was his quick judgment that these three men who had snatched and perhaps killed Curtis Lesher, had been brought here from some other city.
"And it's a smart setup all the way through," he thought grimly, after a minute's hasty survey of the bodies. "Nothing by which they might be identified, unless they have fingerprint records. Plenty of money on them, but no names or marks in their plain leather wallets. That means a clever organizer and leader—and something big, or it would not have touched Jacklin Armstead."
Van's taxi-man, unhurt except for a ripped ear, came up. He watched in amazement as Van took quick fingerprints for his own investigation and records.
"That's a rented car from one of the agencies up on Broadway," observed the taxi-man. "Looks like they were smart mugs."
Van nodded. A crowd was collecting. A police car arrived. The Phantom identified himself to the police officers, and his story was quickly told. Only investigation at the city morgue could reveal the identity of the dead men it was agreed.
At Van's order, his taxicab went back along Twenty-third Street. A small group was gathered in front of City College, where Curtis Lesher had been thrown from the car. To Van, the way the man had been tossed out had offered little hope that he would be found alive.
But Lesher had disappeared.
"I saw him hit, and I thought sure he was all washed up," a bystander told Van when he got out. "But I'll be hanged if he didn't get up, brush himself off and beat it without a word! He got a taxi up at the corner."
Van headed back toward the Pennsylvania Station. He had no idea who Lesher's snatchers had been, but he did have a small key he had taken from one man's pocket. It looked like a locker key.
The Phantom was sure it had been taken from Lesher, and that it had been all that the kidnappers had wanted!
FRANK HAVENS and Inspector Gregg were still in the station when the Phantom arrived. Chip Dorlan, the Phantom's protege and his assistant in many cases was with them. A thin-faced youth with snapping blue eyes, Chip was an amazing fighter for his size, and his association with the Phantom had sharpened his naturally keen wits. He proved this now, in his report of how promptly he had carried out the Phantom's orders.
"I saw two Japanese, and I followed them, Phantom," said Chip. "I couldn't make out their lingo, but they walked like sailors, and talked like 'em. And they took a local train for Oldsville, New Jersey. I got that from the ticket man."
"Good work, Chip," approved Van. "And the others from the train?"
Frank Havens answered him.
"Lara Armstead, Andrew Hamm, and that widow, Mrs. Ramer, have gone to the New Yorker Hotel for the night. Muriel, who met the Armstead girl, is with the others at the hotel. Steve Huston also is up there, just in case something may crack."
The Phantom nodded his satisfaction at that. Steve Huston, redheaded Clarion reporter, and one of Frank Havens' best police newsmen, had often been with the Phantom when death had reached for both of them. Steve could be counted upon in any pinch.
Inspector Gregg was tired and disgusted.
"Not a thing more on the Armstead murder," he said. "And of course all that other murdered man—Parsons, a Brooklyn man—had to do with it was as a long-distance witness. We didn't get the knife thrower. We haven't any good evidence, either, Phantom, that Jacklin Armstead was murdered. He could have had that cyanide vial in his pocket when he fell."
Van smiled grimly. "It was murder, and when that is proved, I have an idea we will have turned up a nest of brand-new killers. My idea is that Oldsville, New Jersey, soon will be the hot spot to keep an eye on."
Frank Havens nodded, the rugged lines of his face serious.
"There isn't any doubt of that, Phantom," he said. "I had a little talk with Andrew Hamm. And, incidentally, Hamm says he has the toughest job of his life before him. He has the unpleasant duty of informing Lara Armstead that her father made a new will a few days ago in Miami, leaving nearly all of his fortune and the bulk of his estate, including the mills, to his dear friend, Claudia Ramer. He left only ten thousand dollars of all his fortune to his daughter."
The Phantom shook his head, and sighed.
"That often happened before," he said, "and will happen again. Rich men growing older, meet attractive women, and fortunes pass from the hands of rightful heirs for strange reasons. But in this case, I believe that the wresting away of the fortune of Jacklin Armstead's daughter will bear considerable investigation."
On his arrival at the station Van had briefly told of the tragic ending of the three unidentified gunmen. Inspector Gregg was showing evidence of accumulating an increasing headache. He spoke now of the men with whom Van had fought.
"We'll have the dead men's prints sent out at once," he said. "And we'll pick up this Curtis Lesher."
"I would prefer to have Curtis Lesher left free for the time," the Phantom quickly objected. "He committed no crime so far as is known. And quite naturally he will probably be fighting on the side of Lara Armstead. His actions indicate he knows something, and I may learn part of it soon."
HE WAS fingering the key he had taken from the dead man. But, with another thought, he went into a phone booth. After a three-minute call, he returned.
"It may help to know that the three dead gunmen in the rented sedan may have left a partial means of identification," he told Inspector Gregg. "The car was hired by a man who had a truck driver's license in the name of Sam Thomas, and deposited money to cover the car. The agency has the driver's license. The only catch is that Sam Thomas seems to be a truck driver from the distant state of Texas."
"And so far," Inspector Gregg complained unhappily, "we have passengers gassed and a murder on the Silver Meteor, Jap knife throwers, the Jacklin Armstead fortune willed to a red-headed widow, Japanese sailors, Texas truck drivers playing kidnappers and gunmen in Manhattan—and that missing traveling case everybody's been talking about. I'm not ducking trouble, but if some of this outbreak moves down into New Jersey, it will be all right with me."
Van thought he could unveil some of the mystery—about the traveling case. He had the little key in his hand. But something happened to delay his trip to the locker where he believed Curtis Lesher had left the case.
Steve Huston hurried across the station. He rarely betrayed excitement, but he was breathless now.
"There's what-for to pay now!" he burst out. "I was listening in on the phone up at the New Yorker and heard Lawyer Hamm tell Lara Armstead about her father changing his will in favor of the red-haired widow. And if anyone has an idea pretty little Lara is a soft doll, they have another guess coming. She got to Claudia Ramer's room before anyone guessed what she was up to, and the widow lost a lot of her red hair before the hotel boys and some of Lara's own guards stopped the party."
"Where was Muriel?" Frank Havens asked quickly.
"Well—" Steve hesitated—"she was looking on, and I think she was having a good time. But that isn't the pay-off. Right afterward, Lara Armstead and Miss Muriel pulled a fast one. They ditched little Lara's guards, took the Havens' car, and headed out of town. And all that was left was a note to Lawyer Hamm."
Frank Havens looked worried, but there was also a smile in his eyes. That daughter of his had been known to pull some fast ones when she had been called on to work with the Phantom.
"And the note, Steve," Havens questioned.
"As I recall, from the quick look I got at the thing it went something like this. Maybe not the exact words, but close enough. I have a good memory:
" 'Dear Mr. Hamm,' it said, 'I am leaving for Oldsville at once. I refuse to accept my father's will. I believe that red-haired widow had something to do with Dad's murder. I am moving into the house, and if Claudia Ramer attempts to set foot on any of the Armstead property, I'll see that she is kept off if I have to turn Abdul's trained apes loose on her. I will talk this over further with you at Oldsville. In the meantime, I'll not need any more hired guards. I can take care of myself. If you hear from Curtis Lesher, please ask him to communicate with me.' "
THE expression on Inspector Thomas Gregg's red face would have been comical under less serious circumstances.
"And I thought this case already had everything!" he muttered. "Now what! What on earth did she mean by Abdul's trained apes?"
"I know about that," said Steve. "The Comet had a feature story about the Armstead place once, and Abdul isn't the only queer person or thing out there. Abdul is an old Arab. He is, or was, one of Jacklin Armstead's queer hobbies. Abdul trains all kinds of apes, monkeys, chimps, gorillas or what have you. They say he's taught them to use weapons and act like humans on the loose. He has lived on the Armstead place for several years, and has houses for his apes."
Inspector Gregg appeared to be growing dizzy. But Steve Huston was enjoying himself for the moment.
"There's also a crippled circus acrobat out there—called 'Aunt Dora'," he went on. "Armstead gave her a life residence on the place. She may have weak legs, but they say she can bend a rifle barrel with her hands. And then there is Jasper Briggs, an old chemist who occupies a building in the old Armstead mills. He was one of the best textile men in the business, but the feature writer who dug up the Comet story said he has been working for a long time on the idea of a chemical, heatless, invisible fire that will destroy any living thing without leaving a trace."
Inspector Gregg groaned.
"Oldsville might as well have not been on the map before," he said. "But I've a hunch it'll be in the headlines fast enough now."
The Phantom touched his arm.
"Let's have a look at the traveling case before something else breaks, Inspector," he said.
Leaving Havens and Steve Huston in a few moments, the Phantom and Inspector Gregg stood before the steel locker as the little key that had been taken from Curtis Lesher, and recovered from a dead man's pocket, was inserted.
Van removed the expensive, small leather case. It was locked.
"The key probably is among Armstead's effects," said Van, producing a curved steel tool from one pocket.
Using it, the little brass lock was snapped off. Van casually placed the traveling case on one knee as he opened it. But then he knew nothing of the horror that had been in Curtis Lesher's mind when he had seen inside that case, or why Lesher had risked his life to remove the case from beside the corpse of Jacklin Armstead.
Inspector Gregg's profession had made him hard-boiled, for there was little of violence and death that he had not seen. But when he saw inside that bag he uttered a gasping oath.
Van himself felt sick. He had been expecting the case to contain papers or other proof of a vicious plot, to explain why Jacklin Armstead had summoned him. What he did see was a satin-lined case, one side of which contained a small, flat nest of silk fibers—silk as it is before it goes to the spinning machines. The other side of the case was filled with a similar quantity of cotton fibers—cotton of the special variety used for the spinning of lisle thread.
But it was what lay upon the little nest of silk-cotton fibers that had brought that choked oath from Inspector Gregg.
It was a human hand, the slender, beautiful hand of a girl, with red-painted fingernails. It was white and unmarred, almost like wax, although it had been severed at the wrist!
"Good grief, Phantom!" groaned Inspector Gregg. "What do you make of that?"
Van did not reply at once. He was studying a costly ring upon the third finger of the left hand, one which seemed to have been an engagement ring. In the design a pair of claws were merged. In one was held a fiery ruby. In the other was a blue-white diamond that seemed to take fire and glow from the red of the ruby.
Then Van saw the folded paper in the silk beside the severed, awful hand. He opened it and read:
You know whose hand we have sent you. You will remember the ring. The owner of this hand is alive. In a few more days you may receive her other hand. If they do not convince you that you should grant our request—well, the hands of your daughter are even more beautiful. No matter what steps you may take, you will receive your daughter's hands.
After reading that message of fright, the Phantom closed the traveling case. But his trained eyes had noted something he was sure Inspector Gregg had missed.
"I'll keep this case for the present," he said. "Jacklin Armstead had good reason to send word there probably had been an unreported kidnapping. But I am convinced that, as horrible as this is, Armstead was tricked. I will let you know when I'm sure." Then he uttered a word of caution. "It might be well not to let Frank Havens know of this. His daughter is on her way to Oldsville with Lara Armstead, and they are not guarded."
Inspector Gregg agreed to this. Then he looked up as a policeman approached and told him:
"Here's a phone message that came for you from Headquarters, Inspector Gregg. I wrote it down." Inspector Gregg read it, and stared at the Phantom.
"It's a report from state police at Oldsville," he said. "Two servants have just been found dead in the kitchen of the Armstead mansion. Except for their dying together, apparently at the same time, either one might have died from some natural cause. The state police have found no marks upon the bodies, and no evidence of poisoning, unless an autopsy, turns up something."
The Phantom was already moving away. A minute later he had reached Frank Havens.
"I'll take Steve Huston to Oldsville, along with Chip Dorlan," he told Havens. "I'm flying, so I will probably be there before Miss Armstead or Muriel."
He made no mention of what was painfully in his mind—that he was only hoping that Lara Armstead and Muriel Havens would arrive at Oldsville!
SUCH a scene as had been enacted at the Armstead palatial home, far down toward the tip end of New Jersey, only a short time before that telephone message had come for Inspector Gregg from Headquarters—even the Phantom could not have visioned. But had he really been possessed of the psychic vision so many claimed he had, the scene would have sent him there even faster than he was headed for the place and hour or so later, flying.
Stevens, the Armstead gardener, and Jennings, the butler, were very old men. Too old to still be classed as active servants. Yet Jacklin Armstead had been a kindly man and never had discharged a loyal servant. When he had closed his mills, bonuses had taken care of employees made idle.
The old Armstead mansion was a rambling house. Its architecture was of several periods. Each generation had added new wings. But for all of its age and hugeness, the mansion's kitchen was the last word in modern equipment. Although the swamp air of the night, coming from the Jersey marshes, was hot and humid, the kitchen was cool and well conditioned.
Stevens, who had a rough, grayish beard and his dirt-stained hands, and Jennings, whose massive face under his snow-white hair was always smooth and shiny.
The two men entered the kitchen furtively. Jennings went to a window and looked out. He cautiously pulled down the shade before coming over and seating himself at the table.
"I think both of us should know what we must do," he said in a hushed voice. "Now that the master has been killed. We have only Miss Lara we can tell."
The gardener pulled at his tangled beard.
"Or we could go to the police," he suggested timidly. "If one of the big apes has killed Martha, a search should be made. We cannot talk with Abdul, and if he thought we suspected one of his apes, he would kill us."
"But Martha was a friend of the apes," the butler said. "Why, the meanest of them would follow her like a puppy dog. No, Stevens, it cannot be the apes. Jasper Briggs knows. He must. And he is afraid to talk, no matter how much he loves Martha."
Stevens started to speak. His mouth opened—but it stayed that way, without sound. He was staring at the screen door. The inner door was open for air.
Jennings followed the gardener's eyes. A frightful grinning face was pressed close to the screen—the flat-nosed face of a huge chimpanzee. And the beast was holding its ear to the screen as if listening.
"Sometimes I believe what Abdul says," whispered Jennings. "That his apes understand human talk, and that they have a way of telling him what they hear."
"Abdul is half ape himself, in his rags," said Stevens. "But we must do something about Jasper Briggs. If the apes have not destroyed Martha, then Jasper must know where she has been for the last two weeks. Perhaps that is why he is letting strangers visit his laboratory at all hours of the night. It's the first time. He's always guarded his chemical experiments jealously."
THE Martha of whom the old man spoke was the twenty-year-old daughter of Jasper Briggs who for so many years had been a chemist and textile expert with the Armstead mills. Martha, dark and elfin, had been born on the big Armstead estate. She roamed its several hundred acres of hills and marshes like some wild creature, and she and her father lived in the big old building where he'd had his laboratory for ten years.
Now for two weeks, Martha had been missing. Yet Jasper Briggs, who cooked his own meals and never came to the main house, had not spoken of her mysterious absence.
"I saw Jasper through a window of his laboratory tonight," said Stevens. "Three men were there with him. I couldn't hear what was said, but Jasper appeared to be afraid, and the three men—I marked their faces well—seemed to be giving him orders."
The grinning chimpanzee rattled the screen door suddenly. Then it vanished suddenly, as if it had been frightened.
"I don't believe the apes know human talk," said Stevens. "But I don't like such behavior as that."
"If the apes did get Martha Briggs, her father would be afraid of old Abdul," suggested Jennings. "I'm sure those three men you saw have something to do with her being away. They should not be permitted in the mills. Yes, perhaps we should go to the police."
"I would feel better if the police took away some of the meaner apes," said Stevens. "One of the biggest chimps has learned to shoot a bow and arrow, though he can't aim. He almost got me today." He was silent a moment, then asked: "Then it is agreed that if Jasper will not tell us what he knows about Martha tomorrow, we will call the police about her disappearance?"
"But do we know anything to tell them?" said Jennings. "We are old men, Stevens, and we don't reason so well."
"Not so old that we fail to see what should not be," insisted Stevens. "Jennings, I believe that the master's being killed has something to do with what is happening here."
There was a faint scratching at the window. But when Jennings went over quickly no one was to be seen.
"There was a man there, though," he told Stevens. "Not one of the apes. Stevens, to tell the truth I'm afraid. I have a queer feeling we never will tell the police, or even Miss Lara."
"It does seem as if that ape heard what we've been saying and told someone," said Stevens. "Jennings, I do think the murder of Mr. Armstead is connected some way with the queer actions of Jasper Briggs, the disappearance of Martha, and the liberties these visiting strangers at night are taking."
There was a slight creaking near the screen door. Then the heavy inner door was swung shut. The old servants had no time to see if a human hand or some invisible hand had closed the door.
Jennings reached the door first. It would not open. It had been locked from the outside. And only the faint vibrations of the motor operating the air-conditioning units of the modernized mansion could be heard.
"Stevens, we must get out quickly!" Jennings said, but when they reached the door leading to the dining room, it too, was locked.
"The window!" exclaimed Stevens. "I'm afraid, Jennings!"
The two old men never reached the near window. Stevens must have been the first to fall. For when the two old men were found, later, it appeared that the butler had been trying to help the gardener when he, too, had succumbed. And their faces were frozen by death into the lines of alarm and fear that had been there when they had discovered themselves mysteriously trapped.
The two old men had not been dead long when the heavy outer door was opened noiselessly. A hand closed the screen door.
A few minutes later what sounded like a man's heavy voice was complaining beyond the door to the dining room. The closed door was rattled violently.
"Jennings! Why don't you answer the bell? You know it's after time for my toddy! Jennings!"
THEN there was a wrenching sound as if a steel crowbar had been applied to the locked door. A bolt broke with a brittle snap.
It had not been a crowbar. Two immense hands, the fingers crusted and gleaming with diamonds, flung the door open with a force that almost tore it from its hinges.
"Jennings! What in all time is this? Stevens! Jennings!"
The huge jeweled hands and powerful arms were those of a gray-haired woman in a wheelchair. Her lids blinked rapidly over small, inky black eyes and again her voice shook the kitchen with sound and fury. She called out half a dozen other names, those of other servants.
"Come here!" she shouted. "The beasts have got Jennings and Stevens!"
There was faint movement at the screen door. Again the grinning features of a flat-nosed ape were pressed to the screen.
The big woman sent her wheelchair rolling past a table. One hand snatched up a heavy mixing bowl. It was hurled with a force that smashed the screen.
Whether it hit or missed the observing ape, that grinning beast loped awkwardly into the darkness, jabbering hoarsely, jumping up and down in violent rage.
The frightened faces of maids appeared in the dining room doorway then. The big woman commanded them to call the police.
"An' tell them to bring enough bombs to blow up all of that heathen's monkeys!" she shouted. "I told Jacklin no good would come of having them apes around!"
Half an hour later, Sergeant Ripley, in charge of state police, said to the big woman:
"The apes cannot be responsible. Neither of the two dead men has a scratch on him. There's no sign of what killed them, and only an autopsy will show if they have been poisoned."
"Merciful jiminee!" exclaimed the woman. "Tonight Jacklin is murdered in New York. Martha Briggs, as sweet as they come, has been spirited away, and now Jennings and Stevens fall down and die for no reason!"
"We should have been called sooner about Martha Briggs," said Sergeant Ripley. "You are the head of the house now, Aunt Dora. Shall we investigate?"
Aunt Dora Armstead, sister of the dead Jacklin Armstead, rolled her massive head and her chin jerked up and down.
"If I was on my feet, young man, I would take this place apart and choke all of them monkeys to death!" she announced. "Why don't you ask Jasper Briggs what has become of his girl?"
The high-pitched voice of old Jasper Briggs himself spoke from the outer kitchen doorway. His shaggy hair brushed the collar of his rusty old coat, and he gestured with thin, blue-veined hands.
"Don't make such a dumb fuss, Aunt Dora! Martha's away to the beach on an auto trip. I didn't think I had to tell where she's gone, that's all. I've been getting postcards from her every day." He glanced sharply around. "I just heard about Jennings and Stevens. What has happened to them?"
"They died together from some cause undetermined," said Sergeant Ripley. "You are sure then your daughter is all right, Mr. Briggs?"
"Of course I'm sure," Jasper Briggs said testily.
His thin, arched nose was lifted, and he was sniffing. His eyes that appeared bloodshot from lack of sleep, roved about the big kitchen.
He walked over and bent close over the bodies of Jennings and Stevens, continuing to sniff like some bloodhound on the scent.
"There hasn't been anything in the air, and there's no trace of any poison about the bodies," he said. "There isn't any chemical that I cannot detect."
"It couldn't have been that invisible, heatless death fire, you've gone daffy over, Jasper Briggs?" Aunt Dora rumbled.
A wild gleam flashed in the old chemist's eyes. Then his anger died.
"There isn't any such thing, but some day there will be," he said. "The hand of death is upon this house. It came to Jacklin Armstead tonight on a train. It has come here. It will strike again and again."
Sergeant Ripley was undecided about Jasper Briggs. "Just plain crazy, but there's no harm in him," Aunt Dora said, as the old chemist strode from the kitchen.
Outside, among the dark trees, two shadowy figures waited. Sergeant Ripley would have been interested to know that Jasper Briggs went directly to them, and that they talked together in low voices before the old chemist went back to his living quarters in the mill.
ALTHOUGH Oldsville, New Jersey, was two hundred-odd miles from the Phantom's starting point, this was little more than a half-hour hop for his swift new monoplane. Chip Dorlan, glowing because of the confidence reposed in him, was at the controls.
In the Phantom's new plane was one of the most compact and complete laboratories of criminal investigation ever assembled. The Phantom was engaged there now, with red-headed Steve Huston an interested observer. Like other police reporters who are supposed to be tough, Steve could be, himself, when it came to fighting or taking chances. But it was a different thing to watch the study of a girl's beautiful, severed hand.
