Chain Of Death

CHAPTER I PLANTED DEATH

MISTY night had settled on Manhattan. A chilly drizzle was creeping in from the bay. The bright lights of Times Square blinked and blazed in defiance of the gathering fog. This district maintained its brilliance despite the elements.

A young man, pushing his way through Broadway throngs, turned suddenly as he neared a subway entrance at the corner of Forty-second Street. He stopped to purchase an evening newspaper. His face showed keenly in the light. It was a well-featured countenance, with thick, dark eyebrows and a black, pointed mustache as its most conspicuous features.

Though his face was a trifle haggard, as though from overwork, the young man showed no signs of weariness in his action. As he stepped away from the news stand, he headed briskly for the subway entrance and hurriedly disappeared down the steps.

A dozen minutes later, the same young man reappeared from a subway exit in a different section of Manhattan. He had reached the Wall Street area. His footsteps again were hasty as they carried him through a man-made canyon between two towering buildings.

Blanketing fog had created a strange effect in the lower district of Manhattan. The chilling drizzle had come in more heavily from the Battery. It was accompanied by low-hanging clouds that swirled in mist-like fashion about the upper stories of closely packed skyscrapers.

Towering office buildings rose out of sight. Like mountains of stone, they thrust their shafts into the enshrouding fog. Passers in the street were few. The chasms between the massive monoliths were silent and almost deserted. The business day ended, this district seemed a city of the dead.

Straight ahead, at a corner of the narrow street, was a tall white building that appeared magnified by the fog. Light glimmered from its open doorway. Above, at scattered intervals, were the lights of offices, which marked the presence of business men who had remained to work late.

Still higher, from spots where the building itself was invisible in the fog, shimmers of faint light marked other offices that were occupied. This was not unusual. The huge Zenith Building, which the young man now approached, was one of the best tenanted of skyscrapers. Every night found some late-stayers in the thousand-odd offices that were located within its eight-hundred-foot walls.

THE young man entered the lobby of the Zenith Building. The place was scantily lighted. On the left was a desk, where a watchman remained on duty. On the right, beyond, was a row of elevator shafts.

One elevator door was open. It was toward this objective that the young man turned his steps. He was nearly at his goal when the stentorian voice of the watchman stopped him. Turning, with a slight grin, the young man came back to the desk on the left.

“Forgot all about it, George,” he remarked, as he picked up a pencil and began to sign the register book. “I was in a hurry. I come in and out so much during the day that I never think to register at night.”

“That’s all right,” growled the watchman. “I’m here to tell people when they forget.”

He watched the young man sign his name as Howard Norwyn; after that the number of the office to which he was going — 3318. Then Norwyn marked the time of entry as 9:15, taking it from a clock above the registration desk.

“Your boss went upstairs fifteen minutes ago,” remarked the watchman. “Guess that’s why you’re in a hurry, eh?”

Norwyn nodded. He had read the name of his employer, George Hobston, on the register. He had also noted the time of Hobston’s arrival as nine o’clock.

Howard Norwyn hurried to the elevator. The sleepy operator had no challenge. The man was standing slouched in the corner of the car; he took it for granted that any one who entered had registered. The checking of names was the watchman’s job, not his.

The elevator reached the thirty-third floor. Its lone passenger alighted. Howard Norwyn paced along the gloomy marble corridor as the elevator doors clanged behind him. He reached the door of 3318. It was the entrance to a suite. On the glass panel appeared the legend:

Norwyn found the door unlocked. He opened it and entered a darkened outer office. He seemed a trifle puzzled. Ordinarily, George Hobston would have kept this room illuminated. It was light from an inner room that allayed Norwyn’s worries. He strode in that direction.

The inner office was Hobston’s own.

Norwyn had an appointment with his employer, so he naturally supposed that Hobston was awaiting his arrival. But as he reached the door Norwyn paused upon the threshold. He stared straight across the dimly lighted inner office.

OPPOSITE was the entrance to a strong vault room where George Hobston kept all money and securities. The vault room had a massive door of metal grillwork; beyond it, the vault itself was set in the wall. This arrangement made it possible for Hobston to guard himself while opening the vault, through the simple expedient of closing the grilled door behind him. Yet at the same time, air was obtainable through the open metal work.

The grilled door was always kept closed. To-night, it was wide open. A light was burning in the small vault room. Its rays showed the vault, also opened wide, with papers scattered everywhere. The vault room, however, was empty!

Howard Norwyn stood petrified. Robbery was evident; still, there was no sign of the thief. In wild alarm, Norwyn thought of his employer. Where was George Hobston? Spontaneously, Norwyn looked about the gloomy office. His eyes fell on a figure that was slouched in a desk chair.

It was George Hobston. The president of the investment company was dead. His body was crumpled forward, almost as if some one had placed it there. One motionless hand lay beside a telephone on the desk. As Howard Norwyn’s bulging eyes stared back and forth, they saw that George Hobston’s back was on a straight line with the open door of the vault room.

Mechanically, Howard Norwyn stepped forward. As he did, he sensed a sound from in back of him. He wheeled toward the door to the darkened outer office. A man came springing from the gloom. As Norwyn’s hands came upward, husky fists caught his throat and sent him backward to the floor. A short quick pounding motion banged Norwyn’s head upon the thick carpet. Groggy, the young man sprawled helpless, with arms outstretched.

Norwyn’s attacker, a thickset, leering rogue, arose to survey his work. A pleased grin showed on puffy lips. The man had evidently accomplished what he sought. He had stunned Norwyn but had not seriously injured him. Within a few minutes, the young man would come back to his senses.

Hoisting Norwyn’s body, the thickset man carried his burden into the vault room. There he propped Norwyn against the wall. He applied a handkerchief to the young man’s throat, to remove the grime of finger prints. From his pocket, he drew a revolver. He wiped it with the handkerchief and placed it in Norwyn’s right hand. Using the cloth as a covering for Norwyn’s fist, the man squeezed Norwyn’s hand tightly about the weapon.

Stepping back, the evil-faced man delivered another leer. Howard Norwyn was moving weakly. His eyes had not yet opened; but it would be minutes only before he regained full consciousness. With handkerchief on hand, Norwyn’s attacker clanged the metal door shut. Through the grill, he could still see Norwyn moving feebly.

FOR a moment, the man became cautious. He had given Norwyn a loaded weapon; a sudden recovery would enable the victim to fire from the vault room. Norwyn’s attacker drew a revolver of his own. He raised the weapon; then lowered it as he observed Norwyn slouch back into a stupor.

The villain’s work was done. In the dull gleam of the office, which was lighted only by a corner lamp, the thickset man’s pockets showed heavy bulges that represented stolen money and securities. The man approached the dead body of George Hobston; he frisked the pockets in a manner which showed that he had already gone through them, but was merely making sure that his search had been complete.

Placing his handkerchief upon the left hand of the dead man, the ruffian clamped the lifeless fingers to the telephone receiver. He used Hobston’s hand to knock it from the hook.

With the revolver pointed to the open window of the office, the murderer stood in readiness for clicks through the receiver. His vile face showed its vicious grin. Evil had gained a triumph.

Murder had been this villain’s first crime. Then had come robbery. The third step in the sequence was under way. This man who had slain George Hobston; this crook who had rifled the investment dealer’s safe, was ready to complete his evening’s work.

Simply, but with craft, he was planting his crimes upon Howard Norwyn, the young man who was lying helpless behind the locked bars of the vault room!