The Banshee Murders

CHAPTER XII

LIKE Lamont Cranston, Phil Harley could have told the police his theory regarding Winslow Ames; but Phil also doubted that he would be believed.

What was more important, Phil felt that he had gained certain leads, which if right would enable him to track down crime; but if wrong, would only give away all he knew, should any of the facts be made public.

There again, Phil’s situation resembled that of The Shadow, except that they were concerned with different persons. It would have been well if Phil and The Shadow could cooperate with each other, but so far they hadn’t gotten along at all; nor was there any way that they could reach each other.

Of course Phil’s main lead was Arline Forster, who struck him as much more of a mystery girl than Thara Lamoyne. Phil knew where to reach Arlene; namely at the Plaza Central. At least he hoped he could reach her there, but so far none of his phone calls to her room had been answered.

Phil was thinking this over as he watched the seals disport in the oblong pool at the Central Park Zoo. He’d thought that going over last night’s ground would help some, but it hadn’t. Now that it was getting dark, Phil decided to go to his own hotel, with a stop-off at the Plaza Central.

The route led past the buildings where the jungle animals were housed. The cages there were arranged to open indoors as well as out, so several sizeable beasts were on voluntary outdoor display, including a rather intelligent leopard.

Each outdoor cage had a barred door, out of reach across a low picket fence. The doors were fastened with formidable padlocks and evidently the handsome leopard rated high among the animals because his cage had a shiny new padlock. The leopard looked at Phil when Phil looked at it and then the leopard yawned.

Only it wasn’t just a yawn; the leopard gave a low growl. In leopard language it was saying that it didn’t like something and since Phil was about the only thing in sight, he was probably what the leopard didn’t like.

So Phil proceeded to the Plaza Central.

Just inside the door of that lavish hostelry, Phil was greeted by a peculiar gasp that reminded him a trifle of the leopard’s expression of annoyance. Again, Phil was the object, but this time the annoyed party was a girl.

And the girl was Arlene Forster.

“Good evening,” announced Phil, politely; “and what have I done to be rebuffed?”

“I’d rather not talk about it,” returned Arlene. “I have an appointment. Good-bye.”

“Since you’re going my way” - Phil supplied this as Arlene went out the door and turned along the street - “you won’t be sparing any precious minutes if you give me the particulars.”

“All right, then.” Arlene tossed her blonde head haughtily. “I just don’t like your persuasive way. That business of arguing me into taking a carriage ride around Central Park, for instance.”

“But I didn’t persuade you!”

“Then who did? I made a phone call and came out of the booth. Next you were putting me into that broken-down chariot. How long we rode, I don’t know, but you were still in the carriage when we arrived back at my hotel.”

They had passed Phil’s hotel, the Sans Souci, but he didn’t say he lived there. Phil kept right on walking in order to clear the mystery.

“But I didn’t put you in the hack!” Phil insisted. “You just disappeared. When I saw you again, you were riding around like a zombie.”

“Zombies don’t disappear,” argued Arlene, curtly, “but banshees do. Next, you’ll be calling me a banshee.”

“Maybe,” declared Phil indifferently. “It seems I’ve heard somewhere that banshees have a weakness for lilacs.”

It was well put, for Arlene was sporting a batch of lilac blossoms again tonight. For a moment, Phil saw blue eyes sparkle angrily; then the girl calmed down.

“I have an appointment,” Arlene explained patiently. “At the Chateau Parkview, where we met last night. So you sent me away in a hack and didn’t go along; all right, I’m willing to believe your story and you should know why.”

“And why?”

“Because I realize now that you intended to meet someone else and didn’t want me to interfere. But since it’s the other way around tonight, suppose you don’t interfere with my plans.”

They were nearing the Chateau Parkview, so Phil decided to make the best of a last few moments.

“You’d only arrived in New York when I met you,” Phil reminded Arlene. “How did you happen to stop at the Plaza Central?”

“Because you told me I had a reservation there,” returned Arlene, “or if you didn’t, someone else did. I don’t just remember.”

“But why did you come here at all?”

“Suppose I ask you that same question?”

“Good enough,” retorted Phil. “I came here because I was promised a good job. I was in the army, you know, so I suppose I ought to have a job.”

“And so should I,” countered Arlene. “I was in the Waves.”

Arlene looked ready to give Phil a wave right then, since they were entering the Chateau Parkview. Expecting such a dismissal, Phil parried it.

“It won’t matter if we chat a while,” he said. “If some bashful party is meeting you, he or she will probably wait. But there’s one thing I almost forgot” - Phil was looking at the lobby clock - “and that’s a phone call I have to make. Don’t vanish again while I’m gone!”