In examining the hand, Van wore rubber gloves, to avoid erasing possible fingerprints. He was paying especial attention to the costly engagement ring, with its clawed ruby and diamond.
Finished finally, Van placed the hand carefully in a tight, plastic locker.
"I imagine Jacklin Armstead would have been greatly surprised had he known what I have found," was his comment, as he turned then to a study of the fibers of glossy silk and of long stapled cotton.
Steve Huston did not ask for further explanation. He had long since learned that the Phantom always volunteered what he intended to tell. Still, he could not help but wonder what surprising thing it was that the Phantom had discovered about the terrible hand.
With samples of the silk fiber and of the cotton ready to be put under a microscope, Van laid the silk aside and concentrated upon the cotton.
"Steve," he said, "it's possible an international angle may be added to the several odd sides of the Armstead murder. This cotton is of a type not grown in the United States. It comes mostly from India, and is rather in demand just now because of the silk situation."
"I suppose," Steve commented, "that it's probably the kind of cotton used for making the lisle thread stockings they say may replace silk."
Van's next words appeared to be spoken more to himself than to Steve.
"Cotton from India?" he mused questioningly. "Three dead gunmen, one of whom probably is a truck driver with a Texas car license? A Jap killer trying to get possession of this case? It may add up, but not until I know what demand was being made upon Jacklin Armstead."
Chip Dorlan called to him and handed him the radiophone headset. Inspector Gregg was speaking from New York.
"We made a quick check-up on two of those dead gunmen, Phantom," said Gregg. "They had plenty of aliases. Two were ex-convicts from Louisiana. They'd been held several times under suspicion in connection with a truck hijacking and interstate gang of thieves working in the Mississippi Valley. The truck mob was believed to be nation-wide, and to have its directing office somewhere in the East."
"Thanks, Inspector," said Van. "That checks with something else I've learned from the Armstead traveling case. I'll contact you later."
THE Phantom took over the plane controls, and shortly set down on the small flying field at Oldsville. The Armstead estate and mills were some ten miles out along the marshy shore of Jersey, and only one old taxicab was available near the field.
The old man who drove it had all the curiosity of a lifetime native. Van rode in the seat beside him.
"You fellows down here on defense business?" the old fellow asked, even before he knew his passengers' destination.
"In a sort of way," said Van. "How far is it to the estate of Jacklin Armstead?"
"That where you're wantin' to be taken?" The old man's voice sharpened perceptibly.
"And as quickly as you can get us there," said Van.
"Sure—sure! But if you're goin' up to the big house, you'll have to walk more'n a mile, the last of the way! I don't go inside them grounds for love or money, mister! What's more I'm advisin' you to wait for daylight, unless you're aimin' to risk your lives against gorillas that throw bombs and shoot machine-guns!"
"Yes, I've heard about the apes," Van said quietly. "Have you been around the Armstead mills much?"
"Used to work there!" snapped the old man. "An' that's all you're gettin' out of me! I'll drive you to the first gate, an' it'll be five dollars!"
For all of his natural curiosity, the old driver did not speak again.
The taxicab turned off the main concrete highway into a well-kept gravel road. Almost immediately, it was bumping over old switch tracks of a railroad.
Silent and ghostly, the long buildings of the old Armstead mills stretched for two miles along the gravel road. Then there was a patch of junglelike marsh. Beyond the marsh pinpoints of lights showed on higher ground.
The old driver spoke at last, pulling up before a pair of stone columns supporting an iron gate.
"Here she be, mister," he said. "The drive inside twists up to the big house where you see them lights. But I'm warnin' you, if you see any of them gorillas, you run like the devil was on your tail. They throw bombs and shoot guns, I tell you."
Steve Huston chuckled.
"Told you, Phantom, the place is screwy," he said. "Wait until you meet Aunt Dora and old Abdul."
They were out of the cab and the old man was turning hurriedly.
"Guess it's true about old Armstead bein' killed," he leaned out of the window to say. "I tried to get some word of it out of Curtis Lesher, when I drove him out after he come down by plane, too, from New York. Lesher always was a tight mouth, but tonight he didn't say one word. He didn't come down to the gate. Got out back up there by the mills."
And as the taxicab sped away the driver did not know the sudden urge for action he had given the Phantom.
Van could see no one around the heavy iron gate which was spiked at the top and doubly locked. The stone wall was also studded with sharp spikes.
HE GAVE quick directions, for he was apprehensive now about Muriel Havens and Lara Armstead.
"Chip, you and Steve stay here until Lara Armstead and Muriel show up," he ordered. "Some state police should be around, in view of the reported deaths at the house. But, if possible, I want Lara and Muriel kept from entering the grounds or going to the house right away. I have a feeling they are expected, and not by friends."
"I was afraid of that," complained Huston. "We'll do our best, but from what I've seen of Lara Armstead, she'll follow her own ideas."
Van moved back along the spiked wall in the direction of the mills.
"Lesher had something directly in mind in going first to the mills," he mused. "And undoubtedly he knew about the girl's hand in the traveling case. That means he's following up whatever that means to him."
Reaching the marshy stretch near the first of the string of mills, Van went to the top of the wall with the agility of an acrobat. He paused there, evading the precariously sharp spikes. They probably had been placed to keep the "shooting gorillas" inside, as well as to keep out trespassers.
Inside the grounds, the marsh was a tangled thicket. One mill building, apart from the others, loomed up beyond the jungle marsh like some skeleton.
Van saw a light show there, then disappear. From the movement of the light, Van judged it must be coming from a window and that someone probably was walking back and forth in front of it.
Gingerly Van lowered himself into the thicket. He glided as silently as possible through thick brush, moving in the general direction of the old mill in which the light shone.
He came suddenly into a crooked path that might have been some animal runway to a waterhole in the wild. Van's ears were keen for any sudden movement near him. Several times he heard rustling noises, but each time as he paused the rustling ceased. If he were being trailed, his hidden pursuer must be catlike in caution. He thought of the apes, owned by the Arab, Abdul, but though Van had knowledge of all forms of simian life, he knew of no such animals that moved silently in the jungle or any wilderness.
The pathway broadened near the old building, then Van saw that the lighted window was on the second floor. Heavy creeper vines covered the wall. Clinging to them Van raised himself cautiously until he was looking through a partly opened window into a cluttered laboratory and office.
He saw Curtis Lesher then. The elusive young professor, reputed fiancé of Lara Armstead, was standing beside a table. Across from Lesher was a shaggy-haired old man with a thin, arched nose. And from the words Van heard he quickly learned that the old man was Jasper Briggs. Van studied the faces of both men, particularly the dark, angry one of Curtis Lesher.
"YOU might as well stop lying to me, Jasper!" Lesher was saying furiously. "Yes, I see that Martha evidently wrote those postcards you've showed me! But they don't mean a thing! Now I want the truth—if I have to choke it out of you!"
"I've told you the truth," said Jasper Briggs. "Martha is on a trip. She's all right, or she wouldn't be writing me every day."
"Jasper," Lesher said tightly, "I've known you a long time, and you've taught me a lot. But I know Martha isn't all right! I've got to let you have it. Martha has lost one of her hands, for I saw it!"
Jasper Briggs, Martha's father, might have been expected to cry out, to show some intense emotion, but he did not.
"You are crazy, Curtis," was what he said. "Something has affected your mind. Might be because you were with Jacklin when he died?"
"I'm not crazy, Jasper! I saw that hand! I saw the ring I gave her myself last year! I know she quit me cold, but she still had the ring! It was on her hand—her severed hand!"
"You fool, how could she write if her hand is gone?" cried Jasper Briggs, with more impatience than apparent shock. "The ring would be on her left hand, wouldn't it?"
"It was on her left hand, and heaven alone knows where that hand is now!" said Lesher, bringing his fist down upon the table.
"Martha is left-handed," Jasper Briggs said coolly. "She can write only with her left hand, so how could I get these cards if her left hand was gone?"
"They could have been written all at once, then mailed each day, Jasper," said Lesher. "You've got to tell me the truth! What's happened to you? You're coming with me to the house right now and—"
Van had a glimpse of the flat, Oriental face behind Lesher—too late for him to cry out a warning. For the face and the curving gleam of a thrown knife appeared in the same split second.
Jasper Briggs still did not cry out. Not even when Curtis Lesher's head jerked forward, his hands went out, and he fell heavily across the table. But Van's quick eye had seen, even as he heard the heavy knife clatter to the floor, that Lesher had been deliberately knocked out by an expert who had caught him with the hard handle rather than with the blade.
The Japanese who stepped into view was well dressed. But neither of his hands were wounded, so Van knew he was not the same knife thrower he had encountered in the Hudson Tube.
Van was ready to act when another man, a white man, moved into the laboratory. The white man had none of the appearance of a mobster or a crook.
Van had only time enough to observe that the American looked to be some sort of a professional man, about Van's own size and build, and to hear Jasper Briggs cry out, "Stivers! You said Curtis Lesher was not to be hurt!" when a giant hand seemed to rip away the supporting vines to which he was holding. Van was thrown backward.
He turned like a cat in the air, landing upon his feet. His hand was snapping out a sleeve automatic even as he was falling, but the weapon was of no service.
Two huge, awkward figures hurled themselves upon him. Digging, terrible claws cut into his flesh. A massive hairy arm locked around his neck and shut off his breath.
Before a smashing blow brought blackness, his one realization was that he had been seized by two great apes. For once the Phantom, with all his own great strength, had no chance against the surprise attack that locked him between the huge apes, as a tall figure clad in a white burnoose struck the blow that washed out his senses.
LARA ARMSTEAD'S greenish eyes glowed with concentrated hate. At the wheel of Muriel Havens' sedan, Lara was hitting a steady sixty to seventy miles per hour, the sixty in the bad spots. They had been more than an hour on the way, and had covered much more than half of the two hundred miles to the mansion at Oldsville.
Occasionally Lara opened her tightly drawn lips to speak. Everything she said kept to the same line of thought.
"The red-haired gold digger! She killed my Dad! If she didn't do it with her own hands, she was in on it!"
Muriel Havens kept her dark eyes fixed upon the white ribbon of flowing concrete. She had long since ceased attempting to placate the furious heiress whose anger was well justified.
"She had Dad hypnotized!" cried Lara. "He never went in for women! He never thought of anything but the mills!"
But he had retired, and had been enjoying life on the playground of the East Coast, was Muriel's thought.
The car slewed around a sharp curve—and Muriel saw the big truck first. It seemed to lurch down on them from a side road not far ahead as Lara took the long curve at seventy.
"Look out, Lara!" screamed Muriel. "You'll hit that truck!"
Lara was a quick and expert driver. In a breath she had the brakes squealing and the sedan slewing around, but the truck driver was taking all of the highway in turning from the side road.
Muriel clenched her teeth, braced her feet and put her arms over her face. What happened then was one of the miracles of luck, or of quick thinking on Lara Armsteads' part.
"I'll show him!" she grated.
The heavy sedan swerved and jumped for the shoulder of the highway. Its body missed the front bumper of the truck by inches. But the rear bumper of the sedan, still at high speed, hooked the front of the turning truck. The bumper tore off the sedan, and the car lifted straight across the road shoulder and over the shallow ditch. Bouncing and sliding, the sedan remained upright on the rough surface of a field.
The truck driver was not so lucky. The collision had turned his front wheels, sending one down into the ditch, The truck started toppling off the highway that at this late hour was free of traffic.
It went on over, just as Lara Armstead stopped the sedan, and Muriel Havens was rubbing a cut on her forehead where she had been thrown into the windshield.
The crash of the overturned truck brought a hard exclamation to Lara's lips.
"Serves him right! That'll show him!"
That she had been doing seventy around a curve had not occurred to the heiress.
But the next instant as Muriel saw two men scrambling from the cab of the overturned truck and heard their shouts she knew the whole thing had been no accident.
"Get the Armstead dame!" one of the men yelled. "I'll pull the stuff!"
"Lara!" Muriel screamed. "Keep going, if you can! They're after you!"
One man came jumping across the ditch toward the sedan. But Lara jammed in the gears and the sedan leaped to life. The man was near enough to spring for the running board, his hands gripping the door alongside Lara.
WHEN Muriel worked with the Phantom, she always carried a small automatic in her handbag. She was trying to get the little gun now. But Lara was quicker.
Holding the sedan wheel with one hand, Lara snatched the handbag and, just as the man reached in to seize her, she slammed the bag into his face.
The weight of the automatic inside cracked across the man's nose and he lurched, clinging with both hands to the door. The smash of the handbag had spilled its contents, including the automatic, into Lara's lap.
Muriel was forced to seize the steering wheel when Lara let go with both hands to snatch up the gun. The sedan bucked into the shallow ditch and out of it onto the concrete.
Lara tried desperately to fire the small gun, but did not understand the safety catch. This undoubtedly saved the man's life. But Lara cried out and struck him hard between the eyes with the gun. He rolled from the running board.
As Lara again grabbed the steering wheel and straightened the sedan out, there was a brilliant burst of white fire from behind. An explosion made a muffled sound. Looking back, Muriel saw the overturned truck enveloped in flames that covered and appeared to be devouring all of the body of the big vehicle. The white blaze illuminated the sky all around.
"It must have been loaded with powder!" she exclaimed.
Lara was feeding the sedan the gas and the fire was rapidly being left behind, when a state police car whizzed by with siren screaming.
"That truck was waiting for us, Lara!" cried Muriel. "Keep going! We had luck that time, but we're far from Oldsville. Why not stop as soon as we can and get a state police escort?"
"I started to handle this my own way, and I'm not calling in the police!" raged Lara. "That wasn't all luck. I tried my best to ditch that truck!"
Far behind the two girls now, the state police car that had passed them, braked down to avoid running into the fierce blaze that extended across the highway.
"Holy cow!" exclaimed one of the troopers. "I never saw a truck burn like that! I'll have a look around! Maybe someone got trapped!"
But neither of the troopers could get close enough to the burning truck for half an hour to ascertain if it contained bodies. After that, they would not have known...
Off the highway, making their way through a field, two men cursed fluently.
"We'll rate a set-down for missing on an easy one like that!" growled one, "How in all creation did that Armstead dame do it!"
"I'll never know, and I don't think she will," said the other man. "It was only dumb luck that I could get to the tank and set it off in time. Anyway, we missed, and we can still get the dame, and there won't be a thing but a black spot to show there even was a truck on the road."
In only a short while state troopers and others were confirming this. For every vestige of the truck had been consumed, with the exception of tiny twisted bits of steel. License plates, whatever cargo it had carried, everything had gone in the fire.
"Nothing less than a lot of thermite could have done that," declared one of the troopers. "And I've a hunch that the truck was carrying thermite for just that kind of a job in case of an accident."
AT A GAS station two miles down the highway other troopers were questioning the attendant.
"Sure," the man said, "I think I remember that truck. Only one has gone that way during the last hour. It didn't stop, so I didn't get a look at the two men in the cab. But I don't think it was loaded with explosives. The back was wide open, I remember, and it looked to me like bales of cotton were in it."
That bit of information would have been of the greatest interest to the Phantom, but at the moment he knew nothing of the attempt to kill Lara Armstead. In fact, he knew nothing at all of what was going on about him.
Chip Dorlan and Steve Huston were at the locked gate of the Armstead estate to meet Lara and Muriel when they arrived.
Steve Huston did his best to carry out orders.
"I have instructions from the Phantom himself to try to keep you from going on to the house before he returns," said Steve. "You haven't heard, but two servants there were killed an hour or so ago. The Phantom is in there, and he should be back soon. Please, Miss Armstead!"
"Neither the Phantom or anyone else can stop me from taking possession of my own home!" flared Lara Armstead. "I'm seeing to it that a red-haired gold-digger stays out of the place!"
Steve Huston shrugged helplessly as the girl pushed a button in one of the stone columns. A tall, white shape appeared at the iron gate as if he had materialized out of the very darkness itself.
The car lights revealed a pockmarked, swarthy face, with a straight nose between two beady eyes.
"Open up, Abdul!" called Lara Armstead. "And see that your apes keep away from my friends!"
The burnoosed Arab inclined his head, muttering assent. The hinges grated as double locks of the iron gate opened.
"If you two are smart, you'll ride to the house with Muriel and me, and wait for your great Phantom there," Lara advised Steve and Chip. "I want to see him, too. From now on, I'm the one who gives the orders, and if the Phantom wishes to stay, he can help."
Steve Huston chuckled. He had not misjudged the society heiress. But he was thinking how surprised Miss Lara Armstead would be when she attempted to give orders to the world-famous Phantom.
"We'll go with you, Miss Armstead," he murmured. "But if the Phantom doesn't show up in a few minutes, it's our job to get some trace of him."
As the sedan moved, the oily voice of Abdul, the Arab, gave some sort of command. And at what Steve Huston and Chip Dorlan saw ahead in the lights of the car, they stared at each other.
A hulking ape, of the size of an orang-outang, shuffled across the driveway and vanished.
"An' if that monkey wasn't carrying a machine-gun, it was a reasonable facsimile of one," said Steve Huston.
Steve's remark was followed by Muriel's outcry.
"Look! Isn't that a girl running!"
As lightly and fleetly as a young deer, a slim, small figure darted across the swinging car beams. A white face was turned momentarily toward the car.
"Stop—let me out!" shouted Steve.
For he had seen the big ape with what certainly looked like a machine-gun lunging toward the fleeing girl.
"Martha!" Lara Armstead cried. "Martha Briggs!"
Steve had his automatic ready, but he feared to shoot because of the great ape's proximity to the fleeing girl.
"Wait!" he called out, and pushed into the bushes.
A scream from the sedan turned him. Muriel's scream. She had seen the ape drop the thing that was like a machine-gun, and the beast now was cradling Martha Briggs in his hairy arms. Steve was paralyzed when he, too, saw that.
Carrying the girl, the ape shambled across the driveway. Steve still feared to risk a shot.
"Come back to the car!" called Lara. "The apes won't hurt Martha. She has played around with them ever since she was a little girl. They obey her."
The sedan rolled on, although Steve Huston did not feel comfortable at having left the strange girl in the arms of the hairy beast, no matter how well-trained it might be.
REACHING the Armstead mansion, Steve Huston studied the rambling structure, with its different wings built according to architectural ideas of several generations. As a result, some of the windows were tall and narrow, with small panes; others were wide and modern.
Sergeant Ripley of the state police, a blunt-chinned young man, was outside when some of his men halted the car near the house. Lara Armstead seemed to lose her angry hardness when she was informed of the mysterious deaths of Stevens, the gardener, and Jennings, the butler.
"All of this must connect up with the murder of my Father!" she declared firmly. "And it makes me more determined than ever to oppose a will that would give the estate to Claudia Ramer. I'm sure my Father was far from being himself when he made such a will."
Two men were beside Aunt Dora when she appeared in the main doorway in her wheelchair. The older of the men hurried down to meet the car, the house lights shining on his bald head between tufts of gray hair at his temples.
He extended his hands, assisting Lara from the car.
"I came over, my dear child, as soon as I heard the sad news from New York," he said. "And I ran into this other trouble here. I knew you would need someone, and I will do all that I can. Jacklin and I were neighbors for years. To think that such a tragedy should strike us here!"
Even before Lara introduced her friendly neighbor, Steve Huston had identified him as Judge Thurston Jones, a man prominent throughout the state, and being mentioned as a probable candidate for United States senator. His shore estate adjoined that of Jacklin Armstead. The man with him he introduced as Gorman Jones, his son.
Aunt Dora had alarming news to impart quickly. A phone call had just warned that Curtis Lesher was in extreme danger.
"It was a man's voice on the phone, Lara," said Aunt Dora, waving her huge, diamond-studded hands. "He said that Curt is a prisoner, and that if you want to see him alive again you'll leave the house and the estate as soon as you arrive."
"We tried checking the call," State Police Sergeant Ripley said, "but it came from a public phone in Oldsville."
"The man said if you're not gone within half an hour, Curt will be put to death," Aunt Dora said.
That Lara Armstead must be deeply in love with Curtis Lesher was plain. All the hardness she had displayed since learning of the strange will of her father was gone now. There had been no sign of it in New York, either, when she had left the funeral home to which her father's body had been taken for embalming. The funeral would not take place until the police were through with their investigation into his death. Lara had been sincerely broken-hearted, then, and grieving. The hardness had come later. Now she was grieving for another—a man still alive.
She turned instinctively to Judge Jones, and he put an arm about her.
"It must all be a trick to get me away!" she cried. "But what can I do? Judge, you've always been our friend. Must I be driven from my home for a woman my Father hardly knew?"
"Ordinarily, I would say no," replied Judge Jones. "But if Curtis is in danger, I know how you must feel. I think myself it may only be a trick. Curtis would be here now if he had reached Oldsville."
"I wouldn't be too sure of that," broke in Steve Huston. "Curtis Lesher is somewhere in the grounds. The Phantom is looking for him now. I think it is up to Chip Dorlan and me to start looking for both of them."
"Curt is here?" Lara Armstead's voice was broken. "You are sure of it?"
STEVE'S eyes happened at that moment to light on Gorman Jones, the son of the judge, a round-faced young man who appeared to have had too much soft living. And from the way Gorman Jones was looking at Lara Armstead, it seemed to Steve he had more than a neighborly interest in the girl.
"I don't believe Lara should be driven from her home," Gorman Jones said promptly. "If she leaves now, Claudia Ramer may be ready to move right in. And I don't believe it would help Curtis Lesher, either—if he is a prisoner—for Lara to leave her home."
