Читать книгу The Phantom Detective: Fangs of Murder - Robert Wallace - Страница 5

CHAPTER III

ENTER THE PHANTOM

THE TOWERING, MIDTOWN CLARION Building, which housed the city’s leading newspaper reared high in the night mists. Its windows glowed with lights; from its lower floors came the pounding of rotary presses — giving evidence that here activity went on perpetually, day and night.

It was well after midnight when a large but unobtrusive Cadillac sedan swung around the corner, its lights dim. It slowed near the chrome and glass doors which were the imposing front entrance of the Clarion Building.

Four slouch-hatted men peered from the open front and rear windows of the sedan. Their hat brims, snapped low, obscured their hard, brutal faces.

“Stop right here, Tony.” A broken-nosed man leaned forward from the rear to tap a pallid, nervous driver.

“Okay, Gus!” Tony applied the brakes, but even when he had the car stopped at the curb, he kept the engine purring. “Hope this ain’t gonna take long —”

“Don’t be so jittery! This is a cinch!” Gus was leaning from the window, eyes covering the pavement. Every time a pedestrian neared the front doors of the building, especially when some hurrying newsman or other person connected with the paper entered those doors, Gus tensed a little, hand darting to his armpit holster. “Be ready, guys — we gotta pull this job smooth!”

“Say, who we gonna smoke?” the hatchet-faced man next to Gus demanded now. “This is the Clarion’s joint, ain’t it? Seems to me I heard somethin’ special about this place —”

“You sure did, Choppy!” the fourth man, in the front, spoke through a gash of a mouth from which a cigarette dangled to bob with his words. “Hell, the Clarion’s the rag that acts the contact for that bird called the Phantom!”

A strange awed dread followed the pronunciation of that sobriquet — a dread which seemed instantly to course through his companions, like a wave. Hate, the hate born of utter fear, gleamed from their eyes.

The Phantom! Throughout the underworld of the entire nation, that name had become a byword of fear. The Phantom, lone Nemesis of Crime, a living, elusive scourge who personified the antidote to crime!

“The Phantom!” Tony cried, hoarsely now. “Say, Gus — is that who we’re waitin’ for?”

Gus quickly shook his head. “Take it easy, guys! The Big Shot ain’t interested in anyone unless he sticks his nose into this — which he won’t if he’s got brains! They say the Phantom made things pretty tough for us, sendin’ so many of us up the river — but this boss is one guy he can’t buck! Naw, we ain’t after that slippery bird. We’re just doin’ a job on a punk named Eddie Collins, who draws them funnies you see in the papers.”

“Funnies? You mean comic cartoons?” the gash-mouthed man said in surprise. “Hell, what do we want to bump a guy who draws them for?”

“Maybe the Big Shot don’t like his funny pitchers, Pete,” Tony put in, with sardonic mirth.

“You don’t know how right you are!” Gus chortled, a purposeful look in his eyes. “But you just follow my lead — I’m runnin’ this job. ’Course I’d rather be with Monk and the rest — they got another big heist job. The boss certainly knows how to get things movin’ fast — why, he’s only taken over the mobs last night, and we’ve done more than we did in years for our old big shots! The coppers’ll never keep up with us now! Hell, there was hundreds of ’em down at that pier when the boat landed, and right under their noses —” he paused, as if realizing he was getting loquacious.

BUT THE OTHERS BROKE IN eagerly now. “You was there, Gus. Did you see him?”

The broken-nosed Gus swelled instinctively with a sense of importance. “Sure,” his voice was unconvincingly casual. “Sure I seen him.”

“What’d he look like, Gus? What kinda guy was he?”

“Well now — he was kinda muffled up in a coat. Couldn’t spot his mug. But I seen his work — and that was enough! What he done to them two brothers, all by himself —” Despite himself he gave a shudder. “Don’t know how the hell he done it. I’d sure hate to be on the wrong side o’ that guy, and —”

Abruptly he broke off, body tensing, hand snaking from his armpit holster. A taxi had just pulled to the curb, ahead of the parked sedan. Out of it leaped a figure, turning in the gloom as the cab rolled on its way.

