Читать книгу The Black Spot - Kenneth Robeson - Страница 4

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CAPTAIN GRAVES'S words cleared up much of the mystery of the night's weird happenings. While Andrew Podrey Vandersleeve had died at his desk with a mysterious black spot over his heart, his guests had staged their own conception of how hoodlums might enjoy themselves at a blowout.

The luridly painted women and the snarling, roughly garbed men were members of the swankiest set. The guns they used were loaded with harmless blanks. Members of society were giving an imitation of their belief how the underworld would dress and act.

It had been a "gangsters' party." Staid, exclusive Westchester would be many a day recovering from the night's bloody orgy. For the scene in the highway had not been on the program.

"We'll have every last man and woman in the house come through this room," announced Graves. "I want no word passed out as to what they will see, until they are in here to see it."

Among all of the gasping socially elect conducted through the death room were two distinctive figures. Perhaps it was because their hair was of somewhat the same flaming color.

"Red" Mahoney, a movie news cameraman, had been grinding out some "shots" of the gangster party. It would go to the screen under the heading, "Oddities in the News."

Red was now seething with enthusiasm for his calling. The big six-foot cameraman with the blazing red hair was now on the trail of real news. It is a real picture when a playboy of the prominence of Happy Joe Carpenter and a couple of State coppers lie dead together on a highway in Westchester.

It was even bigger news for Red when he learned the millionaire who had sponsored the party was himself murdered. Mahoney welcomed that visit in the library. His picture-minded ambition was all set on getting a news-reel shot of Andrew Podrey Vandersleeve as he sat at his desk, dead.

To that end, Red was spotting every possible nook of concealment for a camera.

The other person with bizarre hope was a young woman. No amount of badly placed cosmetics could conceal her beauty. Even the unusual redness of her painted lips only brought out the golden intelligence of her eyes.

This young woman's hair was not red. It was more like each separate hair had been rubbed with glistening golden powder.

For this outstanding guest at the Vandersleeve gangster party was none other than Patricia Savage. She was a cousin of the noted Doc Savage. At times, she had shared a small part of the adventures of the great scientist, humanitarian and man of action.

The body of the dead millionaire had been placed to cause the black spot over his heart to show to each person entering. It was a gruesome experiment. Policemen stood handy.

When a woman screamed and fainted, she was promptly removed. Captain Graves was not usually a hard man. But two of his best men had been killed.

Graves was convinced the confederate of the outside holdup men was still among the guests. With his men well stationed, he was studying the reactions of each person coming into the room.

An assistant with Red Mahoney slipped a movie camera and a magazine on which the film is run, into the library. Intent on his psychological experiment, Captain Graves did not note the failure of two visitors to leave the library with the others.

Patricia Savage slipped behind the velvet drapery in an alcove.

As the last line of guests moved out, Patricia learned about the black blood, the black spot and the curious circumstance of the missing money.

Captain Graves closed the library door. The guests had passed out of the room.

Graves turned to Arthur Jotther.

"The circumstances remain such that I'll have to hold you for questioning," he said. "Now you might tell us what you've done with the hundred and thirty-one grand? I suppose you thought by breaking Vandersleeve's whisky glass, it would escape analysis. I expect we'll find this black poison on the pieces."

Arthur Jotther remained cool.

"I expected to be arrested," he said, quietly. "I don't see how you could do anything else. However, I hope I get clear soon enough to help find the real murderer."

Captain Graves, after formally holding Arthur Jotther, seemed puzzled as to his next procedure.

"We'll have an autopsy as quickly as possible," he instructed the medical examiner. "There isn't much to be done until we find the character of the poison."

The doctor had been examining the dead man's eyes.

"Maybe there'll be poison, but I doubt it," he decided.

"There's got to be something!" growled Captain Graves. "What's that black spot?"

"You tell me that, and we won't need an autopsy," said the examiner.

Before Captain Graves could reply, the library flared brilliantly with a white light. From behind an alcove curtain close to Pat Savage came the little clicking grind of a movie camera in operation.

Red Mahoney had made a quick set-up. He was burning a calcium flare that would last about a minute and a half. Already he had the biggest murder news of the day recorded in the running strip of celluloid.

Captain Graves roared and his big body shoved across the room. He snatched the drapery to one side. Red grinned at him evenly.

"Hello, captain," he remarked calmly, still turning the little crank. "Saw a chance to get a good shot and thought I wouldn't bother you. Mind moving over just a little."

"You'll get no shot in here, an' you know it!" rapped the State police captain. "Here! Gimme that magazine!"

"But I've already got it," chuckled Red. "It's now the property of the Future Pictures Corporation and--"

"I don't care if it's the property of all Hollywood, you're not taking it with you!" roared Captain Graves. "Johnson, grab the machine!"

Johnson, a burly State copper, seized the magazine. The knobby fist of Red punched outward and upward. The State copper was unfortunately exposing his chin. But as he started to topple, Captain Graves fastened a throttling hold upon Mahoney.

The captain hooked the movie magazine with his other hand.