"Thanks, Gorman," Lara said. "I know you and Curt have not been friends, but I don't believe that has anything to do with your advice now."
"It hasn't, Lara," said Gorman. "I'm thinking only of you. If I can do anything to find Curt for you, I'll do that, too."
To Huston's surprise, Lara said: "We saw Martha Briggs tonight, Gorman. She fled with one of the apes."
"Martha?" said Aunt Dora. "Why, she has been missing for days! You sure, Lara?"
Steve Huston got another surprise then.
"Just as sure as I am that Curtis Lesher may now be somewhere in the grounds, looking for Martha, or has been with her," Lara declared, with oddly cold conviction. "Even if she did elope with you, Gorman, I think Martha still hates me for taking Curtis Lesher from her. I believe she always loved Curt, even if she did become Mrs. Gorman Jones for awhile. Anyway, she persists in wearing the engagement ring he gave her. The ring has claws, and I'm sure Martha would like to use them on me. I'm sorry for her—and hope I'm wrong, but I don't believe I am."
Lara's eyes were bright and defiant. "Judge Jones, I intend to stay right here," she declared. "And I want you to advise me how to fight."
Steve Huston spoke to Lara quickly.
"You mean that the ring that Curtis Lesher gave Martha Briggs had two claws, Miss Armstead? Would there be a diamond in one claw, and a ruby in the other?"
"Yes—but how did you know that!" exclaimed Lara.
"Great glory!" gasped Steve. "I can't tell you, Miss Armstead! But we must find the Phantom and Curtis Lesher! C'mon, Chip!"
"I'll have some of my men look around," Sergeant Ripley said. "I'm mighty glad the Phantom is on this case. Do you want men, Mr. Huston?"
"Not for the present," said Steve. "We'll get farther alone."
He was thinking of the diamond ruby clawed ring on the severed hand, locked in the Phantom's plane.
"Merciful jiminee, Lara," Aunt Dora was grumbling, "I hope they find Curt! As for Martha, her own father says she has been at the beach for two weeks, and that he has been getting postcards from her every day."
Steve Huston paused beside Muriel Havens as he and Chip Dorlan started away.
"I'd stay close to Miss Armstead," he advised in a low voice. "There's a lot more here than has come to the top, and I'm not sure she'll be safe. That Gorman Jones may be all right, but I don't go much for his kind."
MURIEL nodded. She herself was considerably puzzled. This Armstead affair was becoming more and more confusing.
Muriel would follow Steve's advice. She also intended to keep a watchful eye on this young neighbor, Gorman Jones, who appeared to have once robbed Curtis Lesher of the girl, Martha Briggs, in spite of what Lara said to the contrary.
As Steve and Chip started toward the marshland near the mills, Steve was careful to avoid any of Sergeant Ripley's state troopers who had been started on a hunt through the miles of grounds for any sign of Curtis Lesher or Martha Briggs. Steve was glad that he had not mentioned that the old mills was possibly where Curtis Lesher might be found.
"Chip," Steve said, "there's a clawed ruby and diamond ring on that girl's hand in the Phantom's plane. The Phantom probably would not believe we have seen Martha Briggs alive."
* * *
The Phantom's last waking memory as he was being overpowered by two great apes was of the dark face of Abdul, the Arab.
When he had been smashed into unconsciousness he'd had a fantastic dream that he was drowning and was unable to swim. In the dream his lungs ached and his breath was cut off. In truth, only the tremendous vitality and quick reaction of the Phantom saved him from really drowning.
But this was a dry drowning, no more than a few minutes. He came fully awake as his hands started to beat in swimming strokes. They failed to meet with the resistance that water would have afforded.
Van's senses returned fully. But he still felt as if he were swimming in black, velvety air that had no substance. Then he discovered his nostrils were being clogged by his attempt to breathe. Each movement of his arms only thrust him deeper into the intangible softness.
Only the swift restoration of his thinking powers gave him the answer as his hands and body suddenly came onto the solid planking upon which the soft, strangling mass was supported.
"Loose silk fiber!" he thought instantly. "I'm in a bin of some kind inside the old mill."
With a violent struggle Van forced himself upward in the bin of choking death. He got his feet on the planks. Fiery lights shot across his aching eyes. He held his breath now, for to breathe would probably clog his throat with the silken death.
It was difficult to move, but he thrust his body farther upward. His sudden guess had been correct. The bin contained silk fiber to the depth of about five feet. His head was coming to the top of the loose silk.
Van held himself there, rolling his head back. He could feel the silk fiber slipping away from his face, and a vague light appeared. He inhaled a deep breath that stung like tiny knives.
He would have moved then, feeling for the side of the imprisoning fiber bin, but he heard murmuring voices. They were coming closer. Van drew in a long breath and pulled his face below the surface of the silk.
The voices were indistinct, partly because his ears were covered by the loose silk. Van's hands moved quickly in spite of the twining silk fiber. From an inner pocket he took the two small devices that had often been of greater aid than his guns or any other weapons of violence.
THESE devices appeared to be plugs of soft rubber which he fitted into his ears. But each was a miniature microphone of his own invention, connected by a thread like, all but invisible wire to electric batteries in his body-fitting make-up case.
The voices became distinct. One was the soft slurring tone of a Japanese, possibly the Jap who had knocked out Curtis Lesher with a knife handle, Van thought.
"They must be disposed of tonight, quickly, Stivers," the Jap was saying. "Both will have died by this time, where they cannot breathe."
"I say to leave them as they are, Tanuko," a man's harsh voice replied. "That one Abdul knocked out may be the Phantom. He should have been more thoroughly searched. If he is the Phantom it is a great stroke that we have caught him. For from the moment he appeared on the Silver Meteor he became our greatest danger."
Van was uncertain then of several phases of the night's happenings. The words of this man called Stivers indicated that the mysterious killers who were menacing those connected with Jacklin Armstead had known the Phantom was on the train, probably from the time he had boarded the flyer.
To be sure he had announced himself to the trainmen, to Lara Armstead and some others. But surely none of the actual killers would have been in the Silver Meteor observation car while the murder of Jacklin Armstead was being investigated? If so... Van considered.
There had been Andrew Hamm, the lawyer, and Claudia Ramer, the red-haired widow. Curtis Lesher, too, but plainly Lesher was fighting the killers.
"The bodies must be taken out, Stivers," Tanuko, the Jap said. "They must not just disappear. Both should be discovered, and as far from the mill as possible."
"I know, Tanuko, but I'm still running the outfit!" said the white man harshly. "But because of your own men slipping up and losing that little message to Jacklin Armstead, we must proceed cautiously and see that others in our way are removed before a whole army of cops lands in the place."
"You are still the boss man, Stivers," said the Jap. "If everything is ready, Lara Armstead and the girl with her should be disposed of as was planned, and the honorable Aunt Dora also must die."
"Yes," said Stivers. "But all attention must be directed toward the Armstead house, so that when it is finally destroyed by the unseen fire, the mills will escape suspicion. After that, the taking over of the mills will come along in the natural way."
"I may venture," said Tanuko, "that only our probable luck in finding the one believed to be the Phantom unconscious has saved us from changing all of our great plan. Only that one and this Lesher so far could suspect the mills might be involved."
The conversation occupied but a little more than a minute, but Van's lungs felt as if they were bursting, for he scarcely dared breathe. He could well understand why he was believed to be dead in this bin of silk fiber.
NEW thoughts pounded through the Phantom's brain. Lara Armstead and "the girl with her" were slated to be removed. Muriel Havens! The one fractional bit of relief for the Phantom was knowing that the two girls must have reached Oldsville safely.
And Aunt Dora, the old circus acrobat sister of Jacklin Armstead who had been given the right to live her life out in his old mansion, was also to die. The mansion itself was to be destroyed. And all suspicion was to be turned upon the house, and away from the mills.
Many other angles were yet a mystery to the Phantom, but his most immediate thoughts centered now upon what appeared to be a certainty. Curtis Lesher had been thrown into this same bin of silk fiber. By this time he must have suffocated.
Van's hands groped for his guns, but they had been found and removed from the holsters.
Tanuko, the Jap, and the white man who had announced himself as the boss of this murderous mob, were moving away. Van's tight lips were close enough to the surface to draw in needed breath without thrusting his head into view. With care he kept the fine silk fibers from entering his throat.
He started moving cautiously, feeling with his feet. Suddenly he stopped. He heard Stivers rasp out a command to someone.
"You stay right by that bin! Lesher and that other mug are dead enough by this time but we have to leave the usual way and Jasper Briggs may go haywire! I'm not so sure he won't try to get Lesher's body out before we're ready!"
Van ventured to lift his face. He saw a bulky man clumping toward the bin, the top of which was at floor level. Van took quick hope as he saw the guard halt some distance from the bin and seat himself on a box.
Unseen, Van continued groping with his feet. Then he stepped on something that he knew was the body of Curtis Lesher. He was convinced that Lesher was dead, and trying to remove him from the silk bin would be only a useless risk.
As for himself, Van already had his plan clear. His full strength had returned. He had heard a door close and the voices of Tanuko and the white man were shut out.
His foot still touching Curtis Lesher's body, Van pushed his face slowly above the silk. The bulky guard was tipping a bottle to his thick lips.
Van was planning to move cautiously to the side of the bin closest to the guard when the body under his foot moved! Lesher was still alive! That knowledge tightened Van's nerves.
It seemed impossible. Yet Lesher moved again, and this time a hand touched Van's ankle.
Van had never experienced a more unusual sensation. It seemed impossible that any man could live under all of that suffocating fiber for more than a minute or two, but Lesher had lived, and his fingers now were gripping Van's foot.
Van had no means of communicating with the man who had so amazingly come to life. All he could do was to kick his foot suddenly free, and move to one side. He could not stop now to wonder how Lesher had managed to keep alive. Right now the Phantom must concentrate on but one thing—the removal of the guard.
VAN pushed through the silk fiber to the side of the bin, keeping his head down. There he tapped lightly, quickly, on the floor with his knuckles.
The guard suddenly came to his feet, glancing around nervously. Like most thugs of his type, he did not like being alone, guarding dead men.
Gun in hand, the guard cautiously approached the bin of silk fiber. The thug was taking no chances, even with dead men.
Van pulled his face under the surface. The dim light could reveal only the smooth surface of the fiber.
"It's almighty funny," the guard was muttering. "I heard it. I wish they'd pick on some other guy for this job of keeping an eye on the old man, 'cause when they need somethin' else done I'm here to be elected."
The words were enlightening to Van. Evidently this member of the killer mob was here to keep an eye on old Jasper Briggs. Watching the silk bin supposed to contain a pair of corpses was only a side issue.
Van was all but choking for breath. But he could not risk breaking the silken surface. He had to judge the guard's position by the shuffling sound of his feet.
The guard was coming along the edge of the bin. Van braced himself for quick action when the mass of silk fiber near him moved. He could feel the push of it against his face. Curtis Lesher, strangely alive when he should have been dead, was on his feet, coming up. As Lesher pulled himself from the bin the guard muttered an oath that was full of fear. But as his gun exploded Van lunged upward. His steel-strong hand shot out and gripped the guard's ankles. With a wild, cursing scream, the bulky guard plunged down into the smothering fiber.
The weight of the guard's body threw him to one side and a cornered rat could not have fought more fiercely than did that thug.
Never had two men battled under stranger conditions. The soft silk was like some smooth, impeding oil of destruction.
As the guard fell, he struck out blindly with his gun. The blow numbed Van's shoulder and the thug's weight threw him off balance. He slugged at the guard's face as both went under the fiber. The struggle then became a test as to which could free himself and reach the surface on his feet.
Van felt the gun jab into his body as one of his antagonist's arms crooked for a hold around his neck. He twisted, just in time, and felt no more than the sting of the slug along his side as the weapon, blasting under the surface of the soft silk, made a whooshing explosion.
The Phantom's fingers locked around the man's gun-wrist, and the hold he employed would have stopped the strongest man living. For it was not a time to be ethical. Van released the guard's wrist when he felt it snap. The fight was gone from the man. He was floundering, apparently unable to gain his feet, his body striking Van's legs. Van retrieved the gun.
Killer or not, the Phantom had never permitted a man to die like a rat in a trap. Taking only time enough to force his own head up for needed air, he again went under, fastening a paralyzing neck hold on the guard to bring him to the surface.
HALF conscious, the thug was unable to stand. Van was compelled to hold him erect, as he got a hold over the edge of the bin and lifted himself clear.
He pulled the guard up beside him on the floor. The man moved, but closed his eyes as Van's thumb found a nerve hold under his jaw.
Van was able then to look around. Undoubtedly, he thought, Curtis Lesher had been able to stay alive in the bin by breathing through some crack at its bottom.
What Van most desired now was to learn Lesher's connection with the mystery, especially the part that concerned Jasper Briggs, his daughter Martha, and the beautiful, severed hand of a girl which bore a diamond and ruby ring that Lesher had given Martha Briggs.
But he did not question Curtis Lesher. The elusive chemist had disappeared.
"No one can blame him for getting away," Van thought grimly. "He had no means of knowing whether a friend or a foe was in the bin with him, and how that fight under the silk might come out. He may have been wounded, too."
Van peered closely around the edge of the bin. That surmise was correct. There were traces of blood where Lesher had pulled himself from the bin, and the drops extended across the floor.
Van glided to the door at the end of the long room, armed with the gun taken from the guard. There was light on the other side.
Listening, he could detect no sound. Van opened the door cautiously and looked into the office and laboratory rooms where he had seen Lesher knocked out by the knife-throwing Jap. He saw some drops of blood on the floor.
The single light had been left burning, but there was no sign of Lesher or Jasper Briggs.
"And it would be a useless hunt in the marsh jungle now," thought Van. "Perhaps Lesher will make for the house."
The youthful professor was beginning to appeal to Van as a determined man and a tough one to beat. He wished he could have contacted him, and at least made Lesher understand that he understood the young chemist's position, and that they were fighting on the same side.
It was impossible as yet, however, for the Phantom to figure out Jasper Briggs. The old chemist might or might not have been lying to Curtis Lesher about his daughter, Martha, taking a trip.
"He could be working with the killers, or he could be under pressure he can't resist," was Van's conclusion.
Making a quick survey of the laboratory office, he was drawn to an object in a shadowed corner. He pulled a handful of long-fibered cotton from an opened bale.
"India cotton again," he said softly. "But you can't work cotton in silk machinery, even if this whole pattern of murder had a plan for lawful business connected with it."
He opened the door of a cupboard. Discarded, dirty retorts and other jars cluttered the cupboard shelves. There were a few large jars filled with chemicals.
Suddenly the Phantom emitted a low whistle. He pulled two queer-looking masks from one of the shelves—undoubtedly gas masks. They had rubber face pieces, with flexible tubes, and mechanical filters and the filters of both masks were ready for instant use. They were filled with fresh soda and lime.
Van drew a bit of plastic glass from inside his clothes. It compared exactly with the size and shape of the eye-pieces of the two masks. The plastic glass he held had come from the floor of the Silver Meteor car in which Jacklin Armstead had been murdered!
VAN paused to debate his next move. It was now well after midnight. Undoubtedly Tanuko, the Jap, and the boss, Stivers, had left the place.
Jasper Briggs must be somewhere outside. Curtis Lesher might have gone to the Armstead house, or he might be seeking the girl, Martha Briggs.
Often the Phantom had been warned of danger by what many would have called premonition. With Van, it was his trained ability to be aware of much of what transpired behind him without turning his head. He was standing beside the cupboard when, without bringing his head all the way around, he suddenly knew that he was being watched. A face was pressed to the same window through which he had observed Lesher and Jasper Briggs.
Apparently Van did not look at the window. He went to the table near the middle of the office. He moved casually, getting as near to the outside door as possible without appearing to have that intention.
The face pressed to the window was the pretty, oval countenance of a girl. Dark hair streamed over her shoulders. Van knew she must be clinging precariously to the vines he himself had climbed.
He wanted to trap the girl, if possible, and yet he did not want to frighten her. Although he had never seen her before, he was sure that she was the supposedly missing Martha Briggs.
He was estimating his chance of getting through the door to the outside, when another face showed alongside that of the girl. Van drew in his breath with startled surprise.
A flat-nosed, grinning ape was beside the girl.
Knowing that the girl could hear him, since the window was partly open, Van decided to take a long chance.
"I see you, but don't be frightened, Martha Briggs," he said quickly. "I am a friend, come to help you and your father."
The girl cried out. There was a scuffling flurry and a little scream. The faces disappeared. Van slammed through the outside door onto stairs going down. The stairway was dark and he collided with another door on the floor below.
When he reached the space under the office window, there was no evidence that either the girl or the ape had been there.
"It seems to be the night for everyone to vanish on me," muttered Van.
A vagrant, salty wind was blowing over the desolate reeds and bushes of the low-lying marsh. His ears were still keened by the microphone plugs, but he could detect no movement or rustling that might not have been caused by the breeze.
Searching in the darkness for either the girl or Curtis Lesher was useless. Van also was convinced that old Jasper Briggs was somewhere outside, or he would have investigated the shooting a few minutes before. Or he might have been alarmed by the shooting, and had fled, perhaps to make contact with the Jap and the white man who had left.
Van was fairly well assured that Curtis Lesher was honest, and fighting for the interests of Lara Armstead. But old Jasper Briggs was more of an unknown quantity than ever.
SEVERAL factors were against Briggs. Some unusual experiments were being carried on in his laboratory. Apparently he was in charge of that silk fiber, too, and it did not belong loose in a bin. Baled raw silk, and thrown silk ready for spinning had to be handled with utmost care, its fine threads being wound from the original cocoons onto spools, and then rewound in different form for shipment in bales.
"Which means that loose silk fiber placed in a bin indicates some intention to mix it with other fiber, perhaps cotton," Van mused. "Briggs may have been carrying out experiments, but that doesn't account for two gas masks in his closet ready for use—masks of the same type employed when Jacklin Armstead was murdered."
Decision as to his next move seemed to have been taken from the Phantom.
He was aware that Lara Armstead and Muriel Havens, together with Aunt Dora, the sister of Jacklin Armstead, were directly under a menace of death now also. It might be simple enough now to head off the murder plans for those three, before his own and Lesher's escape from the silk bin was discovered. And undoubtedly that would be before daylight, when men would be sent to remove two bodies supposed to be in the silk bin.
But to act too quickly would change the death plot so far as Van had learned it, and would make it possible for the brains of the murder wave to get off clear.
"I want that Jap and Stivers," he thought grimly. "Either one or the other, or both can be made to talk under the right circumstances. They will have to be provided."
The chance that his own and Lesher's escape would be discovered too soon was still the sticking point. Then Van thought of some of the chemicals he had seen in the old cupboard. And to think then, was to act.
He had never lived up to the name of Phantom more than he did during the following few minutes. He had the unconscious guard outside the silk bin room in record time.
Two heavy containers of dark glass were set at the edge of the silk bin. Employing two heavy retorts as missiles, Van smashed the chemical jars with unerring aim. The heavy vapor of destroying sulphuric acid arose in a cloud as the chemicals poured down into the silk.
With an ironic smile, Van tossed the automatic he had taken from the sleeping guard over close to the edge of the supposed death bin.
"When that is found, it can only be believed that both guard and corpses were obliterated at the same time," he thought. "And it probably will be believed that Jasper Briggs pulled the trick, possibly because he was afraid he might be implicated in murder."
Shouldering the guard's limp body, Van left the building. As soon as the unconscious man was securely hidden, the Phantom was positive that so far as Curtis Lesher and he were concerned, there was every proof they were out of the way.
There would be nothing left of the silk, or of the death bin itself when the sulphuric acid had accomplished its purpose.
The Phantom was now confronted by an unusual problem. Seldom before had he come so close to the material angles of a crime with such little direct contact with the criminals responsible.
So far, the Phantom assumed but one identity, that of the blond young man who had started the investigation of the first murder. But to appear at the Armstead house in any guise and announce himself as the Phantom might bring him in contact with someone on the inside who was working with the killers. Temporarily he wanted the mysterious murderers to believe that the Phantom was dead.
He was wondering just what new identity he could assume which would afford a logical excuse for entering the Armstead household when a girl's scream came from the nearby marshy thicket.
A roar of animal rage followed the scream. The roar of one of the great apes, fighting. Shots cracked from an automatic.
As the Phantom barged ahead he did not know that this commotion was the outcome of what he had himself seen only a few moments before...
WHEN the Phantom had seen the pretty dark face of a girl and the ugly, flat-nosed features of an ape disappear suddenly from a window of the Jasper Briggs Laboratory office, the girl had landed lightly on the ground. A hulking ape, or rather an orang-outang of unusual size, dropped beside her.
"Quick, Chimo!" she breathed. "Up!"
It was evident the orang was completely under the girl's domination. He lifted her without effort, holding her gently in his great, hairy arms.
"To Abdul!" said the girl. "Abdul!" The orang understood her meaning, hearing its master's name. The beast glided directly into the thickest part of the marsh.
When they had crossed perhaps a hundred yards of swamp, the ground raised to cleared space. The lighter gravel of the auto driveway to the old mansion showed.
"Down, Chimo!" the girl commanded. "Oh, Chimo! If you were only human enough to understand, instead of knowing only a few words!" The big orang whimpered as if he did understand the trouble in the girl's voice.
