The Dancing Doll Murders

CHAPTER XIII

THE CHIEF’S ORDERS

HERE was the unknown being whose crafty brain had already arranged three murders and attempted two others! Here was the killer who prefaced death with music, whose wax manikins with their tinkling tunes led men and women to their graves in a Danse Macabre.

Van watched, and felt at that moment that he was peering into a nightmare world of fantastic horror. For there was something utterly devilish about that round, black, up-thrust head. There was weirdness in the way the man was poised there just above the water, and in the whole manner of his appearance so late at night in the musty, ruined seclusion of this ancient house.

Blackie Guido seemed to feel the spell of the strange presence, too. His arrogance had left him, dropped off like a discarded cloak. He had grown visibly paler. His hands were clenched nervously around the arms of his chair.

The helmeted head turned toward him. The single round glass in front goggled at him like the inhuman eye of some giant crustacean. A voice, as sepulchral as though it came from a tomb and blurred by a buzzing diaphragm in the helmet’s top, sounded.

“Your report, Blackie!”

The Phantom, listening, trained to recognize and remember people’s voices, was at a loss now. Somewhere it seemed to him he had heard inflections like those of this goggled monster. But the distortion of that buzzing diaphragm was cleverly calculated to throw anyone off the trail.

Blackie Guido was trembling. “Svendal got the woman all right. Your plan with her worked out smooth as butter. She fell for the bait. Svendal roped her and pulled her out of the window right under the cops’ noses. Svendal’s the best guy for a strangle job there is in the country. He’d choke his own mother for an extra ten bucks. If only all the other boys were as good – I guess you know we’ve had some tough breaks, Chief?”

“Yes!” There was some contempt, reproval, menace in that single word.

“They did their best, Chief – honest! The only guy I really blame is Bowers. He had the Phantom trapped and let him go. I warned him to look out, too. He shoulda been more careful.”

“Yes!” said the helmeted man again. “And how about O’Banion and the other hopheads? They let one man, that same Phantom, get the best of them! And how about Joe Vanzanni whom you posted in your apartment to kill the Phantom?”

“You know about that, Chief?”

“I read of his death in the afternoon papers. Do you think I didn’t know where you lived under the name of Warburton? It was plain that the Phantom had traced your private wire, that you arranged for his death without consulting me, and that Vanzanni slipped up, just as Bowers did in the garage. I rather thought you’d show better judgment in your choice of employees, Blackie! I’m paying for the best – and I expected to get them.”

“There wasn’t time to get in touch with you when I tried to bump the Phantom. I tried to call Hog-face back, and when he didn’t answer, I thought there was something fishy in the air. So I got things all set just in case. It looked like a sure bet. I don’t know why Joe slipped up. It’s the Phantom that’s made it tough for us, Chief. Otherwise -”

“You’re sure he hasn’t followed you here?”

“Sure. I took everything away from the studio. The Phantom didn’t help himself any by bumping Joe. You’re the only one that knows I called myself Warburton. I don’t know how you found out -”

“How about that girl? Women are your weakness, Blackie! They’ll give you a free ticket to Hell yet.”

GUIDO’S Adam’s apple was bobbing and he looked positively sick.

“Listen! I – she – Nobody knows a damned thing about her except you. And, Chief, if that dame started to spill anything I’d smash her face in. I’m gettin’ fed up with her, anyway. I shouldn’t wonder -”

The Chief laughed sardonically.

“All right, Blackie. But just remember that every time one of your men makes a slip he’s fashioning another nail for your own coffin. You don’t know who I am; but I know who you are and all about you. If you fall down on the job I hired you for, the electric chair is waiting. It kills people dead, Blackie, dead as roasted rats.”

“I ain’t fallin’ down, Chief! As for Bowers – that guy’s already on the spot.”

“You might weed out a few other incompetents along with him and cut the payroll down,” said the Chief coldly.

“Sure! I’ll do that,” Blackie said eagerly. “I’ll have Doc give those two hopheads a dose they won’t wake up from. And now – maybe if you’d trust me a little more, Chief, I could work better. A guy can’t do his best batting in the dark. How many more of the Caulder family do you figure on getting rid of? And what’s the dope behind it?”

The Phantom listened, his heart almost stopping. This was what he wanted to know, too. He’d thought of drawing his automatic, thrusting its muzzle through the crack in the wall tiles, and sending a bullet straight at this sinister, unknown killer. But even supposing he was justified in doing it, he realized as soon as the impulse came that it would probably be futile.

