The Black Ball Of Death

CHAPTER VI

SAM RUDDY rowed leisurely north along the eastern shore of Lake Candle.

With his hat’s brim turned down to shield his musing eyes from the sun glare, the Phantom watched the fat man peer into the coves and inlets they passed. His mind was busy. Outwardly he resembled someone indolently enjoying a row up the water. Inwardly, his sharp, analytical brain reviewed the facts available.

He had little doubt the killing of Arthur Arden was no inspirational, done-on-the-spur-of-the-moment crime. The circumstances, as he saw them, hinted heavily of organization. That meant a directing force, with offshoots, to further darken and tangle the problem.

Some proof of that theory was substantiated by the man with the twisted ear, who had been watching across from the Clarion Building. The man who had loitered on the opposite pavement, ready to follow Steve Huston when the little reporter came out. The Phantom took that as a sample of the killer’s strategy.

He – or they – weren’t leaving any loose ends. They were determined to find out whether Frank Havens had waved his wand and produced the Phantom Detective. If so, – and the Phantom smiled grimly at the thought – measures would be taken to meet the challenge.

He went back to his examination of the billiard room at the lodge. What Steve had told him regarding the number eight pool ball stirred in his memory. Was that eight ball a macabre touch to the killing? A grisly gesture of defiance and contempt? Or was it merely a warped sense of moronic humor?

The Phantom shook his head. The position of the eight ball could have been any of those things. But he had an idea it went deeper than that. His trained mind told him that the eight ball had some peculiar and mysterious significance, something baffling which tied in with and had a direct connection with Arthur Arden’s sudden death.

He brooded while the fat, perspiring Ruddy continued to pull at the oars. They were far up the lake now, the dock of the Arden lodge dropping out of sight behind the arm of the cove out of which the boat with the outboard had fled in the dark of the early morning hour.

“Let’s try the other shore.” Ruddy grunted and swung the nose of the rowboat in a westerly direction. “Plenty of coves over there. That boat’s got to be some place. Unless,” he added, “they put it on a truck and hauled it away. Boats cost money these days. Had some crooks up here a couple of years ago who stole three that way.”

He went into details while the Phantom listened inattentively. He was still thinking about the pool ball – the black ball with the number eight on its smooth shiny side.

Twenty minutes later Sam Ruddy stopped rowing. He twisted around with a jerk that rocked the boat.

“There it is!” he cried, pointing into the sun-dappled shadows of a quiet, sandy-shored cove.

The Phantom saw it then. It was pulled up on the half circular shore, a blue painted, flat-bottomed dory with an outboard motor tilted up at its stern. Ruddy eased the rowboat in beside it. The Phantom got out.

“That’s the Stewart boat, all right,” the fat man said.

The Phantom looked it over. Two oars were neatly laid across the seats on either side, the rope that started the motor coiled beside a two-gallon can of an oil-gasoline mixture. Under one seat he caught a glimpse of an empty cigarette package. It was the same brand of cigarettes as the empty package he had picked up on the Arden dock.

WHILE Ruddy started to push the blue boat back into the water, the Phantom studied the surrounding landscape.

Where the beach ended, a rise of ground sloped up, covered with a thick growth of blueberry bushes. Some of their branches were bent, the leaves stripped off. The Phantom made his way to the rise. The branches indicated that someone had pushed through them.

On their other side he found an old dirt road. It swung off south between the trees. The tracks etched in the dirt caught the Phantom’s narrowing gaze. A car had stood there not too long ago.

He walked back to Sam Ruddy.

“Where does that road go – the one up there?”

With a grunt Ruddy got the blue boat afloat and grabbed for its painter. “That road? It runs a couple of miles before it hooks up with the main highway.” He pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his wet face. “Climb in. We’ll use Mrs. Stewart’s boat and tow the other.”

“I’m not going back with you.” The Phantom nodded to the rowboat. “You can leave that for me. “I’ll return it later – at regular rates.”

Ruddy tinkered with the outboard engine and finally got it going. The blue boat started off, kicking up a white wake behind it.

The Phantom watched it for a minute. Then he went between the blueberry bushes again and out to the dirt road. He followed the road and the tire tracks through the woods.