"I must find my Father, Chimo," the girl said. "I can't go to the Armsteads or to anyone at the house. I don't know what terrible things my Father may have done. If I could only see Curt—but he's away with Mr. Armstead and Lara. Gorman would help me, but Judge Jones would find out and he wouldn't save even my Father if he believed he has done something wrong. And that stranger in the office is trying to find out about my Father!"
The girl was the small, quick moving Martha Briggs who had been seen by Lara Armstead and those with her in the car. But plainly Martha was unaware that Lara had been in the car she had avoided. Nor did she appear to know of the other tragic events of the night.
This girl who had been revealed to Steve Huston as the one-time sweetheart of Curtis Lesher, and who apparently had become Mrs. Gorman Jones, after eloping with the son of Judge Jones, an Armstead neighbor, was acting queerly indeed.
She was moving and speaking as if she were some hunted, wild creature. Standing beside the big orang-outang, she turned awkwardly, peering into the darkness. And she had the use of but one hand, for her left arm and shoulder were tightly bandaged to her body.
What she had said indicated she was apprehensive for both the safety and the actions of old Jasper Briggs. The furtiveness and her hunted air proved that she feared discovery herself.
Her head kept turning. Her eyes quested the darkness in which the lights of the old Armstead mansion showed, possibly a mile away on a hilly ridge.
The orang kept shifting restlessly. The beast had undoubtedly been highly trained.
"I must go to Abdul and have him hide me," the girl said, as if the orang could understand her. "If I can remain free and reach Curt when he returns, he will help me. When he knows Gorman's father had our marriage annulled, Curt will be kind to me. But Gorman's father must never find out. He will do everything against Father. He hated me, and he is against everything that might have the slightest tinge of dishonesty."
The ape suddenly whimpered, beating his paws against his breast. He was looking into the darkness beyond the auto driveway.
"What is it, Chimo?" whispered the girl, instantly alert.
She heard the cracking of dry twigs and the rustling of bushes. With a despairing little cry she turned to flee.
Shadowy figures appeared, almost as if they had sprung up from the ground. A hard voice snarled a low command.
"Grab the dame! Look out for the ape! He's poison!"
HUSTON, the redheaded Clarion reporter, and Chip Dorlan the Phantom's young fighting aid, heard that low-voiced command. For it had not been the nearness of the men who were given the order but the approach of Steve and Chip that had aroused the orang.
Chip gripped Steve's arm, as they halted sharply.
"Hear that, Steve?" His whisper was tense. "Can you see anything?"
Before Steve could reply, the combined beams of two powerful flashlights brought little Martha Briggs and the big orang abruptly into view.
"Throw the glim in the ape's eyes!" rapped a harsh voice.
Steve was instinctively yanking his police special from a pocket. He threw out one hand, attempting to restrain Chip Dorlan, but he was too late. Chip was jumping forward.
Little Martha Briggs screamed. She turned, trying to run. A big man trapped her in his arms. The orang roared out its anger and sprang.
Steve shuddered as the hairy bulk of the great ape landed upon the back of the man who had seized the girl. It seemed to Steve that the ape would crush both man and girl.
But Martha Briggs was thrown clear and fell to the ground.
"Shoot him! Get the ape!"
Three or four rods racketed. Lead was being poured into the hairy back of the beast The orang rolled over, but the man he had attacked lay still, with his head twisted grotesquely to one side on a broken neck.
Steve went after Chip, crashing through the low brush. He saw Chip reach the girl, just as two other men seized her. The two lights still played upon the scene, and from the mutter of hard voices, Steve knew that four or five other thugs were still in the darkness.
Chip Dorlan did not always display good judgment. Having been brought up the hard way, before he was taken from the slums of San Francisco by the Phantom, Chip never evaded a fight and too seldom counted the odds against him.
As the rods of the thugs poured death into the great ape, Chip smashed into one of the men who had seized the girl. The thug appeared to be twice Chip's size, but that did not keep him from going down.
Chip's fists worked with a ripping effect that made up for his small size. As that one man fell, Chip whirled, ready for the next thug in line.
There were surprised oaths, but the girl's captors were quick. Steve Huston swore under his breath, but had the good sense to stop his rush. For Chip went down under the clubbed weight of a rod that sounded as if it had split the boy's skull.
Although maddened by the attack upon the girl, and the knocking out of Chip, Steve was too old a hand at fighting crime to tackle an unknown number of killers single-handed. He could accomplish nothing for either the girl or Chip Dorlan by barging into what could be only a certain knockout for himself.
Steve dropped flat, lying still. There was but one course now left open to him. If he remained undiscovered, he had some chance of trailing the thugs who now were moving on. The man killed by the orang might be identified and afford a clue for the Phantom.
The girl's single scream had been her only outcry. Steve burned with an impulsive desire to start shooting as he saw that one man had wrapped a coat around the girl's head.
"Martha Briggs," Steve whispered. "And those dirty killers are responsible for that bandaged arm of hers! They severed her hand!"
Never before had the red-headed reporter wanted to send hot lead ripping into mobsters as much as he did now. But as the girl and Chip Dorlan were lifted and flashlights suddenly blinked out, Steve had to be content with a chance to trail the kidnappers. Steve felt it had fallen upon his shoulders to carry on from here since he and Chip had not found the Phantom. But never had he wanted the Phantom more than he did now.
"Wait'll Stivers sees the punk we've knocked off!" one of the snatchers was saying as they moved off in the darkness. "The kid that's always with the Phantom. This puts them both out of the way."
The men appeared to be heading for the thickest part of the marshland. Steve moved softly, making no noise.
"Let the tide carry it out before you wind up the motor," he heard a man say.
That gave him an idea that the thugs were leaving by a boat that must have been brought up into a marsh channel.
Steve started forward quickly then realizing that he could not trail a boat, but hoping he might gain some idea of the direction taken by the thugs.
He did not see the tall figure in grayish white that glided behind him. It only seemed to Steve that his brain had exploded for no reason at all.
He did not know when he was picked up and carried back over the hundred yards or more he had covered...
It might have been hours, so far as Steve could tell, but it had actually been but minutes when he opened his eyes. Close to him, in the vague light, he saw a white-robed figure sitting on the ground. Steve recognized Abdul, the Arab, whom he had seen at the gate of the Armstead estate.
Abdul was rocking back and forth, wailing a low, tuneless chant. In his arms he was holding the hairy body of the dead orang-outang.
Through the grinding pain over his eyes, Steve saw a sudden movement back of the Arab. The reporter was divided between a desire to cry out a warning, and the wish to see Abdul overpowered. For Steve could not determine whether the crouching figure was friend or enemy.
"Abdul trailed me and knocked me out," reasoned Steve. "He might have believed me one of those responsible for killing the ape. And possibly one of the thugs has come back."
But already Steve had hesitated too long. Noiselessly, with the quick striking force of a puma, the shadowy figure was upon Abdul. The Arab was laid out cold before Steve could move or cry out.
Nor did Steve move then, watching Abdul's subduer. It was too dark for him to distinguish the moving figure clearly.
The man bent briefly over the dead ape, then moved over to the huddled body of the thug who had been killed. A thin sliver of light flashed and traveled over the dead thug's face and body.
STEVE tried in vain to make out the features of the man holding the pencil flashlight. Then a familiar flat object came into one of the man's hands. In the splinter of light, Steve saw the dead thug's fingers being pressed to the flat object.
"Phantom!" exclaimed Steve. "Holy cats! Am I glad it's you!"
The pencil light flicked around. The Phantom was beside Steve as he struggled upward.
"I heard a girl scream," the Phantom hurriedly told Steve, "then shots. But I was forced to go around water and ooze in the marsh to reach the spot from which they had come. I got here just in time to see and hear Abdul mourning over the dead ape. I had to put him out."
"Had to put him out, Phantom?"
"Yes. For I am still in the disguise in which I first appeared around here, and the leaders of this murder mob believe I am dead. For the time being I want them to keep on believing that. Abdul was responsible for my capture earlier, and I am not sure where he stands. For the present, at least, he cannot report that I am alive."
Briefly, Steve related what had happened. Van's teeth clicked at the story of Chip Dorlan's capture, and at the overpowering of the girl. Steve went on then to tell of what had occurred on their arrival at the Armstead estate. He told of Judge Jones and his son, Gorman, and the queer angle of Curtis Lesher and Martha Briggs.
"That boat you spoke of may mean a long search, Steve," the Phantom said. "But in the meantime, I have to figure out a way to get into the Armstead house and mingle with those there without it being known I am the Phantom."
Steve had no solution for that. But he said:
"Now I know positively, Phantom, about the girl's hand that was sent to Jacklin Armstead—and the ring."
"Yes, Steve? You know positively?"
"Lara Armstead described the ruby and diamond ring as one given to Martha Briggs by Curtis Lesher," said Steve. "And just before Martha Briggs was taken away with Chip, I saw that her left hand was missing."
Van's tone was quizzical. "You are sure her left hand had been removed, Steve?"
"Sure," said Steve. "For she had her left arm bandaged and held in a sling.
"That is complicating," Van said slowly. "You see, Steve, that ruby and diamond ring doesn't belong on the severed hand. It was placed upon the third finger of a girl after she was dead. The ring probably would fit Martha Briggs, but she seems to be very much alive."
Before Steve Huston could hear more of the Phantom's amazing revelation, shrill whistles of state troopers sounded. Evidently the state police had heard the shooting, and were seeking the scene of the new trouble.
"I do not wish to be seen," the Phantom said quickly. "And Steve, though Abdul did knock you out, it's a question how deep he may be in all of this. Tell the police that both you and Abdul were knocked out by the thugs who took Martha and Chip away."
"Sure," agreed Steve. "But about the boat, Phantom?"
"I believe it would be a mistake to direct a police search in the right direction just now," said Van. "Unless I am mistaken, the girl and Chip are in the hands of desperate killers who would dispose of them permanently if the hunt came too close. You were knocked out, so you have no means of knowing how the kidnappers disappeared. It might even be well to mention that you heard a car."
THE prowling troopers were getting closer. Van was prepared to vanish in the darkness.
"Stick by Muriel at the house, Steve," he directed. "And pass along the word that you believe the killers got Curtis Lesher and me. In the meantime, I want to find Jasper Briggs and Lesher. Lesher was wounded, and may not have been able to go far. I'll find some way to get inside the house without my identity being made known."
Van glided away among the trees, but remained close enough to hear Steve talking with the state troopers. Abdul revived, and was also questioned.
The Arab must have been amazed to hear Steve tell the police that Abdul and himself had been attacked and put out by the kidnappers who had shot the ape.
Sergeant Ripley made quick, profane comment as he saw the corpse of the man with the broken neck. Van heard the sergeant's disappointed conclusion.
"Not a thing to identify the fellow! Not even brand marks in his clothes!"
Abdul, the Arab, had been cleared of guilty intent by Steve Huston. The Phantom could hear Abdul muttering in his own language.
Understanding Abdul's native tongue, as he did many others, Van was given a direct insight into the suspicious activities of the Arab. For Abdul was calling upon Allah to witness that he must protect Jacklin Armstead's property, and the members of the Armstead family.
Also, his muttered words indicated that Abdul was seeking to save Jasper Briggs, the old chemist, from enemies who were increasing in number.
"Jasper Briggs is under tremendous pressure and undoubtedly is innocent of any wrong intent," came to Van as a result of what he heard Abdul say. "But for the present Briggs cannot be rescued from the sinister influence held over him by those who must for some reason have his cooperation. The only way to trap those engineering the murders is to leave Briggs temporarily in their power."
The Phantom quickly found the channel in the marsh where the prow of a motorboat had been grounded. The channel wound away toward the sea and one of innumerable bays along the low Jersey coast.
If Martha Briggs and Chip Dorlan were prisoners on a boat, which seemed likely, it would make the hunt doubly difficult. Van was compelled to pass up further investigation in that direction.
Van now judged that Tanuko and the white man called Stivers had departed from the scene by the same route take by the kidnappers. But Jasper Briggs must still be around somewhere.
"If the killers are making their headquarters on some vessel, it makes it simple to enter the Armstead grounds and mills," mused Van. "But Jasper Briggs and Curtis Lesher would both likely go to the vicinity of the Armstead mansion. Lesher was wounded, and he had not appeared at the house before Steve Huston left. It is probable he would get help some other place, and his evident desire to find Martha Briggs first would keep him away from Lara Armstead.
The Phantom came to a logical conclusion. Curtis Lesher had long been about the mills and the Armstead house. He would have friends among the servants. So Lesher would undoubtedly try to get to the servants' quarters.
EASILY Van evaded the still prowling state troopers as he headed toward the lights of the old house on the hill. Before he had gone half the distance from the marshland, he came upon a row of queerly constructed buildings, or rather habitations in the form of dugouts.
Before he reached the first of these half-underground buildings, Van's olfactory senses informed him he was close upon the houses, or cages, of Abdul's trained apes. Although he had been warned that the many apes were permitted to roam about the grounds, he had encountered but three. Still he moved warily. More of them might be roaming free.
Two apes had overcome the Phantom, with the aid of Abdul. The third ape—or perhaps one of the same pair—had been shot.
Knowing Abdul's loyalty to the Armsteads now, Van understood why he had been knocked out by Abdul. The Arab had supposed him to be one of the enemies who was spying upon Jasper Briggs. Van was convinced that Abdul and his apes had disappeared before the Phantom had been found and seized by Tanuko and the white man, Stivers.
Yet Van could not as yet reveal his own identity, even to Abdul, who would not understand.
Van could hear the movement of many apes in the underground dugouts. And, as he drew nearer, he saw that the doors to the dugouts were heavy and that all were barred.
Abdul, Van thought, must have his own quarters here also. He was interested in seeing what manner of home Abdul had established among his apes.
Van halted when a light showed from one of the dugouts. It came from a small window, set almost at ground level. Van reached it quickly, but he remained frozen on the spot as the sound of men's voices came to him.
He was looking into what undoubtedly was Abdul's home. A great, brass bowl was set on the hard-packed dirt floor, the vessel from which the Arab ate. With all the man had learned about apes, he still had not changed from the primitive customs of his ancestors himself.
But Abdul was not present now. Instead, a tall man with a pasty white face, and with a nervous habit of passing one hand over his mouth, was talking with the other occupant of the small dugout.
The other man was old Jasper Briggs. The pasty-faced man's words were revealing.
"All right, Jasper, then keep the truth to yourself," the man was saying, his tone exasperated. "I haven't been spying upon you. I'm not that kind, even if I have served a stretch. I committed a crime, and I paid for it, and I come straight from the Alabama state prison back here to get help from Jacklin Armstead."
Jasper Briggs was twisting his shaggy head as if seeking some excuse to leave.
"But you've found out that Armstead is dead, so there's no reason for you to hang around, Scanlon," said Briggs. "I can let you have a few dollars, but—"
"I don't want a few dollars, or even one dollar," the man called Scanlon declared angrily. "I was Armstead's friend, and I'm your friend, Jasper. I've been hanging around for a week, and when I saw the men coming and going at night, I waited until I could get you alone to tell you what I believed you didn't know. I'm an ex-con, that's right. That's why I know what I'm talking about."
"For heaven's sake, Scanlon, go away and let me alone!" cried old Briggs. "What I'm doing is my own business! I don't have to explain to you!"
The pasty-faced ex-convict shook his head.
"I'll leave you alone, Jasper," he said. "But I'm not going away. I intended to go directly to Miss Lara as soon as she will see me, and tell her what I know. The men you have been seeing are bad ones, Jasper. I recognized at least three who have done time. If you're in some scheme with them—"
THE maddened cry from Jasper Briggs might have been rage or it might have been desperation as he hurled himself upon Scanlon. The attack was so quick and unexpected, that the self-confessed ex-convict was carried to the floor. Then old Jasper's fists were hammering at the pasty face.
Instantly Van started for the low-set door. He meant to end this queer underground battle. The fact that it was the dugout of Abdul, the Arab, in which it was being staged left his mind for the moment.
It was brought back to him forcibly. With a guttural cry of anger Abdul came out of the darkness upon him. The light from the window gave Van only a glimpse of the long-bladed knife the Arab held poised to strike.
Only Van's quick sense of timing caused the flashing blade to miss his throat. Its edge whipped so close to one ear that he felt the nicking of the skin.
Van dropped to one knee swiftly, then came up, his shoulder and one bent arm hooking the tall, sinewy Arab in the flowing robes near the middle. Abdul cried out as he was flung from his feet, alighting flat on his face behind the Phantom.
But the strange son of the faraway desert was catlike in his quickness. As he struck, he was smart enough to continue to roll until he could rear to his feet.
Van much desired to remain unidentified as the Phantom, and in the darkness that identity still was safe. Still, to keep it safe, his problem now was to put Abdul out again without lasting injury, and at the same time escape the Arab's viciously lashing blade.
Abdul rushed again, this time striking with the long curved knife which had all the weight of a scimitar. The weapon whistled over Van as he dived from his toes. He made sure this time that his hooking arm jolted Abdul hard. His other hand shot out, fastening upon the knife wrist.
Both rolled on the slight, downward slant of the ground away from the dugout. Van's fingers slipped from Abdul's wrist. It was only then that Van became aware that the Arab's arms and body under his dirty white robes were thickly greased.
Abdul screamed out maledictions in his native tongue, trying again to bring the knife blade into play. Van used his freed hand instantly for a hard punch that sought Abdul's bony jaw.
The Arab grunted and his head banged back on the ground, but his lifetime of handling great apes must have toughened him and taught him much about close-in fighting. Unable to employ the edge of the heavy, curved knife, Abdul was clever enough to smash the blunt haft of it into Van's face.
The blow filled the darkness with many colored lights for Van. And he heard Abdul's voice call out sharply, as if issuing commands or summoning someone. Van guessed quickly enough that the call was for some of the apes, and that all of the beasts were not locked in their dugouts.
Abdul was fighting with all the writhing sinuousness of a snake. Once more he was drawing back his knife hand. Van permitted both arms to drop, as if the blow to his face had knocked him out. He fell, striking the ground at Abdul's feet.
ABDUL uttered an oath of triumph in his native tongue, and bent over with the knife held ready for a killing blow.
Van's hands did not slip this time as he gripped both of the Arab's ankles. He came up, swinging Abdul clear of the ground, a feat that but few men would have had the strength to accomplish.
Screaming, trying to strike with the knife, the Arab was whirled at full length around Van's head. When Van released the man's ankles, Abdul landed with a knockout impact against the wall of the dugout.
The Arab lay without movement. Van was dizzy, but he found the door he had been seeking.
Old Jasper Briggs and the ex-convict called Scanlon had vanished, however. Van had then only the grim satisfaction of feeling that perhaps he had saved the ex-convict. Briggs and Scanlon had heard the Phantom's own encounter with Abdul. Likely they had left quickly, not wanting to be found here together.
Van found extra blankets laid out where Abdul had given someone shelter. Quite probably, he thought Scanlon was Abdul's guest. That could explain why Jasper Briggs had met the ex-convict here, possibly summoned by Abdul.
Van eased quickly away from the dugout colony of the apes. For several of the hulking brutes were clustered around the spot where Abdul still lay unconscious.
Van moved noiselessly, but since his presence had passed without special attention from the apes that seemed evidence that the beasts were well trained. Possibly they had been drilled into attacking only at the command of the Arab.
One more thing the Phantom had learned, however. The desperate stubbornness of old Jasper Briggs in refusing to tell Scanlon, who apparently was an old friend, any of his connection with the recent crimes or with the men whom Scanlon had declared to be criminals, was evidence of the influence held over the old chemist by the killers.
It was simple enough to judge this somehow must be connected with Briggs' daughter, Martha.
"But how far has he been forced to act?" was the question uppermost in Van's mind.
"As a chemist, he may have some great discovery the criminals are trying to steal. That bin of silk fiber, and its separation into loose lint indicates that Briggs is being used for a greater purpose than the accomplishment of murders, which he is powerless to prevent."
The murders, Van was sure, were the prelude to the real object of the killers. And he was now convinced that possession of the Jacklin Armstead estate and mills was the chief aim of the crimes. Some new experiment with silk was being carried on, something that might make the mills of incalculable value to their possessor.
"But that possession would appear to be passing to Mrs. Claudia Ramer," mused Van. "Now in what way could Jacklin Armstead have been coerced into willing the red-haired widow practically all of his estate?"
With many puzzling angles in his mind, Van was sure that murder would strike again if the killers were not apprehended. And he was convinced that murder this time would be repeated inside the old Armstead mansion.
"Those who are menaced might be sent elsewhere," he thought grimly. "But the reason for their removal from life probably would remain. And Curtis Lesher—he must know something dangerous to the killers. Wounded, he may have fallen somewhere in the grounds. If not, the servants' quarters will be the most likely haven for him."
In connection with Curtis Lesher, Van had two distinct ideas in mind.
Lesher had been trying to find Martha Briggs. No doubt he feared she had been killed. At least Lesher must have been sure it was her hand in the traveling case Armstead had carried. Lesher might still be in love with Martha.
On the other hand, Lesher might, as he appeared to be, be in love with Lara Armstead. Or he could have been planning to marry the girl for her fortune. Either way, Lesher would put up a fight to save Lara's fortune.
Still, one big thing was in favor of the young professor in the Phantom's mind. All of Lesher's activities proved that he was fighting the mysterious killers. Their attempt to kill him was further proof of that.
CAREFULLY eluding state police guards about the rambling old mansion, the Phantom studied the place. The various types of architecture used in its building made it difficult to judge which wing might house the servants.
He turned thoughtfully toward a large outbuilding that had at one time been a stable. It now was a garage. A slit of light appeared at a window of the second floor. It seemed as if someone had pulled a shade aside, peered out, and closed off the light again.