A man as canny as the Chief, who had taken such pains to preserve his incognito and achieve self-protection, would have that diving suit lined with some sort of bullet-proof armor surely. Only a direct hit in the helmet goggle-glass would be effective. And under the circumstances that was a target too small for even the Phantom. So he waited tensely for the Chief’s answer to Blackie’s question.

That sepulchral voice sounded again. “You are not so very bright, Blackie. Has it never occurred to you that if the whole Caulder fortune fell into the hands of a man as spineless and easily frightened as Reggie Winstead it would be a simple matter for us to get it?”

“Blackmail, you mean?”

The Chief, Van noted, didn’t answer directly. He laughed harshly. “Winstead’s brother has been murdered,” he said with a mocking inflection. “One of his cousins is already dead. If the others were out of the way, if he were the last remaining heir, he’d be utterly spineless in the face of intimidation. To save his life he’d part with any amount of money.”

“So that’s the layout?” said Guido quickly.

There was a brief pause, and again the Chief was evasive. “Use your own judgment!”

“Aw, listen! I’ve played square with you. I’m only askin’ -”

‘Quiet!” The helmeted head was turned toward Guido with a fixity that seemed to freeze him. He remained silent, cowed, while the voice went on, “Don’t dare to question me nor try to penetrate my motives! You’re being paid handsomely for your services – more than you are worth. Your men failed to get Simon Blackwell. Until you rectify that error you certainly can expect no confidence from me.”

“I’ll do it, Chief! I’ll see that that old buzzard gets enough lead in his belly to sink him to Hell. Or I’ll get rid of him any way you say. What do you think -”

“I’m tired of thinking for you. How you get Blackwell is up to you. But get him! I’ll be here at the same time tomorrow night. If your report isn’t satisfactory -” The Chief didn’t finish. His head and shoulders began sinking below the surface of the stagnant, icy pool, and the goggle-glass in his helmet, up to the very moment he disappeared, remained fixed on Blackie Guido with malignant meaning.

When the last bubble had ceased coming up, Blackie rose fiercely. His face was working. His black eyes blazed. He was in a wicked temper. He threw open the billiard-room door.

“Bowers!” he called thickly. “I wanta see you a minute!”

The lumbering, black-browed face of the gang lieutenant appeared in the door.

“Did yer see the Chief? What’d he say? Any ord -”

Bowers’s sentence ended in a choking cry. Those were the last words he was destined ever to utter. For Blackie Guido had drawn a gun with such lightning speed and ferocity that the Phantom could barely follow it. Six reports made blasting echoes in that high-ceilinged room.

Van, between shots, could actually imagine he heard the slap of the bullets against Bowers’s body. The big man pawed at his chest and stomach. His jaw dropped open as though in gaping surprise. All six shots seemed to have struck him. He thudded down on the tiles like a falling porpoise and lay hideously still.

Blackie pocketed his gun. His face was still working, but there was a thin, sadistic smile on his pale lips. The murder of Bowers seemed to give him grim satisfaction. Others of the gang came crowding into the room. Blackie walked up to Bowers’s still form, kicked it.

“Some of you heels take this carrion away!” he snarled.

WHEN they had dragged Bowers’s corpse out, Blackie turned suddenly to the man called Doc.

“Doc, I wanta see you! All the rest of you mugs scram and leave us alone!”

Doc, with his glittering glasses and satanic face, cringed back in terror. He seemed to think he was going to be murdered in cold blood, too. But Blackie gestured magnanimously.

“Not yet, Doc! You’re okay as long as you make good. Bowers had it comin’ to him. The big ox fell down on me. And” – Blackie lowered his voice, but Van could still hear him – “we don’t need Symie and that other hophead any more. They’re liabilities. Next time you give ‘em the needle, be generous.”

Doc smiled, relieved obviously that Guido’s murderous anger had spent itself on Bowers.

“I’ve got something that will do the trick more surely than a mere overdose of dope,” he said huskily. “A little arsenical compound of my own invention. I’ll mix it with the morphine. Those boys are as good as dead.”

“Fine! You’re an educated feller, Doc. You’ve got brains and you’ve had plenty experience. Now that Bowers is out I think I’ll make you my number one sidekick. We’ll get along swell as long as you do as I say.” Guido paused a moment, riveting his hard, black eyes on Doc’s face.

Doc grinned till his features became a leering death’s-head. “You’re the boss, Blackie. What I like to do is oblige.”

