The Weird Adventures of The Blond Adder

Lee Nace had seen many men die, their going was a thing to chill the heart. But he had never seen a man dragged into the grave by a grisly, bony skeleton’s hand. And he had never felt the power of the Green Skull. But then Lee Nace had never met Baron von Auster before. The baron had many ghastly surprises up the sleeve of his natty jacket.

Chapter I The Treacherous Baron

Lee Nace, a tall and big-boned man in a baseball uniform, leaned a hard shoulder against the partly opened bungalow door.

Nace’s bony jaw was out angrily; his cheeks were craggy with drawn muscle. His pale eyes threatened.

“A woman — a scared woman!” he said vehemently. “She buzzed me from a phone that traced to this address!”

The man inside the bungalow glowered and pushed harder against the door, trying to keep Nace out. The man was plump. His cheeks glowed pink, as if recently slapped. He looked very natty in summer evening dress, with a white monkey jacket.

In a vacant lot on the corner of the block, small boys were playing baseball — a batter had just popped their ball into a weed patch and they were all hunting it. Inside the bungalow, a radio droned big league scores for the day.

“Nein!” he gritted, lifting his voice over the radio. “Das ist unrecht!”

Lee Nace, gaunt and disheveled in the ball uniform, did not look like a scholar. Nevertheless, he could converse fluently in more languages than he could number on his combined fingers.

He had been advised in German, that he did not know what he was talking about.

Speaking German through his teeth, he said: “The woman no more than got hold of me before she started yelling! She was screeching like a calliope when somebody cut her off!”

The pinkish man blinked rapidly. His surprise showed he had used his mother tongue unwittingly in the excitement, and was a bit taken aback that Nace had understood it.

“I tell you there is no woman here!” he hissed in excellent English. He was forced to lift his voice over the rattle of baseball scores from the radio.

Nace was extremely tall, only a little under seven feet. His big-boned frame had a knobby, clumsy aspect. His long, solemn face was reddish with sunburn. His dark suit was dusty, wrinkled, and his white Panama possessed little shape.

On Nace’s forehead, anger was bringing out a strange, flushed design in scarlet — the mark of an old scar. More and more distinctly, the scar burned as he shoved at the door. It assumed a definite design — the likeness of a coiled serpent.

Nace had once been hit in the forehead with the hilt of a knife that bore a serpentine carving, and the design was destined to remain forever imprinted upon his head. It gave him a sinister look when he was enraged.

“I’m coming in there, brother!” he grated.

He put more weight upon the door. The Teutonic man’s black kummerbund burst with the effort of shoving from the other side, uncovering the stiff white front of his dress shirt.

“Gehen!” puffed the dark man. “Begone!”

Then a veiled, wily look entered his sea-blue eyes. He sprang suddenly backward, wrenching the door wide open.

Nace had been around enough not to be caught by that one. He did not fall headlong across the threshold. He did not cross the threshold at all. Instead, he leaped to one side.

Ten feet distant was a window. It gaped open, but was fitted with a screen. Nace shoved head and shoulders through the screen as if it had not been there.

In the middle of the room stood the dapper man who spoke Deutsche when excited. He had a shiny, small-calibre revolver trained on the open front door.

THE ripping as Nace tore through the screen brought the man half around. There was a rigidly set expression in his face — the grimace of a man who has steeled himself to shoot.

Immediately before the window stood a light table. It had two modernistic metal vases. Nace hit the table with both palms — hit it hard!

The table jumped end over end. The pinkish man, very agile, bounded to one side. But he had no time to shoot.

Nace, wriggling over the windowsill, grabbed one of the metal vases which had fallen to the floor. He threw it with a wrist-snap. It seemed to half-bury itself in the plump man’s middle. He dropped his gun; his eyes popped, and he folded in agony.

Lunging forward gauntly, Nace seized the revolver, unloaded it, then threw it through the hole in the screen. It sailed far away in the night.

Sitting on the squirming prisoner, Nace searched. He found a roll of bills containing more than two thousand dollars. There was nothing else, not even shells for the gun.

Nace flipped open the white monkey jacket. It was obviously quite new. He read the label.

The ruddy man still writhed from the pain in his middle. Nace tangled thick, bony fingers in the fellow’s luxuriant hair and lifted. The man forgot the ache in his ample middle for the new agony in his scalp. He came to his feet, spluttering.

“For laying hands on the Baron Marz von Auster, you shall—”

The serpentine scar on Nace’s forehead seemed to come and go with his pulse. He shook the man. “Is that what you call yourself?”