In seconds, Van was ascending a dusty stairway. Upstairs, a light showed under the crack of a door. Van heard a man walking about, apparently swearing to himself. There was but the one voice.
Glass clinked. Van could hear liquid being poured. The voice muttered again. This time, Van's tiny microphones brought the words to him.
"Wake up, you! Try this!". There was an interval of silence, then the voice muttered:
"I'll have to take a chance an' leave him here. They'll be ringing any minute."
Van clicked the old-fashioned latch on the door and opened it. A beefy-faced young man, with light hair and a pugnacious chin whirled toward the door. He saw Van and rapped out an oath, jumping toward a table on which lay an old revolver.
Van made no move. The beefy-faced man seized the gun, jerking it into line.
"Who're you? Whadda y' want? Get out before I let you have it!"
Van had glanced at a partly closed door leading to another small room. The beefy, big-shouldered young man who wore a servant's uniform had come through that door as Van had opened the outer one.
"You're a friend of Curtis Lesher," Van said quietly. "And you're worried because you may be wanted in the house, and will have to leave him here. You never shot at anyone in your life, so if I were you I would put the gun down. I'm here as a friend of Lesher."
The man's hand dropped.
"How'd you know all that? Who are you?"
Van made a quick estimate of the young fellow's worried eyes, and the shakiness of his hand as he held the revolver.
"Just between you and me," said Van, "I am the Phantom Detective. Curtis Lesher is wounded, perhaps seriously, and he is out. You are probably the Armstead chauffeur, but you've been called upon to take the place of the butler who was killed." Van's eyebrows lifted as he eyed the weapon. "You would miss me, holding the gun loosely and muzzle up," he observed coolly.
The revolver was banged on the table. The beefy young man nodded unhappily.
"Whether or not you're the Phantom, you're one good guesser," he said. "Yes, Curtis Lesher is in there an' he wouldn't let me call a doctor. An' crazy Aunt Dora won't have anybody else play butler but me, an' I don't know a blessed thing about being a butler."
Van smiled a little. "I'll have a look at Lesher," he said. "Unless his condition is critical, perhaps we can figure out something."
Curtis Lesher was weak from loss of blood because of a wound in one shoulder. But his pulse was regular. Van administered aid and put a neater bandage on the wound.
THE beefy young man watched him, fidgeting in the tight uniform from which his shoulders threatened to burst. The phone in the outside room rang suddenly and he answered it.
"Yes, Miss Lara. Right away." He hung up and looked uneasily at the Phantom. "I have to go. I'm supposed to see about a couple of rooms for old Judge Jones an' that no-good son of his. I feel better with you here to stay with Curt. He's a swell egg, but he couldn't talk when he got here. I found him lying on the floor."
Van was producing a body-fitting make-up case. The young man stared as moulages came out of the cheeks, and the whole contour of Van's face underwent a sudden change.
"I'm a fair butler," Van said. "Get out of the uniform. You're quite a little over my weight. Perhaps I'll fit it better."
The beefy young man who by now had told Van he was Tom Wilkins, answered the phone again five minutes later.
"Yes'm, Aunt Dora," he said. "Yes'm, I'm sorry. I was held up a few minutes. I'll be right along."
He did not look as if he would be right along. For he was wearing only long underwear. He was staring at Van, and it was the same as looking into a mirror.
The Phantom spoke quietly. "Yes'm, Aunt Dora," he said. "Yes'm, I'm sorry. I'll be right along to fix the rooms."
The beefy young man jumped as if he had been stung.
"Holy mackerel!" he exclaimed. "If I didn't know I was here, I'd think you was me! But don't do too good a job of butling, 'cause I don't know anything about the job. I don't know one room from another in the old house."
"That's a great break," said the Phantom. "I'll not be too good a butler. You stick with Lesher, Wilkins. If he comes out of it, don't let him get out of here under any circumstances."
"He stays here, Phantom, if I have to tie him," promised Wilkins. "You can trust me. An' so far as I know or anybody can pry out of me, Curtis Lesher and you are both dead. I'll call for you on the house phone in the kitchen if anything happens."
Ten minutes later, the substitute butler who would answer to the name of Wilkins was clumsily going about his duties. He judged instantly that the bald-headed man with the gray tufts at his temples was Judge Thurston Jones. Van also had placed Gorman Jones, the round-faced, moon-eyed son of the judge. And when he had entered the old house he had quietly taken a tongue-lashing from Aunt Dora who had waved her huge hands at him and called him several names other than Wilkins. One of the politest of these names had been "beet-faced ape."
Although he was near Steve Huston and Muriel Havens several times, Van did not identify himself for the time. He did not want to take any slightest chance of being given away, for taking the place of the disguised Tom Wilkins had been an unexpected break.
WHEN the supposed butler showed Judge Jones to his room, the judge commented:
"Not so good working inside, eh, Wilkins?" he said then.
"No, sir," said Van. "But Aunt Dora is set in her ways, sir. So I guess I'll have to do the best I can."
"That's the spirit, Wilkins," said Judge Jones. "We're all pretty much cut up by what happened to Mr. Armstead. The way things are, perhaps you'll be looking for another driving job. If you are, come and see me."
"Yes, sir, thank you, Judge Jones," said Van. "I'm hopin' Miss Lara won't lose the place though. If only Mr. Lesher would show up, I'll bet he'd help straighten things out."
"I wish you were right, Wilkins," Judge Jones said. "But I'm afraid Curtis Lesher is a prisoner. After the killers got that little fellow Chip Dorlan, I called the governor. If anything more happens, we'll have a whole army of troops down here tomorrow."
"Where do you s'pose they've taken that Chip Dorlan an' Martha Briggs, Judge Jones?" Van asked anxiously. "Maybe if a whole lot of police or troops shows up, they'll get rid of them quick."
Judge Jones looked suddenly downcast.
"I hadn't thought of that, Wilkins," he said. "Unless some progress is made toward getting the killers, I think Miss Lara and Aunt Dora should come over to my place. It's too bad the Phantom and his friends came down here. I'm afraid that will bring on more trouble than there would have been without them."
"But Miss Lara says they'll have to keep Claudia Ramer out, or that redheaded widow will take possession, sir," said Van.
"Just between you and me, Wilkins," said Judge Jones, "I'm afraid Miss Lara has a hopeless fight. Andrew Hamm, who drew up the will, is an old friend of the family and a good lawyer. It isn't as if some outside attorney had drawn the papers. Anyhow they'll have to permit Mrs. Ramer to be here tomorrow morning, when Mr. Hamm reads the will."
"Yes, sir," said Van. "I feel sorry for Miss Lara."
Judge Jones nodded. "You servants should do all you can to see there is no trouble while Mrs. Ramer is here," he said. "I'd like to throw her in the bay myself, but any violence now will only prejudice a court later..."
When the Phantom retired to the rooms over the garage that night, he had a fair picture of everyone in the Armstead house. But he had no more of an angle as to what had caused the mysterious deaths of Stevens, the gardener, and Jennings, the butler, than had any of the state police. He could only make a guess that an odorless, undetectible gas has been employed to kill the two old men.
In the morning, Curtis Lesher was still in a coma. Van cautioned Tom Wilkins to watch over him closely, as he might revive at any time.
"And he has some fever, with a possibility of a delirium," said Van. "Which means he might be enough out of his head to try and get out of here."
Wilkins promised faithful watchfulness and Van went on to the house. As he entered the kitchen, Aunt Dora banged through the door from the dining room in her wheelchair. Her huge hands waved.
"Wilkins! You must be earlier, as long as you are working in the house! No one has had breakfast yet! And there's a man here who insists on seeing Miss Lara! He looks suspicious to me, and I sent him to the library to wait until Lara comes down! You might look in on him!"
Van went on to the library, and needed but one glance to identify the ex-convict, Scanlon, whom he had last seen fighting with old Jasper Briggs. Van came in, making an excuse to open window shades.
Scanlon appeared nervous and ill at ease.
"Got the time, buddy?" he asked.
"It's ten after nine, sir," Van said, looking at his watch.
He crossed over to another window, looking out across the grounds. While it was warm outside, the air-conditioning system gave the library a cool, even temperature. Nevertheless, Scanlon was perspiring.
"Does Miss Armstead usually come down late?" he asked.
"I've only been in the house yesterday and today, sir," said Van. "She usually goes for a ride at ten."
Van could have sworn he saw a skulking figure outside. It seemed impossible, as half a dozen state troopers were spread about the old house. But this apparent intruder passed the library window so close he was almost under it.
Van saw only his back, but the man was short of stature. He walked quickly, and Van recalled the stride of Tanuko, the Japanese knife-thrower and killer. As Van went quickly out into the long hallway, his memory had jumped to the words of Tanuko, and of Stivers, the white man, threatening the removal of Lara Armstead and Muriel Havens.
It was now time, Van thought, for him to make known his identity to Steve Huston. A double watch must be placed over the two girls.
He was in the hall when he suddenly became aware that someone had entered the library he had just left. It was no more than a shadow that he caught in a backward glimpse, but Van quickly turned to retrace his steps.
It was beginning to look as if Scanlon, the ex-convict, was somewhat on the spot.
MURIEL HAVENS and Lara Armstead came into the hallway near the library door from another entrance before Van reached the library. Van hastened his steps, but he did not wish to create unnecessary alarm, or give anyone a chance to suspect he was not Wilkins, the amateur butler.
He was perhaps twelve feet away from the library door when Lara Armstead reached it, with Muriel Havens beside her. Lara was about to turn the knob—
Perhaps no other man but the Phantom, with his highly trained senses, would have caught the faint odor. It was not unpleasant, and not sufficiently strong to cause Lara Armstead or Muriel Havens to notice it or become alarmed.
But it sent Van hurtling upon both girls, jumping from his toes. His weight struck Lara Armstead first, but his plunge carried Muriel Havens with her.
All three landed in a heap on the floor. Lara screamed, as much with anger as surprise, but Van's powerful arms lifted both girls, sending them another eight or ten feet along the hallway.
"Wilkins!" cried Lara. "Are you crazy. Why, I'll have—"
What Lara might have threatened for Wilkins was not finished, for at that instant the heavy library door seemed to dissolve in a fierce heat. All of the inside of the library was converted into blinding, metallic inferno, though there had been no explosion.
Van could feel the heat singeing his hair, scorching his skin. The single glance he shot at Lara and Muriel showed they were apparently unhurt.
Water was showering from the ceiling of the wide hallway, for the modernization of the old house had included an up-to-date high-pressure water system, in addition to sprinklers. The water protected Van somewhat as he reached the nearest wall emergency hose with its bright brass nozzle.
As he got this down and turned the valve that stiffened the coiled hose to high-pressure life, Van heard shots outside the house and the shrill blasting of state police, whistles. Aunt Dora's great figure in her wheelchair came rolling into the hall from the breakfast room.
"Great jiminee!" rolled out Aunt Dora's air-shaking voice. "What goes on? Hey, Rube! Hey, Rube! Wilkins! Wilkins! Whatever have you bungled up now?"
Aunt Dora's cry of "Hey, Rube!" was a plain reversion to her younger days when she had been a trapeze performer and acrobat. She set her chair rolling straight toward Van and the library door that still belched its strange white-hot flame. Van forgot his role of butler as his voice cracked out:
"Get out of the hall, Aunt Dora! Go back or I'll have to turn you over with the pressure!"
Dumbfounded, Aunt Dora saw the hard, white stream of water play from the curving high-pressure hose which Van was holding. He was sending the stream along to meet the on coming wheelchair. He would have used the water to stop her, too, if the stubborn Aunt Dora had not suddenly started wheeling backward.
Van would have been interested if he could have heard Aunt Dora muttering:
"That can't be Tom Wilkins! That beet-faced nincompoop never had the nerve to talk back even to poor old Jennings. This will take some looking into."
VAN was driving the pressure stream into the blazing library. State police had turned on an emergency hose from the outside through the library windows.
But the inferno that had been so white and destructive seemed to burn out in a matter of seconds, leaving only what furnishings were left burning with a slow blaze.
The streams of water quickly battered out this lesser fire. Van was in the library doorway as he saw Sergeant Ripley climbing into a window with a stream of water protecting him.
Van faced Sergeant Ripley across the blackened, almost denuded room. The big center table that had been there was gone. A yawning hole had been burned in the floor, but there was nothing visible in the basement under it.
The big table, chairs and even the metal fixtures that had been on the table had been completely consumed by the fire.
A man named Scanlon, ex-convict, was no longer there, either. The man who had told old Jasper Briggs he intended to inform Lara Armstead of dangerous criminals visiting the mills and old Jasper, was gone without leaving a trace.
Sergeant Ripley swore heavily. "Did you see this start, Wilkins?" he demanded of Van. "Where were you?"
Van was not yet ready to disclose his identity, not even to Sergeant Ripley or other officers of the law. He managed a blank expression.
"I was in the hall, sir," he said. "I saw the fire comin' through, an' I had to handle Miss Lara and Miss Havens roughly to get them away from the library door. There was a man waiting in here to see Miss Lara."
"A man?" snapped Sergeant Ripley. "Sure, I remember. A pale kind of guy who called himself Scanlon. He got permission to come in from Aunt Dora herself. He must have got out, Wilkins."
"He got out, sir," Van said quietly. "The only way any man would get out who was sitting beside that table. I think maybe the fire came through the air conditioner, but we won't be able to find out about that."
Sergeant Ripley's eyes followed Van's gesture. The grating of an air-conditioning blower was gone. There was nothing there but a black hole that went all the way through to the outside brick wall of the old house.
Van did not tell the state police sergeant so, but he had already determined what chemicals had caused the fire when a thin, nasal voice behind him in the doorway said:
"And I can tell you just about what caused it! Unless my sense of smell has gone back on me, it was some oxide suddenly mixed with powdered magnesium. It would flare as that did, and burn out like a Roman candle."
Old Jasper Briggs stood in the library doorway, with Abdul, the thin-faced Arab, beside him.
The Phantom knew that Briggs had called the turn as to the origin of the annihilating fire. For his own keen sense of smell, detecting the faint odor of an iron or other metal oxide coming from the library into the hall, had been the warning which had caused him to hurl Lara Armstead and Muriel Havens to safety.
He remembered how he had caught a swift glimpse of someone entering the library after he had left it. Also he had seen someone he had believed to be a Jap near the window outside.
VAN fully realized that the utter obliteration of Scanlon, the ex-convict, had been intended. To that end someone had spilled oxide on drapes or upon a rug in the library and had left quickly before powdered magnesium had suddenly come into the room on the stream from the air-conditioner.
Some sort of a spark—it could have been a cigarette left lighted in an ash-tray—had set the stuff off. It had been as quick and as hot as a giant magnesium flashlight used in night photography would have been.
Van had an urgent reason to keep his Phantom identity concealed. As Wilkins, the butler, he effaced himself while Sergeant Ripley talked with Jasper Briggs and others who were crowding around. He had one vital reason for keeping to his role, convinced as he was that the fire had been timed to remove Lara Armstead and Muriel Havens along with the ex-convict.
Even investigation of that must wait now. For this morning the Phantom had one purpose transcending all others. He meant to hear the last will of Jacklin Armstead read, and he could do that in his role of Wilkins.
When the Phantom reached the butler's pantry, preparing to slip away to investigate the whole air-conditioning system in the Armstead mansion, Aunt Dora was calling insistently on the butler's board. Van had a fair idea as to why the huge crippled woman would be summoning Wilkins, who had driven her from the hallway during the fire.
"And I was probably much more emphatic about it than Wilkins would have been," thought Van. "Aunt Dora may have to be trusted."
He was delayed at the convergence of hallways where the narrow corridor went into the old wing at the end of the house where Aunt Dora had her room. Judge Thurston Jones and his son, Gorman, were together near a sunlighted window.
Evidently the Joneses believed themselves to be alone. Van, in the shadows, could not hear their low speech, but Judge Jones was facing him. Van could read the words on Judge Jones' lips as plainly as if they had been shouted.
"I saw Tanuko outside. Find him at once, Gorman. I'll make a call to Stivers and see what he says. Be careful not to attract the attention of the police."
Gorman Jones nodded. Van could not see the son's lips. Judge Jones started back along the hallway. His son stepped to the low-silled window and went out into the grounds.
So it was Tanuko Van had seen passing the library before Scanlon had been burned! Moreover, it appeared that the neighborly solicitude of the Joneses had something more than a kindly purpose.
As Van glided quickly along the narrow side hall toward Aunt Dora's rooms a startling train of ideas was in his brain, evoked by the conversation of Judge Jones and his son.
Tanuko, the Japanese killer! Stivers, leader of the mysterious murder mob that seemed to have Jasper Briggs under its domination!
Judge Jones had just directed his son to find Tanuko, while he would call Stivers! Would the judge call Stivers from the house?
That question was answered. Van heard a car start. He saw Judge Jones in the car, passing the window at the end of the hallway.
Van's immediate thought was to forget Aunt Dora's summons, and to get outside and trail Gorman Jones. If he could come upon Gorman with Tanuko, he might be able to force a sudden showdown that would prevent further killing.
Van had expected to be forced to wait until after the reading of the Armstead will to gain some more direct lead for action. But the inadvertent exchange he had overheard between Judge Jones and his son had supplied a definite objective.
GOING on toward the end of the hallway, Van was planning to go through the window when he heard a heavy thumping. It came from inside Aunt Dora's rooms.
It couldn't be said that Aunt Dora screamed. Her heavy voice roared more with anger than with fright.
Van tried the thick door leading to the rooms. Its old-fashioned lock held firmly. It failed to yield to his battering weight.
"Merciful jiminee!" Aunt Dora's voice came through it. "That heathen! Get down, you beasts! Get down!... Now what?"
Van produced a small steel tool from his inside pocket. As he went to work, he called out:
"You all right. Ma'am? It's Wilkins!"
Aunt Dora's reply snapped back at him.
"No I'm not all right! And you're not Wilkins! But look out! The beasts have curled up! Something got them!"
Van had the lock unfastened. He did not know what Aunt Dora meant by her warning words, but before he opened the door he set himself for quick action.
Aunt Dora had said the beasts, doubtless Abdul's apes, were in there and something had got them. But Van was unprepared for the amazing spectacle that confronted him.
The huge woman was up near the ceiling, hanging by her great hands. She was at the top of a trapeze ladder that extended down to her empty wheelchair.
Van sensed the meaning of the queer contraption instantly. Unable to use her crippled legs, the strange woman, once an acrobat and trapeze performer, had devised a means of exercising in her own room.
That trapeze must have saved Aunt Dora's life. For two of Abdul's great apes, of the orang-outang variety, were curled up on the floor. There were three windows in the room, but only one was open.
"Get back, young man!" bawled Aunt Dora. "Don't breathe! Open the other windows! Leave the door open!"
Her contradictory words told Van the story. He barged across the room and threw open the two closed windows.
"Hang on up there, Ma'am," he said. "Don't come down until I tell you to."
"You bet I'll hang on!" she roared. "You get out quick! The beasts went down like they were shot! That heathen sent them after me! But something got them before they could get me!"
Van did not have to be informed what had killed the apes that had died without a struggle. A thin, bluish haze lay along the floor, arising to a height of about four feet. With the windows and door opened, it was being fast dissipated.
"Metallic gas, and heavy," he thought. "Probably a deadly mixture of mercury in vaporized form. And it came through the air-conditioner."
Van breathed deep at one window and turned back to Aunt Dora.
"What sent you up there, Ma'am?" he asked. "The apes?"
"No!" she snapped. "And quit calling me Ma'am, because you're not Wilkins! I was doing my morning exercises when the apes came through the window. That heathen Abdul sent them, but before they could start climbing, that blue fog hit them."
The metallic gas was cleared out now. Van closed the outside door. He got Aunt Dora back in her chair.
"You decided I was not Wilkins when I had to order you back from the library fire," he said. "Well, I'm not. I'm the Phantom Detective. I'm trying to get to the bottom of the murders that have already occurred, and now there's been an evident effort to kill you. I wouldn't be too hard on Abdul, if he did send the apes in here. He may have done you a favor by keeping you up in the air and saving your life."
VAN explained his position without wasting words. Aunt Dora was quick. She nodded agreement with his suggestions.
"If you can save Curtis Lesher," she said, "it will mean more to Lara than all of her father's fortune. She tries to appear hard, but she isn't. But your identity is safe with me."
"Join the others and stay with them, Aunt Dora," Van said. "I have another matter to investigate at once. I will play butler at least until Attorney Hamm has read the Armstead will. I have my own ideas concerning that will, but I also believe that it will stand up in any court in the land."
Aunt Dora's shrewd little eyes studied the Phantom. She shrugged her big shoulders as she looked at the dead apes. An old-timer from a circus, she was game all the way through.
"Phantom," she suggested, "it might be as well if we don't say anything about this happening for awhile. The killers will be expecting to hear from this latest attack."
"Right," agreed Van instantly. "I've still a better idea. Have you some place in the house where you can disappear for awhile without arousing suspicion? You might send word to Miss Armstead and the others that you are resting and don't want to be disturbed."
Aunt Dora smiled. "You bet I can disappear, Phantom. And I will. Someone will come here investigating before long, you think, someone who will be wondering why the gas attack has not been discovered and an alarm raised."
"That's the general idea," said Van.
"And Phantom, I forgot to say that Lawyer Hamm called. He says the gold-digging widow can't leave New York until this evening. He has set the reading of the will for eight tonight."
