The Black Ball Of Death

CHAPTER XVI

HURRYING into the office, the Phantom found the phone still clamoring. He picked it up, said, “Hello!” and his voice was the exact duplicate of Vogel’s. One of the Phantom Detective’s assets in fighting crime was his ability to duplicate voices. He’d made a study of it; and when he spoke now, Vogel’s closest friends wouldn’t have recognized the slight discrepancy.

“Why did it take you so long to answer the phone?” the man at the other end of the wire asked. He sounded like Barker with the twisted ear. “What’s wrong?”

“Everything is okay,” the Phantom replied. “You don’t know how okay. I had a visitor.”

“You didn’t let him go?” Len Barker shouted. “What did he look like?”

“Now hold everything,” the Phantom said with a chuckle that matched Vogel’s. “I took him to the catwalk above the furnaces; and, you know, that guy jumped off and got himself smeared all over the cement floor.”

“Good! Whoever he was, the man must have been dangerous. That was good work, Vogel.”

“Good? Listen, it was much better than you think. Ask me who the guy was, the guy I knocked off. Go on – ask me!”

“Cut the comedy,” Len snorted. “Tell me who he was.”

“The Phantom Detective!”

Len gave a hissing intake of breath. “Are you sure? Listen, Vogel, if you knocked off the Phantom you’ll get the biggest bonus of your life.”

“I found the badge on him. The Phantom’s badge. And I’m not interested in any bonus, Len. I’m coming in on the ground floor of this racket. I’m taking my share.”

“Go easy, Vogel,” Len said. “We don’t share; and – well, you know I’m not the only one in this business. I can’t invite you in, even if you bumped the Phantom off. But I can put in a good word for you.”

The Phantom took a long shot, seizing the opening Len had just given him.

“I know Bernie is in,” he said, “and somebody else besides. The real big shot. I want to meet him, Len. The big boy himself. Because I found something else on the Phantom. He was getting along in case. He knew plenty, and he wrote most of it down.”

Len’s end of the wire was silent for a moment or two. Then the man with the twisted ear blurted, “I’ve got to take a chance. Be in the lobby of the Monarch Hotel in an hour. Look for either Bernie or me. And Vogel – if you’re kidding about finding some papers on the Phantom’s body, Bernie won’t like it. I won’t like it either, even if you did knock off the one man we were afraid of.”

“In an hour,” the Phantom said. “And you’d better bring along somebody more important than Bernie, on account of I want to talk business. Big business.”

The Phantom hung up, wondering if this trap was going to work. There were a lot of loopholes. Bernie, or the man behind him, might get suspicious and take precautions. They might be prepared to murder Vogel on sight – though the lobby of the fashionable Monarch Hotel was hardly the place for that. They’d chosen the meeting place well. Here, an unknown master-mind might casually saunter about, studying the man who claimed to have killed the Phantom Detective. Here, a dangerous person might be fingered for quick death soon after he left the lobby.

The Phantom hurried out to where he’d left his car. On the way back, he stopped off at a small police station, identified himself, and told the desk sergeant where he could find the dead Vogel. He exacted a promise not to give the death any publicity for several hours.

IT WAS a fast ride back, but the Phantom reached the hotel lobby about ten minutes before the appointed time. He purchased a newspaper at the newsstand, went over to a chair in a corner of the lobby, and sat there, surveying the whole place while he pretended to read his paper. He kept his face obscured enough so that he wouldn’t be recognized quickly.

Promptly at the appointed time, two people he knew came across the lobby from the street entrance. One was Vicki Selden, and with her walked Hugh Royal, the artist who had put the Phantom on Vicki’s trail. When they were halfway across the lobby, Bernie Pennell, sleekly dressed and wearing his usual pearl-gray hat, pushed through the revolving doors.

He took up a position near the newsstand, and his eyes roved over the lobby to the other. If he saw and recognized the Phantom he gave no sign of it.

A bellboy, swinging out from the main desk, began paging Hugh Royal. The artist called him over, they talked briefly, and Royal excused himself to Vicki. He hurried over to a bank of telephone booths, stepped into one of them, and stayed there for about twenty seconds.

Then he came out and returned to Vicki’s side. They talked a moment and finally walked out of the hotel. The Phantom glanced toward the newsstand and discovered that while he had centered all his attention on the artist, Bernie Pennell had quietly faded out of sight.