When Phil went to the phone booth, Arlene crossed the lobby and took a place out of his sight. Her lilacs immediately gained results, for a bellboy approached with a message in an envelope, evidently singling out Arlene because of her flowers.

Reading the message, Arlene took a quick look for Phil; not seeing him, she circled to an elevator and rode up to the top floor, where she found the door she wanted and knocked.

The door was promptly opened by a man with shaggy, unkempt hair, whose eyes were quick but friendly. He stepped back and nodded as he gestured for the girl to enter.

“So you’re the young lady,” the man acknowledged. “Miss -”

“Arlene Forster.”

“I’m glad to meet you, Miss Forster.” The shaggy head bowed again. “I am Niles Ronjan. Now let me see: you are staying at the Plaza Central.”

“That’s right.”

“A very nice place. Very well, the charts will be sent there. You are familiar with coastal charts, of course.”

“I am.”

“Then that’s all. Your job will be to check them when you receive them.”

“At what salary?”

“Why, eighty dollars a week,” responded Ronjan, as though Arlene should know, “with hotel expenses in addition.”

Arlene hardly knew what to gasp, so Ronjan saved her the trouble.

“Don’t thank me,” he expressed. “Thank Mr. Cranston; it was his idea. He sent me word to interview you” - Ronjan’s tone became confidential - “probably because of Miss Lane.”

Arlene took it that Miss Lane was probably the type to be jealous if she knew that Mr. Cranston had offered a job to a former Wave. Perhaps her face registered a trace of reluctance on the basis of possible complications, for Ronjan immediately sought to reassure her.

“It’s really very important,” confided the shaggy-haired man. “Any word from Mr. Cranston is important. He has influence with Craig Farnsworth, the man who backed my great invention.”

With that, Ronjan gestured to the big tank where the articulated tube was on display. He didn’t have to explain it to Arlene; she could tell that it was a model of some sort of device used for reaching sunken ships.

“Our calculations were correct,” declared Ronjan, “but perhaps Farnsworth is not convinced of it. The work you do may furnish the proof he needs.”

Noting that Arlene was interested in the tank and its contents, Ronjan let her study the exhibit, though it was apparent that he was anxious to leave. In fact, Ronjan seemed to be timing things by the occasional glances he gave at his watch. Finally, Ronjan was about to gesture toward the door when a strange thing happened.

It occurred when Arlene was on the far side of the tank, over toward the window. As she turned, the girl was attracted by the scene from that window, for outdoors the dusk had settled, bringing a typical Manhattan nightscape. Central Park was gaining its velvety touch, lights were gleaming like gems, and a soft glow, rising from the street was a natural magnet for Arlene’s eyes.

Then all was blackened by a momentary horror. Arlene dropped back aghast as the window clouded, almost blotting the scene with it.

The blotting shape had all the semblance of a cloaked figure with outspread arms, looming straight up into the window, as though arrived on some monstrous mission!

As suddenly as it appeared, the illusion vanished with a curious dwindling effect. Suddenly bold, Arlene stared down from the window, thinking the intruder had dropped away, but no one was in sight.

Ronjan, having turned to open the door, apparently had failed to view the startling sight outside the window, so Arlene said nothing about it. Ronjan bowed her out and then followed, locking the door behind him, as he muttered something about an appointment.

They had reached the elevator when its door opened to emit a tawny-faced man whose features were marred by two white scars. Bowing, Ronjan croaked an introduction:

“Miss Forster, allow me to present Captain Dom Yuble from the Caribbean. He has proven very helpful in my present enterprise.”

Yuble’s gleaming smile rather impressed Arlene. When Ronjan offered Dom the key to the suite, the tawny man exhibited one of his own, then smiled again as Arlene entered the elevator with Ronjan.

All the way down in the elevator, even after she parted with Ronjan in the lobby, Arlene kept wondering about that fanciful occurrence upstairs. The more she wondered, the more she believed that Ronjan had tried to divert her attention from the window; indeed, had sought to have her leave before the weird interloper made that momentary appearance.

In fact, Arlene was ready to drop her feud with Phil in order to gain someone’s reaction to her strange experience, but Phil wasn’t around to hear her story. Starting back to her own hotel, Arlene decided that Phil must have gotten tired waiting for her, for which she couldn’t blame him. Looking up toward the towering roof of the Chateau Parkview, Arlene saw lights that probably represented Ronjan’s suite, tucked just beneath the eaves of the peculiarly ornate roof.

It looked trivial, that scene high above, so trivial that Arlene was ready to forget it. After all, when things seemed trifles, they couldn’t matter much.

Arlene Forster was wrong. Trifling things could mean a great deal, whether noticed or unnoticed. In the latter class could have been included the tiny blinks that were beginning somewhere off in the distance.

They came from a building flanking Central Park, those twinkling gleams, symbols that strange crime was again on the move!