"That's a break," said Van. "You're sure you can stay out of sight and be safe?"
"I have a nook in the conservatory, and it isn't air-conditioned either," said Aunt Dora. "Watch out for the others, and I'll trundle along out there."
Van made a quick inspection of the air-conditioner grating in Aunt Dora's room. The fan apparently had ceased working.
Because the death had struck in single rooms, the investigation by the state police had revealed nothing definite. In the kitchen deaths of Stevens and Jennings, the air-conditioner had not even been suspected. In the library, the blower grating had been burned out.
Van let himself out of the same window through which Gorman Jones had exited after talking with his father. Van regretted that he had been unable to trail Gorman.
But apparently Gorman Jones had given no thought to the possibility that anyone would trail him. For his footprints ran along near the wall of the house, as if he had stayed close to avoid being seen by state police guards.
Van followed the prints quickly. They led directly to an old underground doorway, evidently employed during the winter for handling fuel and ashes outside.
When he saw that the footprints vanished on the steps, Van moved with infinite caution. A heavy door was closed. He opened it quietly and looked into the basement.
Young Gorman Jones was standing beside a number of metal tubes. These evidently belonged to the air-conditioning system. Gorman was removing a small hose that connected with a tank on the floor.
Apparently hearing the slight sound Van made, Gorman Jones turned quickly. His round face screwed up and he let out a cry. He dropped the rubber hose he had been pulling from one of the air-conditioning pipes and whipped a gun from his side coat pocket. But he had no chance to shoot. The Phantom's diving quickness and a punching fist literally knocked Gorman Jones loose from the gun.
Van's knuckles smacked on Gorman's jaw. Young Jones grunted and went down, flattening on his back. His mouth was open and his arms were spread out.
Van flashed his pencil light for a closer inspection of the small tank on the floor. It was about the size of an average hand fire-extinguisher. From its device Van decided that it probably contained some form of gas under high pressure. The valve was closed now. Van had no doubt but this was the tank from which death had just been blown into Aunt Dora's room.
"It will be a metallic gas, probably mercury," mused Van, with the thought he'd had before. "And it was connected to the air vent of the pipe."
Van examined the air-conditioner. It was built much the same as a furnace. Smaller metal tubes ran from a central base in which he could hear the humming of the blower motor. Water pipes connected with the base, and the air was filtered through the system of cooled pipes.
In order to send death gas into any selected room in the big house it was necessary for the murderer to be familiar with the many tubes.
"But the Joneses probably have visited the Armstead home many times," thought Van. "This tank may have been set some time ago, and Gorman came down here for the purpose of getting it out of the way before a more general investigation could be made. If that is the case, Aunt Dora's disappearing will hardly set a trap."
Van moved back to the steps and opened the outside door. He glanced along the house, picking out the windows in Aunt Dora's room.
Van's nerves tightened. A man was approaching the windows furtively, along the side of the house. He stayed close to the wall, but when he reached the windows he crouched, then arose closely, peering inside.
Van scarcely believed what he was seeing when the man stood fully revealed for several seconds. Apparently he must be seeing the dead apes on the floor inside.
Then he turned and went quickly away into the shrubbery. Van could not have been greater surprised at seeing that person had he seen Lara Armstead there.
For the man was Curtis Lesher. In the shrubbery Lesher moved quickly toward the old stable garage, which Van could see. Lesher went directly there and passed inside.
How had Lesher escaped from Tom Wilkins? Lesher had still been unconscious earlier in the morning.
Gorman Jones was a far more immediate problem, however. Van's next step would be to get at the connection between Judge Thurston Jones and the man Stivers. He must therefore dispose of Gorman for the time being.
"Everything must be kept quiet until Andrew Hamm has read the Armstead will," Van thought grimly.
LOOKING down at the round-faced Gorman, sprawled on his back, it was in Van's mind that Gorman Jones probably would know of the whereabouts of Martha Briggs and Chip Dorlan. It might be well to revive him, even if he had to be knocked out again.
Van bent over the unconscious young man.
Fingers like steel claws vised upon Van's throat. Expertly applied weight sent him from his feet. Agony ran like fire along the nerves of his neck and back.
"This is what happens, when one sees too much!" a deadly voice snarled in his ear.
Van realized the torturing hold upon his throat was ju jitsu. Had he not been trained in the Oriental holds and the means of breaking them he would have been unconscious.
He broke the hold with one grinding heel that found the instep of his attacker. One of his hands shot back. The Jap went all the way over his head, jamming hard against the metal of the air-conditioner.
The faint light showed the flat-nosed face of Tanuko, as the Jap bounced back to his feet. A knife was in his hand. The ju jitsu upon which he had depended had failed him.
Tanuko's breath hissed with his killing anger. Van waited until the Jap's hand started to whip the knife from the level of his knee. Then he was as quick as light, diving under the knife and carrying Tanuko off his feet.
Van wasted no time now upon ju jitsu. He stopped Tanuko with driving fists that hammered the Jap's face to a pulp. When the Jap was through, and that was quickly, Van ripped Tanuko's clothes with the knife and tied him securely.
Three minutes later Gorman Jones was tightly bound and gagged. Van rolled him into the darkness beside the air-conditioner. He hid the tank of death gas and went outside.
IN THE stable garage, Curtis Lesher's wound was bleeding again. Lesher was only half conscious.
"I had slipped out for a few minutes, Phantom," Tom Wilkins said. "And when I got back he was like this."
"How long were you gone?" was Van's question.
Wilkins admitted he had been out nearly an hour.
"I thought he would be all right," he protested.
If Lesher could hear, he made no sign. Wilkins attempted to talk with him, but Lesher made no reply.
"Wilkins," Van said, "do you know a man named Stivers?"
"Yes," said Wilkins, "I know Harry Stivers, the lawyer in Oldsville. They say he used to be a big shot mouthpiece in some Western city, but he has only a small office here. Came here about six months ago."
"Tall, with a hooked nose and dark hair," said Van.
"That's him... And oh, yes, Phantom, he's a friend of Judge Jones. He's been boosting him to run for United States Senator."
Van nodded. Some angles of the Armstead mystery were beginning to add up, but none of them seemed to be clear cut.
Van was thinking of the several persons involved, particularly Curtis Lesher, and the latest to take a hand, Gorman Jones.
Curtis Lesher seemed concerned only with the welfare of Lara Armstead and Martha Briggs. Probably Lesher, in those moments of consciousness, had been trying to make contact with Lara through Aunt Dora.
Gorman Jones had been caught while removing the death gas connection from the air-conditioner. And he had been sent by Judge Jones to find Tanuko, the Jap, who was without doubt a dangerous killer.
What was the position of Judge Jones? Or his son?
Possession of the Armstead mills apparently was the goal of the mysterious killers, and was a prize big enough to bring about wholesale murder.
Van's thoughts went to the men he had himself killed in New York. Truck drivers from Texas! And they had been directly concerned with gaining possession of a girl's hand that had been employed to intimidate Jacklin Armstead!
Van came to a sudden decision.
"You stay here, Wilkins, and don't leave Lesher again for one minute," he said. "I'm still taking your place as butler, but I'm also having the afternoon off."
He was thinking of Harry Stivers, a lawyer with an office in Oldsville. That led to another question.
"Andrew Hamm also has an office in Oldsville, hasn't he?" he inquired of Wilkins.
"Yeah, his only office since he left New York to handle Mr. Armstead's business," said Wilkins.
"Would you know if Lawyer Hamm and Lawyer Stivers are friends, Wilkins?"
Wilkins grinned broadly.
"They'd cut each other's throats," he said. "Mr. Hamm had Stivers blackballed at the country club here on account of him having been disbarred one time back in Chicago or somewhere."
"Then if Stivers is boosting Judge Jones for Senator, I take it that Attorney Hamm would be against Jones?" suggested Van.
"That's right, Phantom," said Wilkins. "Mr. Hamm's against anything Judge Jones does, and he's managed to get stories in the paper, running Judge Jones down. One of them was about Judge Jones having Gorman's marriage to Martha Briggs annulled."
VAN went directly to the house. Within five minutes Muriel Havens and Steve Huston were quietly informed that the man they had thought was the butler was the Phantom. That brought great relief to both.
"When I heard the story about the fire in the library, I had an idea you were on the job as Wilkins. I didn't tell Muriel, but she also knew you must be around somewhere."
"I'm going into Oldsville," announced the Phantom. "I want you and Muriel to keep Lara Armstead in sight all the time. Now, Steve, we'll take a little walk and collect a pair of prisoners. It would be just as well if they disappear for a while."
They walked around the house and Van unbarred the door to the darkened basement air-conditioning room. Van flashed his torch. The spot where Tanuko, the Jap, had been tied was vacant.
Van pushed in beside the metal base of the air-conditioner. He sent the pencil light into the dark space.
The strips of cloth that had bound Gorman Jones were lying on the cement floor. These were the only signs that he had been there.
"That Jap might be clever, but he did not free himself and Gorman Jones without outside help," the Phantom said tightly. "The death gas tank is also gone. For the present, Steve, we will keep this to ourselves."
The Phantom was convinced that he was still safe in his role of Wilkins, the butler. He was sure that Gorman Jones could not have identified anyone in the poorly lighted basement when Van had knocked him out so quickly.
Van was equally certain that Tanuko, the Jap, had not seen him clearly when he had made his attack. Both Gorman and Tanuko had been rendered unconscious and had been left that way. Van's one apprehension now was that some other person outside had seen him enter the basement, and had rescued Gorman Jones and Tanuko.
Back in the house Van learned from Muriel Havens that Judge Jones had returned some time before. He now was in one of the sun rooms with Lara Armstead. Van thought it possible that on his return Judge Jones might have missed his son.
"In that case," mused Van, "he would probably have had an idea that Gorman might be in the basement."
Yet when Van heard Judge Jones' mild voice and his light laugh as he talked with Lara Armstead, it seemed impossible to believe that he could be in league with the killers. Still, he had left the house to make contact with Harry Stivers.
"Try and relax, Lara," Van heard the judge say. "I'm sure some legal loophole will be found so you can keep your father's estate. And if Curtis Lesher is alive and doesn't want to come to you, he isn't worth worrying about."
Leaving the Armstead house, Van encountered Sergeant Ripley. The state trooper was greatly worried over the day's events. But Van knew Ripley would be more worried if he knew about two dead apes now in Aunt Dora's rooms, and her narrow escape from death.
Already Van had informed Aunt Dora she might as well mingle with the others.
"Our little trap didn't work," Van had told her.
Van had one question now for Sergeant Ripley.
"Would you know what special business Harry Stivers, the lawyer, handles in Oldsville?"
"Not much of any business," said Ripley. "He goes in more for selling insurance, auto risks and such. I guess he's saved enough from being a big shot for mobsters so that he can just drift along..."
A SHORT distance from the Armstead place the Phantom parked the sedan he had borrowed from Muriel Havens. When the car rolled again, Van was a different figure from Wilkins, the butler.
He might have passed for a burly truck driver, with rough clothes and a shock of brown hair that seemed badly in need of trimming. He had made sure that no one had trailed him toward Oldsville.
It was late afternoon when a hard-mouthed, narrowed-eyed young man walked into Harry Stivers' small office. The lawyer's stenographer had left for the day. At the sound of an arrival, the tall, hook-nosed Stivers came to an inner door and looked out.
The Phantom carefully closed the outside door behind him.
"Well, who are you, and what do you want?"
The lawyer's voice was harsh and filled with suspicion. Van took off his hat awkwardly.
"Been havin' some trouble with my truck on the state line," he said. "An' some of the boys said you was the fellow to look after that kind of thing."
"Yes? What boys told you that?" Van could tell that Stivers was interested by his changed tone.
"I've got a note here from some of 'em," said Van, fumbling inside his coat as he walked inside the outer office rail. "He said you'd be all right, an' maybe you could be usin' a driver on a job that'd pay more. I've been down around the Gulf Coast."
Van saw Stivers' eyes boring into him as he held out a folded paper. "Here it is, Mister," he said. Stivers got more than the paper. Van's shooting fist traveled only about eight inches. Stivers could not have been laid colder if a mule had kicked him.
Closing the inner door, Van made Stivers comfortable on the floor of the private office. During the next few minutes he opened a dozen steel filing cases and his facile hands quickly pawed through them.
He retained two odd papers. One was a letter from an undertaker in New York City. The other was a notation of two payments of $5,000 each made to two persons. And with this notation was a signature repeated several times with a pen.
The signature was that of Jacklin Armstead.
Van was especially interested in some notations in a book from Stivers' locked desk. There were lines showing state license numbers of trucks. And with some of these were dates, and the simple notation, "Accidentally burned."
On other pages were dates of ship arrivals, naming vessels coming into the ports of Houston, Texas, and New Orleans. Van noted that one date was in the near future.
Today was the fifth, and a steamer called the Maribon was due in New Orleans on the seventh of the month. Under this notation it was stated that trucks bearing certain licenses were to meet this ship.
Still another page was marked, "Arrivals Oldsville."
Under this were several recent dates. Truck drivers' names were recorded, with a notation of the truck loads. These apparently had been discharged at an address given merely as "Foot of Front Street."
Van was smiling grimly as he closed the little book and replaced it. He made sure that the desk and the files were left as he had found them, then coolly removed Lawyer Stivers' gold wrist-watch, a wallet well stuffed with bills and a signet ring of gold. He roughly pried open the desk drawer he had relocked, and left its contents scattered on the floor.
IN THE street Van lost no time reaching his parked car. Within five minutes afterward, the hard-mouthed young man who had held up, slugged and robbed Lawyer Harry Stivers in his own office had ceased to exist. If Stivers ever gave a police alarm, it netted no one.
Van was again the red-faced Wilkins as he drove through Oldsville. He visited his plane and took from it a small package before he turned back toward the Armstead estate.
Not often did the Phantom impersonate a thief to beat a crook. But this time he felt fully justified and well rewarded.
Many trucks, evidently directed by Harry Stivers, had been and still were hauling baled cotton to Oldsville. Somewhere about Oldsville a large stock of this baled goods was being stored.
Van could make a fair guess as to its final destination.
Moreover, he knew from the Stivers' records that some of these trucks had met with accidents on the road, and that all that had been in such accidents had been destroyed by fire.
"And that means that a lot of long stapled cotton that comes only from India went up in smoke, and the identity of the trucks along with them," mused Van. "Which probably points to one of the biggest swindles ever practiced in industry depending on one old man, Jasper Briggs, and the strength of his love for his daughter."
Halfway from town, Van's lights sliced along the curving dark road. It was only seven, and he had one hour until the scheduled reading of the Armstead will.
The Armstead murder mystery was still difficult, and Van had deep concern for the safety of Chip Dorlan. But this was allayed somewhat by his belief that Chip and Martha Briggs would be more important to the killers alive than dead.
He was jolted from his thinking by headlights rushing toward him. Because of the speed of the oncoming car, he pulled well over. But the other car slowed suddenly just before it passed.
Van's own lights shot into the other windshield, picking out two faces distinctly. It was well that his eyes were quick and his reaction instant. For he saw the face of the guard he had bound and hidden in the mills after his escape from the bin of silk. And the face of the deadly little Jap, Tanuko.
He could not see into the rear of the car, because he was down, flat on the seat, and still shooting his own car ahead when a stream of yellow, pounding flame belched between the cars.
He had an automatic out and ready, but the killer car speeded up and went on. Van was aware then that so far as the murder mob was concerned, his identity of Wilkins, the butler, no longer was of service.
The guard he had left a prisoner had been found. No doubt he had told of Curtis Lesher and the Phantom escaping before that bin of loose silk had been destroyed by sulphuric acid. It must also have been determined that the Phantom was in the role of Wilkins.
Within the hour, as Wilkins, he had expected to be present at the reading of the Armstead will!
"And if that will is connected with the series of murders, the discovery that I am the Phantom may make greater the intent to wipe out the Armstead mansion and all of those who stand in the way of the silk murder mob," was Van's grim thought.
LUCKILY Van made sure the Tanuko car had not turned after the machine-gun had sent a wild burst into his car. He was now following the ghostly mill buildings, not far from the tall iron gate.
A parked car drew his attention only because its lights were suddenly flashed on. Putting on the lights was a mistake, for a man who had evidently been spying upon the parked car was walking toward the gate in the Armstead wall.
The man was Judge Thurston Jones. He was striding hurriedly along, as if he wished to avoid being seen. Van deliberately swung his own light, swerving slightly across the road, so that the driver of the parked car was brought into view.
He changed the direction of his car quickly, straightening out in the road and speeding ahead. From what he had seen he was drawing his own swift conclusions, and they were adding up to what seemed to be an amazing sum total of strange involvement.
The driver in the parked car was Mrs. Claudia Ramer, the red-haired widow who, within the hour, was expected to be named as the rightful heiress to Jacklin Armstead's fortune.
The big iron gate was open. Van saw Judge Jones slip over among the trees as Van himself entered the estate driveway...
Just half an hour later beefy Tom Wilkins stared at the man who entered his rooms over the garage stable. He swallowed hard, took a quick step backward and kicked shut the door leading to the inner room.
"Yes, sir?" he said in a sort of choked voice. "I wasn't—I thought you was somebody else, Judge Jones. I was just takin' a few minutes' rest before comin' to the house, sir. Something special, Judge?"
Wilkins looked as if he would have given ten years of his life to have been somewhere else at this moment. His unexpected visitor walked in without speaking and glanced around.
It was Judge Jones's mellow voice that inquired:
"Is Curtis Lesher better, Wilkins? Think he would be able to talk?"
"Yes, sir—I mean—no, sir, I have not seen Mr. Lesher."
Wilkins' visitor uttered a deep, low laugh.
"Relax, Wilkins," he said in quite another tone. "You've got Judge Jones on your hands as a visitor, but I'm not him. He's well trussed up in one of the old horse mangers downstairs. It might be well to keep an eye on him once in awhile, but in the meantime, you'll have to take back your job as butler."
"You—great tadpoles! The Phantom! You mean you've got the judge?"
"That's right," said Van. "And soon you will have to be in the house to serve the guests present for the reading of the Armstead will. Judge Thurston Jones seems to be quite mixed up tonight as to his friends, so I am taking his place to mix matters up a little more."
The phone rang. Wilkins answered it.
"Yes, Miss Lara," he said. "I'll be along. I just got back from town." Van had made no attempt to gain any information directly from Judge Thurston Jones. He could but guess why he had been spying upon Mrs. Ramer.
But because Van believed that Judge Jones could not be induced to tell the truth except under pressure amounting to violence, the Phantom had put the wandering judge out quickly and effectively.
HE HAD hidden his own car among the trees and caught up with Judge Jones shortly before he had reached the house, walking. In the meantime, he had seen Mrs. Ramer pass on the driveway. Another car was following her closely, and Van had identified Andrew Hamm. The woman with him was probably a stenographer. Van decided that Mrs. Ramer had waited for Lawyer Hamm before venturing into the Armstead mansion.
Now, before Wilkins left for the house, Van warned him:
"Keep that revolver of yours handy. Don't go outside the lighted rooms. Stay with others all the time. I'm afraid there are some killers aboard who will mistake you for the Phantom tonight."
Wilkins' head bobbed with excitement.
"And if there should be a light fuse blown out shortly after or during the reading of the will," Van went on, "don't move to fix it, Wilkins. Let some other servant take care of that. I'm sure the lights will go out. You stick close to Lara Armstead."
The Phantom had never had a more willing temporary accomplice than beefy Tom Wilkins. He chuckled as he guessed how puzzled Aunt Dora might be in a short time, if she attempted to talk on the side with the butler, still believing him to be the Phantom.
Curtis Lesher was sleeping very soundly when Van himself left the garage.
Sergeant Ripley had two troopers stationed near the motor entrance to the old mansion. The Phantom called Sergeant Ripley to one side.
"Yes, Judge Jones?" said the sergeant respectfully. "I understand you put in a call to the governor today. Have more men been authorized? I would need an army to police these grounds, not to mention the mills. I—"
Sergeant Ripley started to say something more, then grunted with amazement. He was looking at the domino badge of pure platinum which nearly all law officers knew as that of the Phantom.
Van had no time to spare.
"Briefly, Sergeant Ripley," he said hurriedly, "there may be trouble inside and outside the house tonight. Have your men keep an eye out for prowlers."
"We've already picked up three near the marshes and sent them to jail in Oldsville," said the sergeant. "One white man and two Japs. My boys have never seen them before and we can't get anything out of them. They seem sure they'll be sprung, too."
Van regretted he could not have had an opportunity to interview the prowlers. But their arrest confirmed his belief. The Armstead mansion was under close surveillance by sinister watchers tonight.
Van had another thought. "We have permitted old Jasper Briggs to keep his freedom, Sergeant. But if he can be found, perhaps at his laboratory near the mills, it might be well to take him into custody. I suggest that because I think he is in danger."
"I'll have a man look for him," promised Ripley. "I would like to know if Judge Jones is all right, Phantom, seeing you are taking his place?"
"I guarantee Judge Jones is unharmed and secure." Van smiled.
He rejoined Wilkins. The people in the living room of the mansion were moving about. Lawyer Hamm had not started the reading of Jacklin Armstead's strange will.
"We'll make a round of the house, Wilkins," said Van. "There are few places better situated than this for a sudden attack from many directions. But I do not believe the killers are quite prepared for that. A little surprise tonight probably will find them waiting, certain that their plot is perfect."
THEY passed a state trooper on guard at the outside entrance to the basement containing the air-conditioning plant. This had been brought about by an earlier report to Sergeant Ripley passed along through Steve Huston.