For what he judged to be a mile, the tread marking was definite in the old road. Then, where the road made another abrupt turn, it faded out. The Phantom stopped and surveyed his new surroundings.

The thick woods had ended. To the left of him was a high stone wall with an opening toward its east end. A hedge reared up on the wall’s inner side; and, over it, some distance in, the steep roof-line of a weatherbeaten shack caught his eye. He moved his glance back to the road. An accumulation of dry leaves and lush grass blotted out the tire marks. Had the car stopped and gone into this property, or had it continued on to the main highway Ruddy had mentioned?

There was no exact way of telling. The Phantom walked to the opening in the wall. It was wide enough to permit a car’s entrance, but again the breeze-blown drift of leaves made it impossible for him to tell if the car, the one that had picked up those who had borrowed the blue boat, had gone in there.

A bird sang in the quiet. The Phantom went through the entrance in the wall and started toward the shack. For a couple of dozen yards the land had been cleared. Then underbrush and shrubbery loomed up and prevented further progress. The Phantom looked around for a path, feeling there must be some means of going on to the steep-roofed building.

He found what looked like a narrow trail on one side of a huge oak. But, as he started toward it, he stopped. The abrupt tightening of his nerves signalled danger. Again his highly developed sixth sense sent out warnings. Close to the big tree he hesitated, his raking glance swinging swiftly around in all directions.

The next second he saw the reason for his quickening pulse-beats.

A MAN was standing, statue-still, watching him. He was on the other side of the oak tree, screened by the tangle of the underbrush. The Phantom saw his feet – large feet in worn, stained sneakers. As his eyes focused on them, they moved.

The bushes parted, and the man stepped out into full view.

The giant, bullet-headed Luke, who had come across the lake with Dr. Winterley, confronted the Phantom. Glinting, tent-shaped eyes blazed under his brows. His shapeless mouth was twisted into sinister lines.

“What do you want?” His thick, heavy voice was toneless.

The Phantom watched Luke’s huge right hand drop menacingly to the belt he wore. Stuck in it was a long-bladed, curve-handled hunting knife.

“I want to see Dr. Winterly.”

“He ain’t seeing anybody. He’s asleep.” Luke’s fingers caressed the hilt of the knife. “You’d better get going, mister. We don’t like strangers around here.”

For a minute the Phantom looked into the giant’s tanned, ominous face. There was no mistaking Luke’s attitude. The Phantom didn’t doubt that any advance on his part would bring the knife into action.

Without a word he turned and retraced his steps. He could feel rather than see Luke’s belligerent stare following him, making sure that he was on his way.

Back at the cove, the Phantom got into the rowboat and pushed off. As Richard Curtis Van Loan he was a proficient oarsman. In his varsity days, Van had stroked the shell that had won honors for his alma mater. Slipping off his coat he settled down for the long pull back to Sam Ruddy’s boathouse.

In a few minutes he was abreast of Dr. Winterly’s broken-down dock. The launch the aged scientist had used the previous night was moored to it, a tarpaulin over its engine. The Phantom’s eyes searched the storefront as he went past. There was no sign of the hulking Luke in the sun shadows.

Another mile and the Phantom stopped rowing. He was even now with an unbroken spread of woods. He saw something dimple the water a few feet from the rowboat’s bow before he heard the distant report of a gun. It came again after another splash – closer – kicked up the water.

Someone was making him a target!

The Phantom bent quickly to the oars. He had to start moving – and fast. He couldn’t stay there until the marksman in the woods found his range.

But who was handling the gun? The question burned through his mind as he swung the rowboat around and put all of his strength into the blades. The man with the twisted ear? The one they had shaken off in the traffic of New York? Or Luke – hurrying past Winterly’s shack with a rifle?

The Phantom didn’t know, and at that moment had no desire to stop to find out. Another whining lead pellet bounced off the stern seat as he zigzagged farther out into the lake. More shots fell harmlessly behind him as he got out of the line of fire.

Shipping his oars, when a safe distance from the wooded shore, the Phantom shaded his eyes and searched the woods. But nothing moved against their green background. No one came into view. Only the sudden song of a bird broke the peaceful quiet of Lake Candle.