The Black Ball Of Death

CHAPTER V

ON UPPER PARK AVENUE, Richard Curtis Van Loan had his New York headquarters. There he maintained a sky-high suite of rooms in a building that gave him the use of a private elevator and an around-the-corner entrance that was used only by himself.

He paid well for these conveniences, which were necessary to him in his rôle of the Phantom. He had found that it was vital to be able to get in and out of the building when disguised, without arousing suspicion on the part of the apartment’s employees. To them, he was the easy-tipping Mr. Van Loan, who kept pretty much to himself and, outside of Frank Havens, had few callers.

In his rooms, the Phantom went through to his bedchamber. Behind one of its walls was an inner room reserved exclusively for the Phantom’s use. In it were his disguises, his arsenal, and the laboratory equipment essential to his detective work.

The room was windowless, indirectly lighted. When the panel in the bedroom wall folded back at the touch of a button, Van Loan went in and sat down before a white enamel table that faced the cabinet in which he kept a stock of chemicals.

The powder he had removed from the floor of the billiard room sifted out on a glass slab. It interested him strangely. He didn’t know why it should be, but he had an intuitive feeling it was somehow important, that it linked in with young Arden’s murder. There was no basic reason for the belief, yet from the time he had first glimpsed the powder, he had determined to get a sample of it and, if possible, learn what it was.

Sheriff McCabe had passed it completely. If he had seen it, the sheriff hadn’t considered it as a clue. Van smiled thinly. Even Inspector Gregg’s homicide operatives would have done better than that. Still, he didn’t blame McCabe too much. The sheriff wasn’t exactly of the caliber to imagine that stuff resembling dust could possibly have a bearing on a murder mystery.

Van gave the bronze powder the usual chemical reaction tests. He was puzzled by the results. In the substance he found traces of magnesium and silica. That was mixed with ordinary sand, pulverized to powder form. Also, a faint trace of copper barilla, powdered, came up after the last of his exhaustive tests.

The mineral portion of the mixture resembled enstatite, which, the Phantom knew, was one of the pyroxene group of orthorhombic minerals. Bronzite, a ferriferous variety of enstatite, had a bronze-like luster, the color of the substance Van had before him on the glass slab.

A frown shadowed his face. From his knowledge of chemicals and minerals he was unable to understand, or even hazard a guess, as to what the powder could be used for. It had no place, no use, in his opinion, in any formula. Yet, he saw, it had been blended for a purpose, put together for a specific reason.

But for what purpose and what reason? And what had it been doing on the floor of the room in the lodge?

The Phantom pushed the slab aside. He took the gardenia out of his pocket and looked at it thoughtfully. One thing was positive. He had to find its wearer – the girl or woman who had been with Arthur Arden at the lake, earlier that night.

FROM Havens, the next morning, the Phantom learned that Matthew Arden was to stay at the lodge until his son’s funeral arrangements were completed. The Phantom wanted to talk to the former Attorney General. Steve Huston, Havens told him further, was leaving that same morning at ten o’clock for Lake Candle. Steve was hot on a followup story to the murder scoop he had walked in on.

“Have Steve meet me at ten sharp,” the Phantom told the publisher, over the telephone. “In front of the Clarion Building.”

“That means you’re going back to the lodge?”

“Yes. I want to talk to Matthew Arden,” the Phantom replied.

Havens promised to make the arrangements; and the Phantom, pointing up his disguise, hurried to the nearby garage where he kept his cars. There Frank Havens had left the sleek black sedan he had driven to Manhattan the previous night. As usual, the Phantom found it had been washed, polished, and its gas-tank filled.

The garage owner. never asked questions. The Phantom paid him well for silence and service, and the garage man believed the Phantom was some kind of secret-service agent. That, to him, explained why he appeared there in varied disguises at any hour of the day or night.

Steve was a few minutes late. Parking was not allowed on the street where the Clarion Building stood. So the Phantom had to keep moving, drifting around the corner, up the adjoining street, and back again. He did this several times, noticing a man who lounged in front of a drug store opposite the newspaper building. There was something intent in the way the man seemed to be watching the main entrance to the building across the way.