"That punch will get you about sixty days to cool off," he advised Red Mahoney. "And we'll take good care of this movie shot. It's one that will never reach--"

The lights went out. The darkness came so quickly it seemed to puff black smoke into every one's eyes. Red twisted loose from Captain Graves. But the irate trooper, Johnson, was up and swinging. He paid Red back in full for the sock on the chin.

Captain Graves felt the movie film magazine ripped from his hand. He swung wildly at a figure he could not see in the darkness. A man's hard, sinewy fingers gripped his throat, then let him go.

Patricia Savage was slithering across the room. Her small feet made no sound in the deep rug. She was groping for the outer door when it swung unexpectedly in her face.

Pat got through before any one could interfere. All lights in the big house were off. From downstairs came feminine shrieks.

Pat could hear some one moving rapidly away from the library. She could not tell if the unseen person had been inside or close to the door on the outside.

Pat was recalling the position of a telephone in the hallway off the reception room downstairs. She wanted to call her cousin, Doc Savage, at his Manhattan skyscraper headquarters.

BACK in the library, Graves produced a flashlight. Red Mahoney was sitting on the floor. Blood was oozing from his chin where Johnson's knuckles had rapped him.

"Now hand me back that film magazine!" ordered Captain Graves.

"Don't make me laugh," said Red. "My face hurts!"

"Who grabbed the box?" demanded the captain.

His light swept the faces of his men. It picked out the medical examiner. Arthur Jotther was standing peaceably beside a State policeman. The flashlight uncovered no other person in the room.

"If I thought you had some one do that, I'd have you up six months for resisting and assault," the captain told Red.

"You'll never be famous," predicted Red, gloomily. "You can't buck the news-reels, an' I haven't got the thing, anyway." Mahoney was speaking the truth. He didn't have it.

UP on the eighty-sixth floor of New York's most impressive skyscraper, a slight buzzing started.

A voice spoke mechanically.

"This is a robot speaking. You are advised Doc Savage is absent. But any message you care to deliver will be recorded on a dictaphone and will come to Doc Savage's attention later. You may proceed with whatever you wish to say."

"Doc," said Pat Savage in a low voice, "I am at the Vandersleeve residence near Port Chester. Vandersleeve has been murdered. Three other persons have been killed. There was a black spot over Vandersleeve's heart, and a large amount of money was taken in a queer manner. There was--"

In Doc Savage's headquarters the mechanical device recorded Pat's words thus far. It also recorded a muffled gasping sound. This, too, came from Pat's throat. The instrument further put on the dictaphone record for Doc or his men a slight bumping crash.

This latter was the telephone being slapped from Pat Savage's hand.

The palm grasping Pat's mouth was smooth and cold. In her ear a voice muttered:

"If you've brought Doc Savage into this, it will be his last big adventure. As for you--"

Pat had no opportunity to scream. Her sudden captor discovered he had got hold of a wildcat in the darkness. Tapered toes bruised his shins. One small hand with strong fingers fastened on an ear and twisted.

The man breathed heavily and swore vilely in Pat's face. She lowered her head and tried to butt the man on the nose or chin.

"You red-headed hellion!" grated her captor. "I'll fix you for that!"

Pat always became madder when she was called red-headed. Though she couldn't breathe, she dug an elbow into the man's ribs. They crashed against a door. This led to the basement stairs. It was unlocked and it swung open.

Pat collected a number of bruises in the next two seconds. It is likely her captor gathered more. They rolled together down the stairs and landed on a concrete floor in the darkness.

Pat was half stunned. But now she was blazing mad. She had come to the "gangster party" armed with her special automatic. In keeping with the occasion, it had been loaded only with blank cartridges.

But even blanks, at close range, are hard on the eyes. Pat waited until the man let out a revealing snarl. The pistol erupted into his face. The man recoiled, swearing lustily.

Luckily for him, the automatic contained only blanks. The two flashes of hot powder were blinding. The sharp explosions brought a rush of feet in the upper hallway. Red Mahoney and a State copper with a flashlight appeared on the stairway.

Pat's assailant had fled through the rear of the basement. State policemen searched the cellar. They returned empty-handed.

"He crawled out through a back window," one reported.

Red Mahoney was fast for a big man. While Pat was watching the coppers carry on their hunt, Red set up his camera. He was grinding away as a calcium flared.

Pat had been explaining how a man had seized her in the hallway. She evaded the real reason for the attack. She said she had tried to telephone to a friend.

STATE POLICE were searching upstairs for a man who might show powder burns. None was found. A check showed there was no accurate guest list whereby a missing man could be discovered.

Red Mahoney grinned at Pat Savage.

"I lost the film of Vandersleeve upstairs," he said, mournfully. "I haven't got a thing that's--say! Look at this!"

He was digging into his leather case for a new magazine. He closed the case suddenly and stepped close to Pat.

"Listen, Miss Savage," he confided. "That picture of the murder room has been put back in my case."

Mahoney scratched his head in perplexity.

"Whoever doused the lights and grabbed the film wants that picture to appear on the screen," stated Pat, wisely. "Now I wonder why?"

Red supplied the answer.

"To throw a scare into somebody, I'll bet," he said.

Pat nodded. Captain Graves was still holding Arthur Jotther. The social register guests of the "gangster party" were being checked as witnesses and released.

Pat was hoping Doc Savage had received her message.