The big old mansion was like some grotesque, sprawling monster in the darkness. Lights glowed in all of its wings. The servants were in a state bordering on terror, and only loyalty to Lara Armstead was holding them.
Near the end of a wing, where the trees were thickest between the house and the marshland, Van and Wilkins were suddenly halted. The light from a house window revealed a young man on his hands and knees, crawling from among the trees. Just as Van sprang toward him, he slipped forward on his face and lay still. Van turned him over quickly, feeling the stickiness of blood saturating the man's coat.
"Gorman Jones!" gasped Wilkins. "He's bad hurt!"
"He's dying," said Van, seeing the greenish paleness of young Jones' face in the light from the window. "Here, Wilkins, hold up his head."
Van produced a hypodermic from the make-up case under his shirt. He gave Gorman Jones a quick injection. The dying man shivered and opened his eyes.
The eyes were already dulling with death's approach. But Gorman Jones could whisper hoarsely.
"Dad?" he said, and Van realized he was being mistaken for Judge Jones.
In this crisis the Phantom would have freed Judge Jones for this final moment with his son, but the youth's pulse told him there was not time.
"Yes, Gorman," said Van. "What is it? Who did this?"
"Tanuko—he's killer! I found tank of gas—Dad—I can't see—"
Van administered another injection. The hoarse whisper began again as the stimulant took effect.
"Tanuko and Stivers—together—Tanuko quit our house—has more Japs. Martha! Dad—she's alive—found her. Tanuko caught me—Martha—save her, Dad—Martha—apes—"
Gorman Jones was dead. His story of how he had been stabbed by Tanuko, and had found Martha Briggs was left unfinished.
Van moved the body close to the house in the darkness. When he came to his feet, he knew that much of his plan for tonight had been changed.
As brief as Gorman Jones' speech had been, it seemed to afford clear evidence that Judge Jones and his son were involved with the Armstead murder mob. The words Gorman had spoken indicated that Tanuko had been employed by Judge Jones, but no more.
When the Phantom had read Judge Jones' lips that morning he had known only that Gorman Jones had been told to find Tanuko, that Judge Jones had seen the Jap prowling about. Judge Jones had also said he would call Stivers.
And the Phantom had come upon Gorman Jones just as Gorman had found the tank of death gas in the basement. The justifiable mistake filled the Phantom with a bitter sickness.
But he realized that Gorman Jones had been doomed the moment he had found the death tank. For Tanuko had been hiding in the basement, watching. Had it not been for the Phantom's unexpected appearance, the murderous Jap would have killed Gorman Jones then and there. As it was, the Jap had been rescued, had taken Gorman Jones with him, and had stabbed him later.
THEN, in some manner, Gorman Jones had learned of where Martha Briggs was being held. And he had died, trying to tell where he had seen the missing girl.
"We will keep this latest murder quiet for the time, Wilkins," said Van. "Whatever Gorman Jones may have been, he was thinking with his last breath of guiding someone to Martha Briggs. And he could not tell where she is, unless that one word, 'apes,' means something...
Aunt Dora was in the main hallway doorway when Van and Wilkins returned to the house. She was pounding her huge hands on the arms of her wheelchair.
"Will someone go and find that dratted Wilkins!" she was demanding. "And where is Judge Jones? I want him here before Jacklin's crazy will is read!"
Van and Wilkins appeared just as a servant was about to go to the stable garage for the butler. Aunt Dora seemed to be in a rage as Van and Wilkins joined her.
As Van had expected, Aunt Dora looked keenly at Wilkins. "Merciful jiminee!" she exclaimed. "But you've had me in a state! Wilkins, bring the sherry and stay right by my chair! I'll need a drink or two, I'll bet!"
"Yes, ma'am," Wilkins said. "At once, ma'am."
Van knew that Aunt Dora believed the real Wilkins still to be the Phantom. For the moment it made his new role easier.
"Judge Jones," Aunt Dora said, "will you try to keep Lara quiet? You are the only one she will listen to, and while I'd as soon tear that red-headed Ramer woman apart myself as not, I don't want it done in our house."
"Yes, Aunt Dora," agreed Van, and moved on into the glittering living room.
He saw Andrew Hamm look at him, and there was no liking for Judge Thurston Jones in Lawyer Hamm's eyes.
The red-lipped, red-haired widow, Claudia Ramer, also scrutinized him searchingly. Van could detect a hint of fear in her eyes. She must have seen that Judge Jones had been spying upon her while she had been waiting for Hamm.
Beside Hamm was a middle-aged woman, evidently his stenographer. But the hardness of her lips and eyes gave Van an idea that she was more than that. She was watching everyone in the room as if she was preparing for anything that might happen.
Muriel Havens and Steve Huston were close to Lara Armstead. The heiress had never been more beautiful, except that her eyes were stony and never seemed to shift from Claudia Ramer.
Van pulled a chair close to Lara, placing himself beside a reading light. He spoke in Judge Jones' mellow, soothing voice. Lara Armstead put her hand on his arm and tried to smile briefly.
Muriel Havens and Steve Huston were watching Wilkins, standing beside Aunt Dora's wheelchair, with a cabinet containing sherry, handy. Van knew that Steve and Muriel were fixing upon the real Wilkins as the probable originator of any trouble which might break. Van let the idea remain that way.
Nerves were tense. The air of the room seemed static.
JUST about the time Attorney Andrew Hamm was arising to read the last will and testament of the late Jacklin Armstead, quite a strange scene was being enacted in the marshy wilderness that bordered the Jacklin Armstead estate.
Chip Dorlan's head seemed to him to be filled with buzzing bees. His brain had been burning, confused for hours. The rap he had received with a rod had produced a concussion that had held him as powerless as some anesthetic would have done.
It might have been that sheer horror had penetrated to his fogged senses. For what he was seeing was like some fantastic dream, like nightmares he had often fought off when he had been growing up near Chinatown in San Francisco.
Chip saw the beams of two flashlights converge to place a figure in a kind of spotlight. The figure was that of pretty Martha Briggs.
She was being held erect by two hard-faced white men. A third man, an evilly grinning Jap, stood just behind the girl. He gripped a heavy, short Japanese sword with keen edges.
Chip's senses became clearer. He saw then that he was lying on the rear seat of a small motor-boat. His arms and legs were free, but they had no strength.
The boat was rocking a little. Chip could see the tops of trees on shore nearby and a reddish light on the land, only a short distance from the boat.
But all that Chip now could see clearly was the imprisoned girl and the Jap who had his short sword held aloft. Another man in the bow of the boat was indistinct, but he was the one who spoke.
The words snapped Chip to fuller consciousness.
"You have to be convinced, Jasper Briggs!" said the man in the bow harshly. "You want to quit, but we are making sure you will not! It's for you to decide what is to happen!"
Chip managed to raise his head a little. Scarcely fifty feet away on the shore he saw light shining upon an old man with shaggy hair. This must be Jasper Briggs. The old man was firmly held by two other men, one white and the other a Jap.
"I can't go on!" Jasper Briggs cried desperately. "It isn't true, and only truth can make me famous! It would be better for Martha and me both to be dead!"
Chip saw the girl writhe against the hands holding her, and the motor-boat rocked. Then he noticed that the girl's right arm, smooth and white, was being held extended by one of her captors.
"But you and your daughter will not be dead!" the harsh voice said mockingly. "You have seen one of her hands! You have obeyed our orders until now! Must we show you your daughter's other hand? She will not die! It will be more terrible than that! Tonight her hand! And if you are still stubborn, then her feet, one at a time!"
An icy chill puckered the skin along Chip Dorlan's spine. He was remembering now. He had tried to rescue Martha Briggs and had been knocked out.
Her left arm was bandaged tightly to her body. Chip had never been sicker. Her left hand had been taken off and shown to her father!
"Kill me now! Or I'll kill myself, and you'll have no more reason to torture her!"
Jasper Briggs had near insanity in his despairing appeal.
"Whether you are dead or alive, if you disobey again, your daughter will receive the same treatment! You have no time to argue! Once more, do you go back to the work that will make you rich and famous, or must we act now? One word to Kono, and he will strike cleanly, as he did with the other hand!"
The heavy Japanese sword gleamed in the light as it was lifted a little. It was poised high above the girl's rigidly held arm. Chip wondered that the girl did not cry out, then he saw that she was gagged.
"I must have time! Wait!"
Old Jasper Briggs uttered the words with frantic pleading.
Chip's mind raced. In the past hours he must have had some moments of part consciousness. He seemed to remember being carried into a hole in the ground, and of hearing men talking about the Phantom.
It seemed like a long time ago. He vaguely recalled that he had been with Steve Huston, looking for the Phantom when they had come upon Martha Briggs, an ape that had been shot, and thugs who had seized her. Again the harsh voice.
"It will be more than your daughter, Jasper Briggs! We have the kid who helps the Phantom! We know the Phantom and Curtis Lesher escaped, and we believe you helped! You know where the Phantom is now, and what he is doing! Tell us that, or we will give this Chip Dorlan the same treatment, and you will be responsible!"
One man holding the girl reached down with a hard hand. He gripped Chip's collar, pulling him up into the light. The movement sent the blood surging through Chip's veins. His strength was coming back.
But he closed his eyes and remained limp and apparently lifeless as he was lifted into view. Yet his eyes were slitted enough for him to see the water, and the thickly growing rushes and weeds along the shore.
"I don't know! I can't tell you about the Phantom!"
Jasper Briggs' reply rang with truth. It brought a snarl of rage from the man in the bow of the boat.
"Ten seconds, Briggs, and I give the order to Kono! He likes to use that sword, and he makes it nice and clean! Ten seconds! Will you watch it, and still refuse to go on?"
Chip could just see the girl's white, strained face. Her dark hair fell in a tangled mass to her shoulders. She moaned, attempted to free her arm.
Chip heard a soul-chilling chuckle from the yellow-faced Jap behind the girl. The bright sword wavered, seemed about to descend.
"No! No, Stivers," screamed Briggs. "I'll do what you say! Anything, but don't hurt her again!"
The girl's movement set the motorboat rocking. The man holding Chip's collar let go, as if to drop him roughly back to the seat on which he had been lying.
Dynamite could not have exploded with more sudden effect.
Chip's doubled legs straightened in a jump that carried his small, compact body forward. His fists seemed to whirl rather than to strike. They cut into the yellow face of the Jap.
IN THE same movement, Chip kicked out with one foot, hitting the nearest man in the middle of the back, the man holding the girl. The Jap screamed oaths in his own language, but he was off balance, going out of the boat.
"Stop him, you fools!"?
The harsh command was too late. Chip made sure of one thing as he whipped around and bent one arm around the girl's body. He threw his own weight, that of the girl, and of the one heavy man holding her on the same side of the small boat where the Jap's body had just slapped down upon the dipping side.
The craft whirled on over. As it capsized, all of the occupants pitched into the water.
It was well that Chip's training by the Phantom had been thorough. The water here was not deep, perhaps five feet, but Chip kept his hold on the girl, going under and swimming with all the speed of a scared water rat.
In that first dive, he was suddenly panicky. With the girl a dead weight, and the water around him filled with killers, he realized too late that his chance to escape was about one in a thousand.
All at once this was changed. The girl was moving. She was trying to swim with her one hand.
Chip made it as far as he could go and came up with only his face above water when he felt rushes and weeds around him. He heard oaths and the water being churned violently.
Shouts came from the shore.
"Stop him! Don't let him get away! Shoot him down!"
"Don't shoot, you fools!" cracked out the harsh voice of the leader who had been in the boat. "Get him alive! Watch the shore! We've got to get the girl and that kid!"
There was a touch on Chip's shoulder. The men from the boat were wading in deep water. With their flashlights gone, they were in blank darkness.
The light had disappeared from the shore. Had old Jasper Briggs made a break for it and got away?
The girl touching Chip was making mumbling sounds. He pulled the gag from around her mouth.
"Good boy!" she whispered. "Stick with me. They'll never find us in the marsh. I can swim, if we have to."
The cursing men around the capsized boat were getting nowhere. The leader was swearing heavily.
"Let the boat go!" he commanded. "We can't find them in this mess out here! Get to shore and we'll keep them from landing!"
The men splashed shoreward a short distance away. The girl whispered again, and her words made Chip believe he was not hearing right.
"Untie my other hand!" she said. I can swim. If we go straight out we can follow the channel where they'll not find us. Hurry!"
"Untie your hand?" came Chip's hoarse whisper.
"Yes. It's fastened at the back."
"But you haven't any—"
"Yes, I have," she cut in. "Only my wrist's been broken. It may hurt, but I can swim with the arm."
THE men were all ashore. The sounds of the pursuit of old Jasper Briggs had died away. The men must have been given orders to keep quiet now.
The killers were spreading along shore, lurking in silence, waiting for movement in the water or the weeds that would tell them their escaped prisoners had come ashore.
Martha Briggs could swim. If her broken wrist pained, she gave no sign.
"You're with the great Phantom!" she whispered. "Now we must save my father. I don't know what he has done. He may be a criminal, but you'll help me?"
"You bet I'll help you," Chip promised fervently.
They swam silently, straight out into deep water. Still no sounds came from the shore. Chip hoped that Jasper Briggs would escape, but he knew a relentless hunt to the death was on.
DRONING on and on, Attorney Andrew Hamm was reading the surprising last will and testament of the late Jacklin Armstead, giving slow emphasis to each paragraph.
"—and the life tenure of residence in the home already granted Dorothy Macklin Armstead, my sister, shall be maintained intact under the terms of this will."
Aunt Dora waved her huge, jeweled hands and snorted audibly.
"And the portion of the home estate already occupied by one Abdul Abasha shall be continued in such occupancy for his experimental purposes so long as the said Abdul Abasha shall desire to maintain and provide for his apes upon this property."
Aunt Dora's snort was more than audible. It was almost a roar. But there seemed to be no expression in the beady, black eyes of the Arab, seated near the door.
The Phantom, present as Judge Jones, could almost feel the tension in the room. The kindly spirit of the murdered Jacklin Armstead seemed to be expressed in the words of the will.
"And to Jasper Briggs," the lawyer read on, "for years my faithful chemist, I freely bequeath the buildings and the grounds which comprise what is known as the Armstead Mills laboratory, to be occupied by said Jasper Briggs and employed for his future experiments."
The Phantom was watching Lara Armstead's drawn face. It was a white mask that she was forcing to conceal the seething resentment in her heart.
Claudia Ramer was leaning a little forward, her greenish eyes smiling and her red lips parted, as if she awaited with relish for the further words Andrew Hamm was reciting so slowly.
"And to Martha Briggs is bequeathed the sum of five thousand dollars in cash."
Occasionally Hamm lifted his eyes. Each time his gaze went to the red-haired widow and his wide mouth seemed to tighten with a grim line of dislike.
Aunt Dora lifted a glass of sherry and gulped it down. It was her fourth since the reading had begun. When he had started, Lawyer Hamm had announced that, according to instructions, he had already filed the will for probate.
As he continued to read, several paragraphs named servants. Tom Wilkins grinned when he was named for a thousand dollars. Then Lawyer Hamm hesitated.
"I hope," he said, "that all of us will maintain due respect for the memory of Jacklin Armstead during the remainder of the reading. I wish to state that I am as much at loss as anyone over the terms of the will, and I wish to say that I opposed my client's wishes—without success."
The words were few, but Andrew Hamm made them seem like a whiplash of contempt for Claudia Ramer. Van saw Steve Huston watching Wilkins, trying to get the butler's attention. Steve seemed greatly puzzled that Wilkins did not appear to notice him.
Van glanced at the windows of the long room. They were black, wide mirrors of the night outside. He thought of Gorman Jones lying dead near the house; of how Jacklin Armstead had died on the Silver Meteor.
He saw Lara Armstead clenching her hands until her nails were biting into the skin. Hamm was about to proceed. Van could tell that so far every possible legal loophole in the will had been covered.
THE careful attention to the existing rights of Aunt Dora, Jasper Briggs, Abdul and even the servants was evidence of sane, reasoned judgment on the part of Jacklin Armstead, and such a will could never be broken in a court.
Andrew Hamm had named two Miami witnesses, whose signatures attested the signature of Jacklin Armstead. Van did not wonder that Aunt Dora was grumbling in her throat, as if she were about to explode.
As Lawyer Hamm had paused and explained his own position, his eyes had swung to the Phantom. And Van could have sworn that Hamm hated Judge Thurston Jones, whom Van was impersonating, and that he was prepared for some sort of interruption.
Van's eyes went to the hard-faced woman secretary with Hamm. And his nerves tightened. She was looking at one of the big windows momentarily. And one of her hands lifted, casually, but expressively. The hand was short and broad and strong.
Van could see no one outside the window, but it seemed as if the woman had moved her hand as a signal. For she looked quickly around at all the others afterward. She held onto a brief-case lying across her knees.
Now everyone's attention was again upon Hamm's slowly emphasized words.
"With respect to my beloved daughter, Lara Neva Armstead, a word of explanation seems due. Her future happiness appears to be involved with one Professor Curtis Lesher, a highly valued employee of my mills. By reason of pride, false or otherwise, my fortune alone stands as a barrier between my daughter and the man she loves. That her happiness may be fully realized, I am changing any and all past wills, bequeathing to Lara Neva Armstead the sum of ten thousand dollars."
"Jacklin always was a soft fool!" Aunt Dora muttered, so loudly that all could hear. "Him and his hobbies! A heathen and his apes! He'd have given away his shirt."
Lawyer Hamm scowled, but paid no other attention to her.
"And further," he went on to read, "I now therefore bequeath to my good friend and companion, Mrs. Claudia Ramer, all of the remaining residue of my estate including all cash monies available, all stocks and bonds, and all of the properties commonly known and referred to under the name of the Jacklin Armstead Silk Mills, owned and held by myself as a close corporation, together with the real estate upon which said mills are situated, these mills being described in the order of their age as the North Mill, the South Mill, and the East Mill, with all buildings, machinery and other improvements included, to be the property of the aforesaid Mrs. Claudia Ramer, her heirs or her assigns, without limitation—"
The Phantom's eyes were upon the woman with Lawyer Hamm, her gaze fixed upon Wilkins. And in that moment he knew that this woman believed Wilkins to be the Phantom!
Wilkins was beyond Lara Armstead, Muriel Havens and Steve Huston, and in direct line with the window toward which Van was convinced the woman had signaled. Van took this into account as he laid one hand lightly upon Lara's arm, and permitted his other hand to slip from view along the light cord of the lamp just behind her.
"And I hereby suggest and advise that Andrew Hamm, my long-time counselor and friend, be appointed by the court—"
The Phantom then spoke. His voice seemed the mellow tone of Judge Thurston Jones, and his face, with the bald head and the gray tufts of hair at his temples, expressed the deepest bewilderment. As if he had suddenly realized the full meaning of Jacklin Armstead's will.
"Sorry, Mr. Hamm, but would you go back just a paragraph or so to that part about the mills?" he asked. "Perhaps I didn't get it clearly?"
ANDREW HAMM'S eyes were raised to clash directly with Van's. His voice was cold and edged.
"Certainly, Judge Jones," he said. "But seeing that you are not directly concerned, I would suggest you are only prolonging a most unpleasant ordeal."
"But I think, if I heard rightly, I am directly concerned," said Van. "That part beginning with 'these mills being described in the order of their age,' please."
Lawyer Hamm did not change his tone as he read:
"These mills being described in the order of their age as the North Mill, the South Mill, and the East Mill, with all buildings, machinery and other improvements included, to be the property of the aforesaid Mrs. Claudia Ramer—"
"That's enough, Mr. Hamm," interrupted Van. "May I now ask you a personal question? You intimated that Jacklin Armstead telephoned you to come to Miami for a conference, after he had been there for nearly two months?"
"I said he did, I didn't intimate it!" snapped Lawyer Hamm. "Just what are you driving at?"
"You corresponded with Jacklin Armstead during his stay in Miami, and you believed him to be fully sane and capable at all times of attending to business?"
"Listen, Judge Jones, if you're trying to create an impression that Jacklin Armstead was not entirely sane, as much as I dislike the terms of the will he had me draw up, I happen to know that his associations in Miami and everything connected with his stay there would prove his sanity and his competency." The lawyer's tone was hard and emphatic.
"Then, Mr. Hamm," said Van slowly, "let me inform you that the will you have been reading isn't worth the paper it's written upon. Jacklin Armstead, at the time the will was drawn, did not own or have an interest whatever in the mill properties described as the North, the South and the East Mills. Apparently you were not wholly in Mr. Armstead's confidence during his stay in Miami."
"Why, you interfering old liar!" whined Hamm. "Jacklin Armstead did not transact a single item of business without the advice of my office!"
"Sorry, Mr. Hamm, but he transacted that little business," Van said quietly. "He exchanged all of the mill property specified so in detail for a new development between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I have the deeds of transfer in my desk at home. I am the sole owner of the Armstead Silk Mills, and have been for more than a month. I'll have the deeds here as quickly as I can go home and return."
The Phantom could not catch all of the quick movement beginning right after the long breathless ten seconds of silence that followed his announcement. But he did see Claudia Ramer springing to her feet, and heard her high-pitched anger.
"Andrew! You knew that! You forged a phony will to collect and leave me flat! You—"
Lara Armstead was jumping to her feet. Van pushed her into her chair forcibly, then flat on the floor. One big window crashed inward at the same moment the lights in the long room went out.
"Down, Wilkins! On the floor, flat!"