His studied stare caught the Phantom’s attention, on his second time around. He was of medium size, quietly dressed, and gave the appearance of a solid citizen. The third time the Phantom came around, he purposely drove close to the south curb. That gave him a chance for closer inspection. His quick, analytical gaze showed him that the man had one distinguishing feature. His left ear was oddly twisted.

The next time the Phantom came down the block, Steve Huston was waiting for him.

“Sorry I’m late. Had a few details to clear up, and a phone call blocked me at the last minute.” Huston climbed in.

“Drive, Steve.” The Phantom moved over and gave the reporter the wheel. “I want to match a certain party who’s been eying the entrance to your building. He registered interest when you came out. Let’s see what he does.”

“A plant?” Steve Huston wedged himself behind the wheel.

The Phantom’s glance moved to a special panoramic mirror along the top of the windshield. It was designed so as to supply a complete view of the street behind him. In the glass he saw the man with the twisted ear step out from the drug store and hail a taxi.

He got in rapidly, and the cab started before he had the door fully shut.

“A ‘tail.’ ” The Phantom smiled faintly. “We’d better lose him in a hurry.”

He gave Huston instructions; and, before they had gone a dozen streets, the taxi behind them, caught in the maze of traffic, no longer followed.

“What would he be interested in me for?” Steve queried.

“You work for Mr. Havens, and Mr. Havens presses the button that brings me into being.” The Phantom spoke quietly. “Through you – or Mr. Havens – there’s a direct lead to me.”

He dismissed the subject, asking the little reporter if he had had any word from Sheriff McCabe. Huston nodded.

“That was the call that held me up. I long-distanced McCabe at his home, but he had gone to his office. He called me from there. The autopsy report is in. Arden was shot with a thirty-eight caliber gun. Two bullets. One entered his heart. Death was instantaneous.”

“Any other news?”

“That’s all. McCabe wants to know when you are going back. I think he’s going to lean on you – heavily. I told him I wasn’t sure.”

“I’ll see McCabe later. First,” the Phantom said, “I want to have a talk with Matthew Arden. I don’t hold out any high hope he can shed light on his son’s death, but there’s always the chance he might know something that he doesn’t believe is important.”

HE FOUND the tall, loosely built Arden busy on the telephone at the lodge when Steve dropped him there. The former Attorney General had recovered from the first shock of his son’s murder. He was obviously still grief-stricken, but the initial numbing impact had lessened somewhat. He now accepted it as a reality and, the Phantom saw, was eager to do everything in his power to find the one responsible.

His telephone conversation finished, Matt Arden listened while the Phantom introduced himself.

“I’ve just been talking to Frank Havens,” he said then. “He told me you were coming down. I’m confident that you will solve this case. My son’s murderer must be found and punished! Expense – effort – nothing must be spared or stand in the way! My entire objective from now on is the closing of a net around the one who shot Arthur!”

The Phantom’s first questions brought ready answers.

“Your son entertained a feminine companion here last night. Was he engaged to be married?”

“Not that I know of.”

“He had a number of women friends?”

“Too many.”

“Do you know of anyone in particular he was interested in?” the Phantom persisted.

“There was one young lady he used to call quite frequently. He never confided in me or mentioned her, but I overheard him on the telephone once or twice. Her name is ‘Vicki.’ At least that’s what Arthur called her.”

“You never saw her?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Tell me about your son’s finances. They may have a direct bearing on last night’s affair.”

Matthew Arden passed an unsteady hand across his face. For a minute he was silent. Then he drew a breath.

“This is confidential, of course,”he said.

“Arthur’s financial status wasn’t any too good. He ran through most of the money his mother left him. He never learned the virtue of economy, unfortunately. I believe in the last month or so he began to realize his spending days were nearly over. Arthur was pretty close to being broke.”

