Читать книгу The Phantom Detective: 5 Murder Mysteries in One Volume - Robert Wallace - Страница 15

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There was no guard at the bottom of the elevator shaft when Van stepped out of the car.

He made his way back to the big cavern where he had entered the unnumbered tunnel. The two hooded sentries were still posted there, but they let him pass when their torch lights showed the green circle with the two zigzag yellow stripes of an Empire officer on his black sleeve. Evidently no general alarm had been sent out for him, since he was supposed to be securely locked up in that subterranean concrete operating room.

The Phantom passed on into the main tunnel from which he and Jerry Lannigan had fled to make their escape from their original guards. He turned left, away from the direction of Vonderkag's gas cavern.

He was moving without a light, but the guards at the tunnel gates ahead of him, were satisfied with his officer's insignia and with the password, September Third.

When he had got by the last of the six doors he'd counted on his way in blind, he discarded the robe, mask and hood. A quarter mile further on he came to a fork in the shaft, and took the tunnel that had the heaviest bracing.

The passage climbed steeply, opened into a broader shaft up which ran a cog-wheel rail line for coal cars. There were no cars operating now. Van struggled up the long, sharp incline, came out upon a slag dump beneath stars and a bright moon.

He ran off the dump, darted along a mountain side, and dropped down to a dirt road. The fresh night air that filled his lungs gave him new energy. He followed the road, heard a railroad train laboring up a grade somewhere in the near distance.

Van had no definite idea where he was, except that he was in the heart of a coal mining district, probably in Pennsylvania. But fifteen minutes later, when he walked into a small town, his location assumed a grim significance.

The name of the town, Mountainview, was the post office address of the Alleghany State Penitentiary!

Van had Frank Havens on a long-distance phone connection to New York City within ten minutes. He was talking from a booth in the waiting room of the local railroad station. He didn't dare say much, and used the name of another Phantom alias, Jimmy Lance.

"I'll be at the Mountainview Hotel," he informed Havens. "Is Lannigan back yet?"

"He is," Havens stated. "And he'll fly me right out there."

"That saves me asking you to come," Van said appreciatively. "It's hotter here than you think. Bring along all the authority you can. If I'm not at the hotel there'll be a message for you. Anything else happened?"

"Yes," Havens told him tersely. "The Twin-City Power Dam at Minneapolis was destroyed by a blast—one single blast did it—to-night! And several more hooded men were reported seen at the disaster immediately after the explosion. The Twin-Cities are in a panic, partially without light, and the State Militia has been called out by the Minnesota governor!"

The Phantom kept back the flow of words that leaped to his tongue. One single explosion—the new explosive Kag had perfected!

Havens' voice came over the line again:

"I'm leaving for Mountainview at once!"

Van cut off the connection. Enough had been said over the phone. The clock in the hotel lobby showed ten P.M. when he registered for a room and locked himself in.

There was still time to visit the prison, if he could get inside the grim walls. Jud Marks' F.B.I. badge should help him there.

The Phantom spent five more minutes at the mirror and wash basin, removing the grime of the mines from his face, brushing off the blue suit he'd taken from Rotz. When he finished, he looked like a hard-traveled man who might have been a salesman.

It took him twenty minutes to get a local taxi and ride to the penitentiary on the outskirts of the town. The prison appeared bleak and grey, and fortlike in the night. It was built on a mountain side, one high stone wall almost abutting the rock-ribbed mountain itself.

About the tough prison was an atmosphere of menace and mystery that seemed to hover even over the wooded, thickly undergrown background of rugged ranges and deep, boulder-strewn valleys.

Van announced himself to the prison turnkey as a Federal agent named Jim Lance checking up on the escape of Snakey Willow, shot to death in New York City. He flashed the murdered Jud Marks' gold badge, asked to see the warden at once.

A rangy fellow named Rowan listened to the Phantom's preliminary questions irritably.

"Can't give you no information," the deputy grumbled. "You'll have to see Bluebold himself. He's in a huddle right now with Mr. Arnold who's Chairman of the Board of Parole. Dr. Jessup, the prison physician, and the wall and cell captains are with him. We got Killer Kline, that two million dollar mail robber and murderer, coming up here from Pittsburgh to be electrocuted next week. We do all the state's killings up here, since we built the big new chair."

Van studied Rowan's dull features keenly. The deputy wasn't impressed by the presence of Jim Lance, G-man, but was obviously in considerable awe of the Pittsburgh big shot who was to be locked up here for the last brief week before his official execution.

"Kline gets delivered here in the morning," the deputy went on, "so we ain't taking no chances on anything happening to him while he's with us, until he gets the jolt in the electric chair. Bluebold and the others are in the Board Room getting up their plans to handle this killer now. So you'll have to wait until they're done."

He took Van into the warden's office inside the prison behind the double gates of the turnkey's cage, and sat with him for a half hour until Bluebold and the men in the conference came out of the Board Room door at one end of the prison chief's office.