The figure strode down the pavement towards the Clarion en­trance. Light from a street-lamp revealed him in the next instant. A stocky young man, hardly more than a grown kid — he was walking hurriedly, carrying a flat envelope under one arm.

“It’s the Collins guy all right!” Gus spoke quick, low. “Okay, Tony! Step up that motor — he’s comin’ by! Me an’ Pete’ll use the rods.”

Oblivious, the youth on the pavement walked on — coming diagonally abreast of the sedan in the next instant as two automatics trained their beads directly on his hurrying figure.

“Okay, Tony!”

The purring motor of the Cadillac rose abruptly to a vibrating clamor as Tony’s foot jammed down the accelerator. The two guns leveled from the front and rear windows. Flame leaped livid in the night from their jerking muzzles!

The motor almost drowned completely the quick reports, so they were not heard by any passing motorists.

The four shots flamed in swift succession.

As if grabbed by some unseen giant hand in the dark, the youth on the pavement stopped in his tracks. His stocky frame whirled completely around. His hands clutched at his chest — and through his clawing fingers blood spurted darkly.

Slowly, his knees buckled. He dropped on them. In contrast to the darkness, his face showed white, agonized as it turned towards the roaring but immobile sedan.

Then a choking cry as of defiance came from the youngster. He still clutched the manila envelope — and some miracle of purpose seemed to spur his riddled body into motion again. Crablike, half-crawling in the gloom, he was moving forward.

THE BROKEN-NOSED GUS saw that movement, gave vent to a livid oath. He yanked the rear door of the Cadillac open, his eyes peering up and down the street. It was dark, deserted. He leaped out, gun in hand. Pete and hatchet-faced Choppy followed.

Simultaneously the riddled youth, evidently seeing them coming, was suddenly, miraculously on wabbly legs — running, darting like a wild, wounded animal, instinctively trying to lose himself from his hunters.

Clutching the envelope he actually reached the corner, rounding the building as the others gained in their pursuit. They did not fire now — for their quarry was only a vague blur in the almost opaque gloom caused by the shadowy side of the building, near a railed areaway.

In that gloom, Gus, Pete, and Choppy closed in. Their hands groped. There was the sound of a scuffle — the ripping of paper — confusion.

The three gangsters became accustomed enough to the dark to regain vision. They found themselves in a tangle.

Gus cursed. “He went over the rail! He can’t get far with them slugs in him — an’ I don’t know if we got all we want! Come on, guys, we gotta find him!”

They climbed over the rail, dropping into the lower areaway. Groping in the gloom, guns still in hand.

And at that same instant, Eddie Collins, youthful cartoonist, was swaying against the cage of a freight elevator which was speeding upwards inside the building. He heard his own blood dripping to the floor of the ascending lift. Torpor was dragging at his agonized body. Yet, like some stubborn spark, a fierce determination was keeping him alive and active.

Floors went by in a blur, painfully slow. Up through the building the elevator ascended. Then it stopped of its own accord, on the top floor, up in the tower.

Collins pulled his coat about his chest as if hoping to stem the flow of his own blood. He groaned with the effort of opening the gate, staggered out through a corridor, thence through swing service doors.

Somehow he found the frosted-glass doors he sought. He pushed into a lighted, well-appointed anteroom. He pushed on through, reached another door, marked PRIVATE.

Eddie Collins grabbed the door handle — burst into the huge, private office whose French windows looked high over the Manhattan night.

At his rude entry, two men jerked up startled, surprised heads.

FRANK HAVENS, ELDERLY, RUGGED-FACED OWNER of the Clarion and a string of other equally powerful papers throughout the nation, rose to his feet from the big desk where he had been sitting, proof-sheets bearing gruesome murder-news before him.

Richard Curtis Van Loan, wealthy young idler and man-about-town, who was here as Mr. Havens’s friend and guest, lifted his bored, world-wearied grey eyes in questioning annoyance. Seated in a comfortable chair, Van Loan was puffing idly at a cigarette, his immaculately dress-trousered legs crossed.