Van's sharp warning was uttered at the same instant small metal shears in his hand cut through the reading lamp cord and short-circuited the lighting system. He hoped that Wilkins had dropped in time, for a rod tongued its slugs across the long room, and Van knew that gun had been aimed directly at the butler, in the belief that he was the Phantom.
"Stay on the floor, Lara!" cried Van, rolling forward and diving, not at Hamm, but toward his supposed secretary. Van had guessed before, and confirmed now as he smashed Hamm's secretary to the floor, that the hard-faced "woman" was a tough-muscled man. The lightning punch found a hard jaw in the darkness.
VAN freed himself. His hands had touched the shape of a gas mask the "secretary" had taken from his briefcase like magic. He knew it to be the same as the masks he had seen in the mill laboratory.
Perhaps five seconds accounted for the "secretary." Other windows were crashing. Red-haired Claudia Ramer was screaming imprecations, their object being Lawyer Hamm.
Guns were cracking from another window. Slugs were buzzing into the room. It was then that Van, in the act of returning to Lara Armstead and Muriel Havens, produced another voice, a harsh, commanding voice that proved to the utmost his trained art of impersonation.
"Hold up the shooting! Get Hamm as he tries to leave! Hold back the gas! Hamm! You knew about the mills, and intended collecting and beating it! You failed on the train when you had Claudia Ramer murder Jacklin Armstead!"
As the harsh words in the voice of Harry Stivers cracked like doom into the room, Van was acting with incredible speed. He was beside Muriel Havens first.
"The Phantom!" he whispered. "Take Lara through the hallway—open a door—tell Aunt Dora to go there—"
His crackling command had held up the shooting from the windows momentarily. If gas was to be used, it was also delayed. Because of the mask produced by Hamm's fake secretary, his idea was that there would be a gas attack.
Claudia Ramer was screaming louder now. The accusation she believed had come from Harry Stivers had produced a frenzy of fear and anger.
"I didn't kill Armstead! I didn't kill him! Andrew Hamm lied! He did it! He had the mask on the train! I've done nothing! I went out when Tanuko turned the gas in the car! Hamm killed him! I'm not a murderer!"
Van called out in his own voice. One of his hard fists smacked, hard into the palm of his other hand, making a loud thump.
"I've got Harry Stivers! Steve Huston! Over here! He's out! Hold Stivers!"
A bedlam of voices and shooting broke loose outside the house. It was evident that Sergeant Ripley and his few state troopers were starting to pour lead into the killers at the windows.
"Right here, Steve!" Van called in his own voice. "Hold Stivers!"
The hurtling bulk that struck him in the darkness was not Steve Huston. Van had not expected it would be.
"You double-crossing rat! Anyway, I'll take you with me!"
That was the heavy, hard voice of Andrew Hamm. And the big attorney lunged down upon Van where he had crouched to the floor.
No doubt Hamm believed he had landed upon Harry Stivers, knocked out by the Phantom. An automatic exploded in Hamm's hand as Van came up, lashing out with deadly speed, his fists finding Hamm's broad face.
Steve Huston was beside him, feeling about.
"Phantom? Where are you?"
The red-haired widow continued screaming. Something happened. Her voice was abruptly cut off. An explosion jarred the old mansion. Then another, and still another.
Fierce white light burst out from different points, lighting the windows and illuminating the long room.
OVER the scene white light burst as flame billowed into the long room from a side door. The Phantom's quick vision showed him that Lara Armstead, Muriel Havens and Aunt Dora had obeyed his orders. In the first flash of fire, he saw Lawyer Hamm on the floor at his feet, the bogus "woman secretary" still clutching a gas mask.
Tom Wilkins was crawling along the floor, and Claudia Ramer was vanishing through one of the smashed windows. But she was quiet now, as she was carried over the shoulder of a short, stout Jap.
"The back hallway, Steve!" rapped Van. "Get Wilkins out that way!" The fire jumped to drapes and furniture coverings. The heat seared Van's face and hands as he heaved the bulky weight of the unconscious Hamm over one shoulder.
The room was now brilliantly lighted. And at least three of the old wings of the Armstead mansion were blazing.
Then the voice of the real Harry Stivers, leader of killers, slapped into the room.
"Get the Phantom and Judge Jones! Burn them!"
Van pivoted with the lawyer's weight over one shoulder. In his left hand he held a heavy automatic. He had a photographic impression of Tanuko and a white man, each with a machine-gun, framed in one smashed window. Harry Stivers' voice apparently had come from behind them. Van could see Stivers indistinctly.
Steve Huston and Tom Wilkins were close to the back hallway door when Tanuko's machine-gun spattered out death. But Huston was fast. His quick hands pushed Wilkins flat and through the hall door, as the slugs ripped across the floor.
The Phantom's automatic became a live, jerking thing in his left hand. The machine-gun stream did not quite reach Steve Huston. For Tanuko's chopper smashed down as his forehead was caved in by Van's lead that drove through his murder brain.
The white machine-gunman never so much as triggered. He fell back out of the window. Van's automatic became quiet. Harry Stivers had vanished.
"You okay, Phantom?" called Huston. "Look out!"
Van was moving, still carrying Andrew Hamm when one side of the long room smashed in, collapsing under the tonnage of a big truck. Armed men were pouring from the front and the back of the truck, as Van reached the temporary protection of the back hallway beside Steve and Tom Wilkins.
Sergeant Ripley, of the state police, appeared suddenly in the hallway.
"We're cooked, Phantom!" he called out. "I've only two men left, against forty or fifty outside! The whole house will go in another few minutes!"
The first men from the truck that had smashed into the house were rushing toward the hall. Van's automatic dropped two leaders, and halted the rush momentarily. Then his gun clicked empty.
Sergeant Ripley started to shoot, but fell as slugs tore into the hall.
The Phantom could see but little hope now. Harry Stivers, leader of the truck mob murderers, would exact revenge if possible, for the complete blasting of a clever plan that would have meant millions, and these millions a vast fortune that would have appeared to be strictly legal.
THE sweep of the fire was driving the invading killers either to attack or get out. Again they started for the hall.
What happened then was like something cut from the film of an African movie. Jabbering, bellowing apes, a score or more of them, sprang through windows and doors.
The high, cutting voice of Abdul, the Arab, somewhere outside was almost a scream. It was commanding the beasts in his own language.
Bloody horror followed then. Some apes swung clubs and others struck with weapons shaped like machine-guns. Other apes were unarmed, employing only their teeth and claws.
Screaming killers turned their guns upon the great apes. But for each ape that fell, another took its place. Desperate members of the murder mob, attempting to flee, were stopped by the fire, now a roaring inferno all along one side of the room.
The Phantom and those under his protection got back through the long hallway. Cool, fresh air came from the darkness at the rear of the old mansion. And now they could see that the killers of Harry Stivers' murder mob were being hunted down by Abdul's great apes among the trees.
The old mansion was doomed. Its queerly built wings sent yellow flames high into the sky.
Outside, the Phantom dropped Lawyer Hamm to the ground. His eyes swept the little group assembled safely away from the house.
Lara Armstead, Muriel Havens, Aunt Dora and Tom Wilkins. Great relief came to him then, for he saw Martha Briggs and Chip Dorlan.
"Steve!" Chip cried out anxiously. "Where is the Phantom? Where is he?"
Van himself replied, and Aunt Dora, looking at the man she had believed to be Judge Thurston Jones said:
"Well, I'll be gosh-darned!"
But Chip Dorlan was running, and little Martha Briggs was beside him.
"Phantom! Phantom! They've got Jasper Briggs! They took him away in a truck when the apes attacked! Jasper Briggs got to Abdul and helped him turn the apes loose on the killers! But a tall man with a hooked nose, called Stivers, got Briggs! They'll kill him!"
"We can have the truck stopped on the main highway," said the wounded Sergeant Ripley. "They can't get away. I'll use my radio!"
"They'll not take the highway, Sergeant," the Phantom snapped. "Come on, we'll use your car! Steve! Stay here! See that Curtis Lesher and Judge Jones are all right! Wilkins, you help them! Keep Hamm a prisoner!"
"Curtis!" Lara Armstead screamed. "He's alive?"
Aunt Dora had one huge arm around her, soothing her as the Phantom moved fast, joining Sergeant Ripley in his car.
In the confusion somehow those left behind turned momentarily away from the unconscious Hamm. And in that moment, the man accused of forging the Armstead will rolled cautiously into the black shadows of the nearby shrubbery.
Steve Huston was the first to discover that Hamm was no longer a prisoner but it was then too late. The man was gone...
Beside Sergeant Ripley in his fast machine, the Phantom watched the ghostly buildings of the Armstead mills flow past. Sergeant Ripley's young face was grim. He had seen three of his troopers shot down.
"We have a slim chance of saving Briggs, and possibly Mrs. Ramer," said Van. "Briggs' evidence is one link necessary for an airtight case against Harry Stivers and Andrew Hamm in one of the most amazing swindles, with murder playing a big part, ever attempted. It includes a phony will prepared by Hamm, who had become expert at forging Jacklin Armstead's signature."
"You know then where the truck carrying Briggs and Mrs. Ramer is headed, Phantom?" asked the sergeant.
"I'm fairly sure, for Harry Stivers probably believes the biggest part of his great scheme, in fact the foundation of it, is still the secret of his mob survivors and himself. Do you know an isolated warehouse on the bay shore, at the end of an uninhabited section of Stone Street in Oldsville?"
"Sure, I know it," said Ripley. "It has been used for years."
"Take the shortest route to the foot of Stone Street, Sergeant," Van clipped. "Our arrival there first, and without being detected, is probably the only chance Jasper Briggs and Claudia Ramer have for their lives. But you can have other cars on the way for, unless I have read certain records wrongly, you are about to take over the exposure of one of the greatest swindles on record, extending all the way from Asia to the town of Oldsville, New Jersey."
Sergeant Ripley rocketed the car through back roads. He sent out radio calls for as many state cars as possible to converge on the Stone Street warehouse.
Van was watching the sky.
"If we see the light of a sudden white fire in the sky, we will be too late, Sergeant," he said. "And if other cars are too long in arriving, we are taking long odds. In the few minutes we have, I'll make a radio report to your headquarters."
Sergeant Ripley flicked his head around to stare. He turned the switch on the state car's two-way radio. "You mean, Phantom—"
"That I'm giving the state police the Armstead murder evidence."
KNOWING that he was faced with the possibility that he might not return, the Phantom sent over the radio his report of the murder mob, a revelation of an attempted industrial swindle, which, with Jacklin Armstead's murder its highlight, had never been equaled.
"Although the records may be destroyed," the Phantom broadcast to State Police Headquarters, "much of this evidence being given you now may be obtained by a quick raid on the law office of Harry Stivers in Oldsville.
"Harry Stivers has long been the head of an interstate truck mob, composed of killers and thieves. Sudden tying up of silk stocks by the government and supervision of silk mills with which he had long been doing—an undercover business, tied up several millions in raw silk already in the hands of Stivers' truck mob. In addition to this, through connection with Tanuko, a Jap, and others, Harry Stivers had been smuggling, and still could smuggle in millions in raw silk.
"India-grown cotton has been admitted for special spinning, it being the only kind that will make lisle thread. Ships have unloaded cargoes of this cotton in bales at Houston, Texas, and New Orleans. The cotton came through with the customary small duty. Somewhere at sea, those cotton ships had made contact with others carrying smaller bales of silk.
"Perhaps hundreds of India cotton bales have been brought in, with the raw silk concealed inside. The government orders hit Harry Stivers' truck mob hard.
"That brought up the Jacklin Armstead mills, already closed down, though Jasper Briggs, a former chemist in the mills, continued to make many experiments. Suddenly he was put under pressure by the kidnapping of his daughter, Martha, to announce soon that he had produced a chemical silk from cotton. Briggs was shown a girl's hand, and told it was his daughter's. Her ring was on the hand, but had been sold to Harry Stivers by a New York undertaker, who had secured it from the corpse of a girl. Jasper Briggs was forced to play along.
"Next came an attempt to coerce Jacklin Armstead, then in Florida, into leasing or selling his mills. It was planned to start converting the mob's stolen and smuggled silk into goods worth many more millions, all in the open, because the secret formula of Jasper Briggs would be supposed to be producing such synthetic silk. Silk was to have been rushed into the Armstead mills, still inside the India cotton bales.
"Jacklin Armstead was stubborn. He refused lease of his mills, and then resisted a campaign of terrorism and a threat against his daughter. The same hand used to terrorize Jasper Briggs was sent to Jacklin Armstead. He believed it to belong to Martha Briggs, for he recognized the ring which, later, I discovered, did not fit the dead hand.
VAN paused to adjust the head-set better, then went on.
"Armstead resisted all threats. He sent a wire call to Frank Havens, asking for my services. In the meantime, Harry Stivers found out that Andrew Hamm had been embezzling from the Armstead and other estates. Stivers has that evidence in his files.
"I have a paper showing the forged signature of Jacklin Armstead, in connection with a five-thousand-dollar payment to Andrew Hamm. It indicates that Hamm had become expert at forging Armstead's signature in the other crooked transactions of which Harry Stivers became informed. Mrs. Claudia Ramer was employed to go to Miami and become friendly with Armstead. This put her in line to become a logical beneficiary of the phony will.
"Jacklin Armstead was determined to come North to fight the mob. With the Jap, Tanuko, employing gas in the train in which Armstead was riding, and Andrew Hamm equipped with a gas mask, it was made to appear as if Armstead had died accidentally by the breaking of a poison vial he was carrying in his pocket.
"Several witnesses, Lara Armstead among them, heard Andrew Hamm tricked into believing Armstead had already sold property he had included in his phony will, which would have put the mills into Mrs. Ramer's hands. And Andrew Hamm was then named, and is the murderer of Jacklin Armstead.
"Desperate efforts were made to remove Lara Armstead, Aunt Dora and others who might have interfered. Curtis Lesher, fiancé of Lara Armstead, believed the girl's hand belonged to Martha Briggs. He became involved and almost lost his life.
"Gorman Jones was murdered by Tanuko because he discovered Tanuko was employing death gas at the Armstead home. Tanuko had once worked as a servant in the Jones home.
"Unless they have been destroyed, bales of Indian cotton containing raw silk will be found in Jasper Briggs' laboratory. Others are probably stored in the Stone Street warehouse, to which Sergeant Ripley and myself are now driving, in an effort to save the lives of Mrs. Ramer and Jasper Briggs.
"If we fail, other witnesses will corroborate the evidence. These are the salient points of the Armstead case. Should Jasper Briggs live to face the law, he should be absolved. He was under terrible coercion, and in the end he brought about the defeat of Harry Stivers' chief mob by releasing great apes on the Armstead estate.
"This is the Phantom Detective, now with Sergeant Ripley."
Before Van clicked off the radio over which he had made sure state police could act whether he lived or died, Sergeant Ripley gripped his arm.
"Phantom, look! The fire! We're too late!"
A white brilliance shot high into the sky.
Sergeant Ripley shot his car around a turn. He was forced to send it up a shoulder of the highway. Just ahead a big truck had burst into consuming, white flame. The rear half was already gone.
The Phantom hit the roadway, running. Blinded by the fierce blaze, that undoubtedly was thermite, he failed to see three or four figures that darted away, heading toward a small wharf alongside a huge, old warehouse.
AS VAN sprang to one side of the highway he saw old Jasper Briggs climbing groggily from the front seat of the truck.
Shielding his eyes from the intense heat, Van sprang toward the staggering chemist. To his amazement, Jasper Briggs turned back toward the truck cab. So surprised was Van that he failed to see the four fleeing men turn and start back toward the blazing truck.
Crackling of the fire drowned the reports of automatics from the other side of the old road. A slug jolted Van's leg under the knee and threw him from his feet. His own automatic was jerked out then. Lying flat, he fired at the red flashes of rods beyond the roadway.
At least one killer went down. But another man was covering himself by the blazing truck. Van saw him spring suddenly into view in front of the cab. Harry Stivers!
It was then that old Jasper Briggs, making a heroic effort, rolled from the cab, bringing Claudia Ramer with him. Stivers was then directly beyond Briggs and Mrs. Ramer, completely shielded from the Phantom by their bodies.
Apparently Harry Stivers was too clever a leader of killers to go armed with a gun himself. Instead, he was now holding a length of heavy iron pipe.
Claudia Ramer was conscious, for she suddenly pushed both hands against Jasper Briggs, staggering him back. It was only then that Van had a view of Stivers and the deadly iron pipe raised to crush the skull of Jasper Briggs.
Briggs had one arm over his face. The heat of the burning truck was beating forward and his clothes were smoking. Before Van could snap a shot from his flat position, the red-haired widow screamed, leaping upon Harry Stivers and hurling him back.
Any bullet Van could have sent at Stivers was blocked by the woman's body as she continued screaming, with her arms clinging around the neck of the murder boss. Jasper Briggs was turning, wavering on unsteady legs. He got halfway across the road.
Van heard the thundering rush of a car coming fast behind the flaming truck. As the white light of the fire struck the windshield of the speeding machine, he was stunned to see the broad face and huge head of Lawyer Andrew Hamm behind the wheel.
Such was the rushing speed of Hamm's car that it was barely more than two seconds of time from when Van glimpsed it, until it was passing. Then it swerved. Hamm screamed oaths that could be heard above the roaring of his motor as he headed the car directly at Jasper Briggs.
Van's action then, with one leg broken, called upon all the reserve of immense strength he had built up with the years. It brought out split second instinct and movement together.
He came erect on his one good leg, his automatic flaming. And he poured the jolting stream of bullets not into Andrew Hamm's bulky body but into and through the hands upon the wheel of what the lawyer plainly intended to be a car of murder. And in the last five yards between Jasper Briggs and what seemed certain death, the flying car skidded across the roadway.
JASPER BRIGGS fell, barely brushed by a fender, and rolled on into the deep, narrow ditch beside the road.
The Phantom had never been sicker than at this moment. For in no more than a flash, Claudia Ramer and Harry Stivers were hidden as Hamm's car sheered into the hood of the big truck and turned over twice.
Van was forced back by the thermite heat, dragging his useless leg. The white flame burst out through the truck cab, flowing like liquid death.
It obscured the front of the big truck, and the spot where the red-haired widow had been clinging to the murder boss. The fire ran on down, like a molten stream.
There was nothing but the writhing flame where Stivers and Claudia had stood.
As Hamm's car turned over, Van saw the murderer of Jacklin Armstead thrown clear. He was alive and conscious, getting to his feet as Van reached him, crawling along the ditch past Jasper Briggs.
Sergeant Ripley came across the road then some distance ahead of the burned truck. He was ready with his police gun, but there was no need for it. Nor did Lawyer Andrew Hamm require handcuffs. He was cursing wildly, holding his bullet-shattered hands in front of him, staring at the Phantom, who still appeared to him to be Judge Thurston Jones.
Other cars were booming down the narrow road, turning out away from the dying fire of the truck. Hamm's raging tone quieted, and suddenly he roared with laughter, wildly.
"You're a smart liar, Judge Jones! You tricked everyone! All of them but me! Tricked that crazy Claudia Ramer into saying things, denying that she killed Jacklin Armstead, trying to put it on me! And now, by accident, Claudia is dead, and Harry Stivers has gone with her. Jacklin Armstead's will was burned in the house, and you haven't a shred of proof of all the charges you might have made!"
Sergeant Ripley looked at the blustering killer.
"You might introduce yourself, Phantom—" he began, but the high-pitched quavering voice of Jasper Briggs broke in.
From beyond the truck, emerging from the other roadside ditch, her face cut and bleeding, the red-haired Claudia Ramer staggered into the road.
Many who had been left behind had appeared, drawn by the new white blaze. They were coming from the cars that had arrived.
Curtis Lesher was walking slowly, with Lara Armstead's arm around him. Martha Briggs ran across the road crying out to her father. The old chemist stared at her, before taking her into his arms. But he was only staring at her hands. She had both of them!
Aunt Dora was in one of the cars, watching.
Lawyer Andrew Hamm looked speechlessly at Claudia Ramer. The crash of his car that had left Harry Stivers to burn had thrown the red-haired widow clear.
"If you hadn't tried to kill me with your car, I might have disappeared and never have testified against you for the murder of Jacklin Armstead, Andrew Hamm!" Claudia cried. "Anyway, Jasper Briggs saved me from the fire, and I'll be indebted to him forever."
SERGEANT RIPLEY came up.
"You called the turn, Phantom," he said. "There are stacks of straight raw silk in that warehouse, and silk in every bale of cotton. You have squashed what might have become a swindle running into millions."
Curtis Lesher came with Lara Armstead over to the Phantom.
"You have done more than bring killers, the murderer of my father to justice, Phantom," she said, her voice tremulous. "You have brought Curtis back to me to stay, and he sees now how trifling millions can be if they had kept us apart."
The heavy voice of Aunt Dora came from her car.
"Merciful jiminee! If it hadn't been for the apes, I guess none of us would be here. Now I suppose I'll have to put up with that heathen Abdul the rest of my life!"
In the confusion none of them could have said just when the Phantom disappeared. All anyone knew was that when they looked around for him he was gone. So were Steve Huston and Chip Dorlan, whom the Phantom had already sent back to New York with the plane. The Phantom wanted to be alone. He would hunt up a hospital and have his wounded leg attended to. Then for a good long rest.
But even the Phantom could not prophesy for how long it would be. Soon—perhaps only too soon—a call would come to him from the oppressed. And he knew how speedily he would cease being Richard Curtis Van Loan, and answer as the Phantom.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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