ARDEN’S servants had come down that morning. A wooden-faced butler loomed in the doorway.

“Begging your pardon, sir,” he said to Arden. “The telephone.”

The Phantom said, “Thank you, Mr. Arden, I won’t detain you further. I have to see the sheriff. I’ll get in touch with you again.”

Outside, in the bright morning sun, the lodge and its surroundings had a different aspect. The somber, funereal gloom that hung over it the night before had vanished. Even the rhododendron wall looked more cheerful in the sunshine.

The splash of a hose took the Phantom to the garage. Arden’s chauffeur, a young blond lad, was spraying away some of the well-known Jersey clay from a convertible coupé’s white-walled tires. He stopped whistling when the Phantom came up to him.

“Who rents boats around here?” the Phantom inquired.

“Sam Ruddy, down at the end of the lake.” The chauffeur pointed. “Take a short cut – down the steps to the boat-house and along a path you’ll find on the other side of the dock. You can’t miss it.”

The Phantom descended the cement steps. For an instant he looked across Lake Candle, at the opposite shore, and the previous night’s meeting with Dr. Winterly and the giant, Luke, came back to him. What the Phantom had told Steve about Winterly’s after midnight trip to the Arden dock was still keen in his mind.

Later that day, he had plans to talk with the aged scientist.

Meanwhile, his next stop-off was the lakeside pavilion of Sam Ruddy. The Phantom found the designated path without trouble. It twisted its way through the trees. Birds sang in their branches, the sun slanted through them, and the lake lapped along the shore.

Ruddy’s pavilion was built out over water. A planked runway led down a large wharf. More than a dozen rowboats were tied up to it. There was no one around except a girl in faded dungarees, bare feet, and a soiled yellow sweater.

When Van asked for Ruddy, she cupped her hands over her mouth and shouted “Hey, Pop. Someone to see you!”

A short, fat man came out of the building back of the pavilion. Sam Ruddy bald and sunburned, had evidently been working on an engine. He wiped his hand on a bit of waste and waddled down the runway.

“Want to rent a boat? Got plenty.”

“I’m after information.”

The Phantom flashed his Detective Bureau badge, with which Homicide had supplied him. More than once he had found it useful.

Ruddy looked from the badge to the Phantom’s face and swallowed. “Guess it must be about what happened over at the Arden lodge last night. Sorry, mister, don’t know nothing about it.”

“You know the boats around here.”

“Sure. Tell you anything about them.”

“Did you rent any last evening – prior to ten o’clock? A boat with an outboard motor?”

Ruddy shook his head. “No, I didn’t. The last rental I had was around four o’clock. Couple of gals hired a canoe go up the lake. They brought it back this morning.”

In the pavilion the telephone rang. Ruddy said, “Answer that, Bess,” and girl in the faded dungarees, who had been listening attentively to what the Phantom asked, reluctantly obeyed.

She came back in a minute. “It’s for you, Pop. Mrs. Stewart’s lost her boat. She wants to talk to you about it. She tried to get you twice this morning but the line was busy.”

Ruddy excused himself and wheezed up the wooden walk. Bess, transferring live bait from one tin can to another, looked up at the Phantom.

“I know something,” she said suddenly.

“What, for instance?” The Phantom’s glance moved to her freckled face.

“That Dr. Winterly’s man was around last night. His name is Luke, and he lives over there.” She nodded up the lake. “He’s a great big guy; and I saw him around nine o’clock, rowing a flat-bottomed fish boat they keep over there. I’m afraid of him. He looks bad.”

Her father came down to the wharf while she was talking. He pushed her aside.

“Lady up the lake says somebody borrowed her boat last night and didn’t return it,” he told the Phantom. “Rowboat with a kicker on it. Same kind you were asking about. I’m going to look around. Want to come along?”

The Phantom followed Sam Ruddy into one of the rowboats tied up at the wharf. The boathouse keeper cast off and pulled at oars. The boat moved out from the wharf, and the Phantom’s frowning eyes watched while Bess stared after them.