Then, before anyone could speak, the bored Richard Curtis Van Loan suddenly leaped from his chair. His grey eyes lost their ennui, became sharp slits. It was he who saw the oozing, crimson trickle coming from beneath Collins’s coat and dripping soundlessly to the soft carpet.

Collins’s body swayed giddily as Van Loan leaped forward. The latter’s strong arms reached out, caught the young cartoonist even as the youth went limp, collapsing.

“This man’s been shot!” Van Loan said, his customary drawl sharp now.

Havens’s momentary annoyance turned to quick alarm. The publisher grabbed an interoffice phone, called a downstairs office secretary, ordering that a doctor be summoned. Then he went over to where Van Loan had carried the riddled youth to a lounge and placed him on it.

“Collins!” he cried, all concern now. “What happened? Who — ?”

The eyes of Eddie Collins, already going dull, flickered. His lips moved. A sighing rattle made the words which came from his throat difficult to hear.

“Envelope —” he gasped. “Envelope! Gangsters — probably still down in areaway cellar looking for me. Freight elevator — They got it — from me — but they aren’t sure —”

“Got what, Collins? What do you mean?” Havens spoke with fierce bafflement. “How could you — a comic strip man — be mixed up with thugs, with shooting!”

“Envelope tells,” Collins repeated. “Big case — Mr. Havens. I was doing it for a feature — when murder story broke. Bringing it for — the Phantom — now.”

Even in his agony, he pronounced that name with reverent awe.

Havens stiffened. The publisher’s eyes flashed to his worldly young friend, Richard Curtis Van Loan. And he got a fresh shock of surprise.

FOR VAN LOAN HAD SUDDENLY GONE into a whirl of swift action! He had peeled off his dress coat. In his hands was a flat leather kit, which was snapped open, to reveal a mirror and an array of tubes and jars.

Again Collins’s gasping voice interrupted. “Case — for Phantom! God, if only you could — get him now, Mr. Havens.” He sobbed. “Envelope — thugs got it —”

Havens administered to the riddled man as best he could while Van Loan worked away on his queer little kit.

When the publisher turned toward Van Loan, his jaw gaped.

Van, standing close, eyes darting from the man on the lounge to his own mirror, was still dabbing his face with a special charcoal. In seconds his handsome, world-weary features had almost completely vanished! In their place had grown another visage — the face of Eddie Collins!

It was not a semblance that could stand close inspection under bright light, being more an impressionistic sort of job, the likeness cleverly created by a few lines, by shading. Nor did Van Loan take any more precious time adding to it.

“Give me Collins’s coat, Frank — quickly! It ought to be enough!”

Van Loan pulled on the coat and assumed a stoop. Though he was tall, he seemed by his posture to look even more like the ­bullet-riddled cartoonist.

So swiftly had he made the transformation that now, before the dying Collins saw what was happening, his own “double” was darting out of the office in a swift blur of motion which concealed both the incongruity of his dress, and his makeshift disguise.

Collins hadn’t seen any of this. Nor had Collins dreamed that Richard Curtis Van Loan, the rich playboy he had seen so many times, was actually the mysterious and amazing sleuth whose fearsome name he had breathed, whose services he had demanded — the Phantom Detective whose perilous exploits in the dark byways of the underworld were known by the police the world over.

Only Frank Havens knew that Van Loan was the Phantom; only Havens knew how this seemingly bored young millionaire really gave his energies and lifeblood to the most exacting and dangerous task on earth — the tracking down of baffling and ruthless criminals.

Even to Havens, the Phantom was always a source of surprise and wonder. His quick-working brain was too fast to follow: his quick changes in disguise left the publisher gasping — as they had left him now.

Yet Van had acted with logic while acting with speed. Snatches of barely coherent speech from Eddie Collins had registered themselves indelibly on his mind: Freight elevator — thugs — still looking for Collins —

The Phantom scarcely knew Collins, only vaguely remembered seeing the youthful cartoonist around the Clarion Building. Certainly he had no idea what this was all about. As a matter of fact, his mind had been on other matters — on a bizarre, double murder which Frank Havens had called him down to discuss. But when Collins had come in, riddled — bringing crime flagrantly to this very building — Van had promptly dropped all other thoughts.