“Okay. Then I wanta talk to you about something. We’re in a tough spot – all of us. We don’t know who the Chief is. He knows us. If it hadn’t been for the big dough he offered I’d never have got my neck into this. But dough don’t do a guy any good in the hot seat. How do we know the Chief won’t double-cross us?”

“We don’t!” said Doc, still grinning.

“Well, it ain’t funny!” snapped Blackie. “We gotta find out more about him. We gotta get ready to put the brakes on.”

“How?” The grin had faded from Doc’s face. Guido had been thinking of that, too.

SOMETHING the Chief said put me wise! He was handing me a line. He made out our job is to bump all the people who’re gonna get a slice of the Caulder dough except Reggie Winstead. Then he said we could shake down Reggie. But that sounds phony to me. By the time all the others are six feet under Reggie will either skip out of the country or hire enough private detectives so an army couldn’t get to him.”

“Well,” said Doc, “maybe he was handing you a hot-air highball.”

“Yeah, maybe he was – and I figure he had a reason for doing it!” Guido’s eyes gleamed, and he smiled suddenly with a look of vicious cunning. He thrust his face close to Doc’s, spoke so that Van could barely hear him. “How do we know the Chief ain’t Reggie Winstead?”

Doc started, drew a hand slowly over his high, peaked forehead. Then his head bobbed.

“A good bet, Blackie! Brothers have killed each other before. Cain bumped Abel, didn’t he? You say Winstead seems like a fellow who’s afraid of his own shadow; but maybe that’s just an act. Maybe the Chief is Winstead. Maybe he plans to use you, get the other heirs killed off, get all the money himself, then see to it that you and all the rest of us land in the chair.”

Blackie Guido swore furiously, clamped his fingers on Doc’s arm.

“If that’s his game, he won’t get away with it! We’ll get some of the boys to watch Winstead and put the heat on him if they find anything suspicious. We’ll find out somehow whether Winstead’s the guy. And, meantime, before tomorrow night, we’ve got to see that Blackwell gets his. If we don’t, and if Winstead isn’t the Chief, we’ll all be through.”

“I don’t know the circumstances, of course,” Doc said softly, “but you say the Chief came to see you right here in this room, A simple way out of our difficulty occurs to me. Why not let the boys in when he comes the next time and fill him full of lead?”

“It wouldn’t work,” snapped Blackie. “I ain’t sayin’ why. There are some things that are none of your damned business. But the Chief let onto one thing on his first visit, he wears a bullet-proof vest that would just about stop shrapnel. He figured right off that I might try to doublecross him.”

Doc grinned again, that mirthless, satanic grin. “From what you say, Blackie, the gentleman has anticipated everything. I admit I’m over my depth; but I’m glad to take orders.”

“Get rid of those hopheads, then,” said Blackie sullenly. “I’ll send some of the boys out to find out what the cops have done with Blackwell. After I know just where he is I’ll figure out how to get him.”

Guido turned toward the locked door of the billiard room. Van left his hiding place behind the partition and stole quickly through the darkness of the chamber he was in. He reached the furnace room door, went out, and shut it carefully behind him. He spent about five minutes brushing the ground, obliterating tracks. Then he moved like a shadow across the lawn to the high brick wall. He drew himself up, oozed deftly over the signal wire, dropped to the street.

He had heard enough tonight to make his pulses drum with excitement. He had come close, tantalizingly close to the truth. He had actually seen the Chief, learned how Blackie Guido made contact with the ruthless, unknown killer. And yet the question mark in front of that sinister, helmeted figure was even larger now. Who was he?

Van was uncertain. A half dozen theories were beating through his mind. Inspector Farragut thought that Judd Moxley, up in prison, was the one. Blackie Guido had hit upon the startling idea that Reggie Winstead was the Chief. Farragut’s theory would be proved or disproved shortly. It might take time to get to the bottom of Blackie Guido’s.

Van had known desperate, scheming criminals to hide behind innocent appearing exteriors before. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that Reggie Winstead was the guilty man. Then there was Eben Gray, the other Caulder nephew, tall, sardonic, almost as saturnine in appearance as the criminal, Doc. He had seemed the least frightened, the least disturbed of any. Farragut’s men were giving him protection. But they weren’t watching him all the time. He had been free to come and go.

The riddle grew deeper as Van thought about it, as strangely mystifying as any case he had ever been on. But right now there was something concrete to handle, something he must do. Death’s bony fingers were reaching for the recluse, Simon Blackwell. Van had saved the man’s life once. He must save it again.