The Phantom didn’t move for a moment or two. He sat there wondering if his little scheme had flopped, or if Hugh Royal had fallen into the trap but been warned off somehow, before the Phantom could spring it. At any rate, remaining here would be an utter waste of time; and the Phantom had important things to do.

He returned to where he had left his car and drove it to the hotel where Vicki Selden now lived. She wasn’t in, but after a glimpse of the Phantom’s police badge, the desk clerk gave him a master key. The Phantom let himself into Vicki’s single room and spent fifteen minutes checking over her belongings. He had to be very certain about Vicki.

When he finished this task, nothing looked disturbed; but he knew that if Vicki was involved with a murderer and some gyp game, no evidence of it existed in this room. He left the key with the clerk and then drove to the studio building where Hugh Royal maintained his studio. Vicki was just coming out – alone.

The Phantom pulled in to the curb and called her name. She looked startled, seemed ready to start running. Then recognition came, and she smiled warmly. He opened the car door for her, and she got in beside him. The Phantom drove away, entered one of the large public parks, and finally came to a stop in a quiet spot. It was dusk now, getting a trifle chilly. Vicki moved closer to him.

“I don’t want you to think I’ve been following you, Vicki,” the Phantom said, “but you were seen with Hugh Royal in the lobby of the Monarch Hotel a short time ago. You stayed only a minute after Royal received a phone call.”

SHE smiled at him. “Phantom, I’m not holding anything back from you. I want Arthur’s murderer punished as much, or more, than you do. But I have to live too. I’ve nothing left but my career, and for months I tried to get on Park Sunderland’s staff of models. Hugh Royal agreed to help me, and we were to have dinner with Mr. Sunderland tonight. He couldn’t come. That was what the phone call was about.”

“I see. Then you returned with Mr. Royal – to his studio?”

“Yes. He wanted to show me a magazine cover he’d painted of me. We intend showing it to Mr. Sunderland. It may impress him, we hope.”

“And did Mr. Royal make this appointment very quickly, perhaps unexpectedly, so far as you were concerned?”

“Why, yes. I told Hugh – Mr. Royal – where I’m living. He called me and said I must get right over.”

“What time was that, Vicki?”

“About four o’clock, perhaps a little after. He said he could give me only hour, and we were to meet in front of Hotel Monarch. Phantom, do you think Hugh is mixed up in this?”

“I don’t know. Someone seems to directing the whole thing and employing the use of certain gunmen and at least one confidence man. They were after Arthur’s money without any question – and got it, too. Vicki, did Arthur ever talk to you about a man named Dr. Winterly?”

“I think the name did come up.” Vicki frowned. “Isn’t Dr. Winterly, a scientist, an inventor of some kind?”

“Yes. Arthur gave him twenty thousand dollars. Have you any knowledge as to why he turned this amount of money over to Dr. Winterly?”

“Twenty thousand! But, Phantom, that was about all the money Arthur had. Arthur never mentioned that to me.”

“Perhaps,” the Phantom said, “Dr. Winterly will be able to explain it. I’ll take you home now, and I think you’d best remain there. It might be safest.”

She shuddered and linked one arm under the Phantom’s. “Hugh told me how this – this ugly looking man almost killed him. He was trying to find my address in Hugh’s files. You’re right, Phantom. They are after me. But I swear I don’t know a thing. Arthur was very reticent about this whole affair. I can’t help you very much, and if someone tries to make me tell what Arthur told me -”

“Vicki,” the Phantom said, “we take chances in this game. Arthur took one and lost. In order to avenge him we’ve got to stick our necks out a little. Winterly may clear this all up, and you’ll be out of danger by morning. Until then don’t do anything. Just try to relax and get some rest.”

He drove her to the hotel, watched her enter, and then telephoned Steve Huston. He assigned the redheaded reporter to take up a post in the lobby of the hotel and both guard and watch Vicki. The Phantom felt a bit easier about Vicki then. He started driving back to Lake Candle, where the whole network of murder and intrigue began.

The Phantom’s assurance about Vicki might not have been quite so secure if he’d lingered a few more minutes. Long before Steve Huston arrived, Vicki emerged from the hotel, hailed a cab from the taxi line in front of the place, and gave an address. She settled back in the seat, smiling slightly in what seemed to be complete happiness.