The Phantom reached the freight elevator, with its blood-stained floor, in the next instant. His lithe body pushed into the car — his long arm slammed the gate shut and started the elevator down. He reached into his pocket, into which he had transferred a fully loaded blue-steel Colt .45 automatic, U.S. Army, M-1911 — the favorite weapon of the Phantom.

MUSTY ODORS OF THE CELLAR rose to engulf the slow-descending cage. The Phantom tensed, adopting again the pose of Eddie Collins. His hand was on his gun, his thumb snapping back the safety catch. He knew he was deliberately playing with Death in his risky scheme.

The cellar loomed, dim and empty. Nobody in here. He hurried across it on soft-soled feet, eyes alert. Reaching the door of the areaway, he opened it softly. Night breeze, still carrying the heat of the Indian summer, met him.

He was out in the areaway like a drifting shadow. In the gloom his keen eyes, which had the cat-like gift of piercing darkness, glanced about. No one here. A surge of disappointment, a sense of anticlimax, narrowed his eyes. Despite his swiftness, had he been too long in coming?

He vaulted over the rail then, to the street. Cautiously, again emulating Collins — even staggering a little now — he moved down the block. The nearest street-lamp flecked his face. He caught a blur of movement and he dropped to the pavement like a deflating sack. Dropped as his every nerve combined in sixth sense to flash the warning to his alert brain!

Two guns flamed livid out of the dark, their reports shattering the quiet side street off Broadway. Bullets whined over the prone Phantom as he hugged the sidewalk. They ricocheted inches away, chipping the paving.

“Got him this time, Gus?”

“Better make sure!”

Van rolled as he heard the coarse voices. He saw three slouch-hatted figures charging from another dark doorway of the building, where they had been prowling.

His Colt snaked out. Eyes grim, he fired even as he rolled into position — a blind, snap shot at the charging trio.

One of the three, a gash-mouthed man, recoiled with a scream of pain. His hand clawed at his shoulder, blood spurting through the wound.

The other two also recoiled, amazed by the counter-attack. The broken-nosed man in their lead stared at the Phantom, who even now was leaping to his feet.

Madly he fired his automatic — fired as a suddenly panic-stricken man would fire.

Van ducked sideways, out of the lamp-light. The bullets went so far wide he didn’t hear them. Not only was the man’s apparent confusion spoiling his aim — in his left hand he was busily clutching a manila envelope! The Phantom grimly raised his Colt again. He drew a careful bead on the man with the envelope.

“Beat it, guys!” the third man was yelling. “The shootin’s been heard — The cops’re comin’!”

CRACK!

It was Van’s Colt that blazed in that split-second.

A hoarse cry burst from the broken-nosed thug. As if it suddenly burned him, he dropped the envelope. It fluttered to the pavement. The Phantom’s well-aimed shot had creased his wrist — making his pained muscles release their grip.

Across Broadway now two blue-coats came into view — a traffic and a beat cop, blowing their whistles, reaching with free hands for guns. The scream of a prowl-car added to the clamor.

Van hurled forward. The broken-nosed thug, nursing his wrist with his mouth, hesitated. Then, leaving the envelope, dashed on around the corner.

The Phantom scooped the envelope up without stopping in his pace. Rounding the corner, he saw the trio piling into a dark Cadillac sedan which started rolling from the curb in the next split-second, gears grinding raucously. Van leaped after it, then ducked.

Glass in the rear window shattered as a gun smashed its muzzle through. A fusillade of lead came from the departing car as it careened around the next block, swiftly disappearing. An oncoming green prowl-car sped in pursuit.

The Phantom, already grimly certain the gang car had had enough of a start to make a safe getaway, whirled back toward the Clarion Building, envelope in hand. He moved so swiftly that the police did not see him.

Again he used the freight elevator, riding back to the tower. The Phantom had struck again and disappeared.