During that wait, Van's attempts to get the deputy to talk about the prison's management failed dismally. The rangy officer was obviously under orders not to give out any information at all concerning the activities behind these grim walls.

Rowan had run completely out of conversation when the Board Room door opened and the conference filed out.

The Phantom eyed the seven men in turn as they entered the warden's office. They were all big, powerful sharp-glanced, with the hard look of prison officials accustomed to handling convicts ruthlessly. The two cell captains and the two officers in command of the prison wall guards went out immediately. The deputy introduced Jim Lance, told what he'd come for.

In the austere environment of the penitentiary, Warden Jack Bluebold was even more rugged and capable looking than he had appeared when the Phantom had first seen him in Frank Havens' office. He sat aggressively in the chair behind his desk, eyeing Lance with shrewd, suspicious appraisal.

Ex-Congressman Harry Arnold, the Parole Board chairman, seemed no different than he had been in New York. His bearing was confident, his manner unruffled and assured. The responsibility of handling Killer Kline and electrocuting the tough murderer hadn't disturbed the politician's suavely alert and open-minded appearance.

Dr. Maurice Jessup, Van observed, seemed to be the only one of the three who was not fully satisfied with what had been decided upon in that Board Room meeting. He kept darting unexpected glances at Arnold and Bluebold, as though on the verge of declaring himself on some point which he never quite voiced.

The three officials were no more impressed by the presence of a G-man investigating Snakey Willow's escape than Deputy Rowan had been. They listened tolerantly to Van's questions, and Warden Bluebold became the spokesman.

"Snakey Willow was working in the foundry, welding a job, when some of the metal kicked back into his face. His welding glasses saved his eyes, but we had to patch up his ugly map or he wouldn't have had any face at all. Dr. Jessup's pretty proud of how he fixed Willow's face."

Dr. Jessup nodded. "I took my time on him," and shrugged. "Willow told me nobody'd know him, if he ever got out again."

Bluebold jerked open a drawer, thrust a printed "Wanted" police broadside at Van, The folder gave Willow's Bertillon and fingerprint measurements and his picture before the lifer had had his face lifted. The date of release printed on the police notice was four days old.

"Hell!" Bluebold exclaimed. "Deputy Rowan here, who was in charge of the prison while I was on a trip to New York, reported the escape as soon as it was discovered, and had that broadside sent out. I admit we've had some graft and corruption going on here under our noses, but we're getting that cleaned up. I fired eight inside guards today!"

"Yeah," Rowan nodded. "Those eight screws won't be sneaking in any more contraband."

"Besides bringing in whiskey on their hips," Dr. Jessup exclaimed caustically, "those guards were bringing in dope!"

Van handed back the police broadside to Bluebold.

"I'm not through cleaning up this prison," the warden declared determinedly. "But it takes time to ferret out these rats who've been wearing guards' uniforms around here. Mr. Arnold is going to appear before the state legislature with a bill that will make it a felony for a state penitentiary employee, guards and civilians both, to be caught carrying in or out anything that isn't permitted in the book of prison rules. The way it is now, all I can do is can these birds whenever we catch them trying to slip something over on us!"

The Phantom nodded, letting them talk.

"All they lose is their jobs," Harry Arnold emphasized. "We can't prosecute them. This is the toughest prison in the state, a sort of Alcatraz where the hardest criminals are sent. Those crooks usually have plenty of money and friends outside the walls, so you can understand, Mr. Lance, the profit there must be in bringing contraband in here to the prisoners."

Dr. Jessup, Warden Bluebold and Deputy Rowan jerked their heads in agreement, their eyes on Van.

"I'd be safe in saying," Harry Arnold went on, "as I'm going to say to the state legislature, that without a law putting a high felony penalty on such violations of our penitentiary rules, the crooked guards and civilian employees can, and do, make ten times their salary carrying in contraband and taking out uncensored letters to be mailed without our knowledge!"

Van asked bluntly, "How do you figure Snakey Willow got out?"

Warden Bluebold's eyes glinted. "Outside help did it!" he snapped. "This prison is escape-proof from within. There's a double count when the cons are locked in their cells at night, and again when they're let out to go to the shops in the morning. That count is checked twice each time before the cell doors are locked. At the shops and wherever the men work, there are between two and four guards who are responsible for the number of cons they handle. Willow's changed face might have helped, but you can't blame Dr. Jessup for that."

"If the guards are corrupted with money outside when they're off duty," Arnold put in, "all the warden and his deputies can do is wait until something arouses their suspicions, or until a convict disappears. We know the cons can't get out without help. It's the screws and the civilians who aid in the few escapes we've had. We're organizing a spy system among the guards themselves, which should help us detect crookedness before anything serious happens."

The four prison officials talked on, emphasizing what they'd already said, repeating themselves in different words. The Phantom recognized the hard logic in their statements, but could not break through the defense barrier they were building against him. The whole story was not coming out, whatever it was. They were ganging up on him, holding him off with reiterated generalities.

"How about the hospital?" he demanded. "Prison hospitals are apt to be a breeding place of corruption, due to the necessity for less iron-bound rules."

Dr. Maurice Jessup glanced at him with a gleam of contempt. "Perhaps that is true in other penitentiaries. It isn't true here!"

Warden Bluebold thrust out his jaw. "Our hospital is the hardest spot in this institution to get into. A convict is damned sick before he's admitted. We don't even allow visitors to go through that part of the prison without a special guard as a guide. Dr. Jessup is as much a disciplinarian as I am, besides being a very exceptional doctor and surgeon."

Van's eyelids flicked. They were putting this on heavy now—too thickly for him to swallow whole. There wasn't going to be a single loop-hole for him or any other investigator to use as a starting point.

He switched his attack, asked suddenly, "Ever had any trouble with any secret societies around here?"

The four men looked at him with set blankness in their eyes. Then Arnold chuckled good-naturedly.

"I see what you mean, Lance," he said tolerantly. "The papers are beginning to play up the old Ku Klux Klan idea in connection with the Arizona dam disaster. About twelve years ago, if I remember right, there was an organization of Ku Kluxers in these parts, but they sort of petered out after the national exposure of their political aspirations."

Warden Bluebold scowled. "If you're really investigating Snakey Willow's escape, Mr. Lance, you won't get anywhere chasing screwy newspaper scareheads. The payoff on that was cold cash on the line, outside, and not any nutty Ku Klux hocus-pocus. I'd suggest that you try to find the surgeon who fixed up Snakey's mug. That's the angle that Mr. Arnold, Dr. Jessup and myself are working on."

Van nodded, his veiled gaze hiding the sharp alertness behind his drooping lids. If that thermometer he'd found, with Alleghany Penitentiary stamped upon it, meant anything, Warden Bluebold's words were a direct challenge.

"I guess you're right, warden," he said, as though he'd begun to lose interest in the Willow case. "If you don't mind, I'll go through the prison tonight, so I won't have to wait over until tomorrow. I've got to make a routine report on this, anyhow."

"That'll be all right," Bluebold stated. "Deputy Rowan will show you around."

Van shook hands with them, then followed the deputy into the main corridor opening into the two big dormitory wings of the institution. Rowan seemed voluble enough now, so long as the Phantom stayed on generalities.

They walked along railed and lighted galleries past row upon row of gloomy cells in which the convicts slept restlessly. An occasional cry of some prisoner in his sleep was the only sound that broke the peculiar monotone of four thousand men breathing in weary nervous rhythm.

The great dining hall was a dark, deserted auditorium of long, narrow tables that gave the vague impression of deserted tombstones, where their footsteps shuffled ominously loud in the echoing silence.

In the shops, where shoes and cheap mining machinery were manufactured by convict labor, the rows of lathes, presses, cutting machines and drills were grotesque shapes poised in grim stillness, waiting for the maw of morning when they, would grind again into endless, heartbreakingly monotonous motion.

Van took particular notice of the enormous foundry as he and the deputy passed through its shrouded darkness. The high-ceilinged shop with its two big blast furnaces was peculiarly well equipped, and there were extra night guards stationed around its thick walls.

"That's the hospital over there," the deputy announced when they came out into the prison yard again.

He pointed at a four-story stone building set against the grey prison wall. It was dark, except for a red light over the entrance and a glow from one of the windows on the top floor.

"I'd take you in there," Deputy Rowan stated with finality, "except there's an iron-bound rule against visitors, official or not, going there at night. Black-Jack Bluebold would kick hell out of me if I let you in. Anyhow, the place is locked and I haven't got the key on me."

"Who keeps that key?" Van asked.

"Dr. Jessup, when he's inside the prison," Rowan answered and eyed Van distrustfully. "Other times it's locked up in the warden's safe. There's a fire exit that can be opened from inside the hospital, if that's what's worrying you."

The Phantom shrugged. There was no use his trying to break through the official reserve of these prison officials any longer. They were telling him just so much, and no more. But there was another way of getting past their loquatious, calculated barriers.

"Where's the death house cells?" he asked.

"See that light on the top floor of the hospital building?" Rowan said, his voice hardening. "That's it. There's two guys in there now, Sam Robbins and Joe Sholtz. We're frying Joe tonight. The electric chair is where that light shows. They're getting it ready."

The Phantom studied that grim window with the drawn shade a moment, his grey eyes slitted, his features masking the intensity of his sharp scrutiny. The shade of death would be drawn across that window in a few brief hours.

"I've seen enough," he said abruptly. "I'll fix up my report to the bureau from what information you've given me."

Relief showed on Rowan's face as they walked back to the main cell blocks and on through to the turnkey's double-doored cage.

Van thanked the deputy, shook hands with him, and was let out into the starry night. But the Phantom's eyes had become strangely restless.