“I am the Baron Marz von Auster!” snarled the other. “The title of baron is genuine, I might add!”

“That’s two strikes on you — I don’t like titles!” Nace, flushed and hard looking, shook the man again. “Where’s the woman?”

The baron licked his lips. “You are wrong! There is no woman here!”

Still gripping a fistful of black hair, Nace straight-armed the baron out ahead of him.

“We’re going to look this dump over!” he advised.

The living room of the bungalow was paneled, and beamed in natural wood. The furniture was natural wood and red leather. The Aubusson underfoot looked expensive. A telephone stood to one side.

The radio droned away noisily beside the phone stand. It was a large set in a custom cabinet that matched the other furniture.

Nace glanced at the kilocycle number at which the dial was set.

“The Morning Tribune station,” he murmured, and listened to the Yankees-Red Sox score. The Yanks had won.

“Did you come in to get baseball scores?” snarled Baron Marz von Auster.

Nace kicked open the handiest door. It gave into a study. He glanced in, whistled shrilly.

Almost every piece of furniture in the study was torn to bits. Stuffing, springs, upholstery leather, strewed the floor. The search had even progressed to splitting the table legs.

Nace’s shaggy brows snuggled together. He asked:

“Is this your house, baron?”

“Yes!”

“You’re a liar! The phone book and the city directory both said a guy named Jimmy Offitt lived here!”

Baron von Auster knotted his fists so tightly his pursy arms trembled.

“I do not know who you are, or what brought you here!” he snarled. “But I do know this — you had better go! Go! Go — before something happens to you!”

“Don’t get sassy!” Nace nodded at the mutilated study. “Hunting something, eh?”

Baron von Auster answered with stiff silence.

“Hadn’t got this far with your search, eh?”

“I was not searching!” Baron von Auster clipped. “What happened here was my own affair! Now, if you do not leave at once, I am going to have you arrested. I am wealthy, and I will use my money to see that you rot before you get out of jail!”

“You talk as big as that robber of an umpire the cops rung into our ball game!” Nace jeered.

Snorting cheerfully, Nace shoved his prisoner for another door. His cleated baseball shoes left big, unlovely scars on the varnished hall floor.

He found a bedroom. It was a wreck. The dressing table had been taken apart, paper scraped off the walls, the mattress ripped open. Nace tried a second bedroom, a kitchen, the bath, pantry. He looked in closets, cupboards, the refrigerator. He climbed into the attic and struck matches. He descended to the basement, peering into coal bins and the furnace.

He found no one. About half of the house had been torn up. They returned to the front room where the radio was mouthing ball scores.

There, Baron von Auster suddenly missed his two thousand dollar roll.

“Thief!” he wailed. “So that is it! You are one of the thieves who have torn my house up in this fashion! Not finding what you wanted, you came back to hunt!”

“To hunt for what?” Nace asked curiously. “What was I after?”

Baron von Auster swore, and spread his hands. “What do you thieves usually seek? Jewels — money—”

Nace scowled. His knobby face was red with fresh sunburn. And about his left eye, a bruise was growing. It had darkened perceptibly since he had entered the bungalow. Unmistakably, he had been in a fight before he arrived.

He grasped the baron’s hands and turned them palm-up. Under the fingernails was a gray deposit of plaster and colored bits of wallpaper.

“I suppose your manicurist put that there?” he questioned dryly. “Of course, you couldn’t have gotten it while pulling paper off the walls!”

Baron von Auster said a tight-lipped nothing.

Nace boxed the knuckles of a big fist and shook them under the pinkish man’s nose. The movement caused dust to puff from his grimy baseball shirt. His cleated shoes had been leaving dust prints on the Aubusson.

“I asked you a question!” he rumbled. “What was the object of this search? What’s going on here? Where’s that woman? And who was she?”

Baron von Auster sucked in his stomach, pulled in his chin, as if to get them both away from that big, hard fist.

“By what right do you demand to know?” he wailed.

Frowning, Nace seemed to consider. The radio muttered on. It was giving the scores of commercial and sand lot teams of the city.

“Listen!” Nace said, and pointed at the apparatus.

The voice from the loud-speaker was saying: “The real fireworks of today’s baseball came from a local diamond, where a game between the police nine and a team of private detectives ended in a free for all fight, with the score seven to nothing in the sixth inning.

“Lee Nace, probably the city’s most astute private detective, and certainly the most widely known, was pitching. According to reports, he beaned a sergeant of police. The latter swung on Nace, with the result that it took three riot squads of policemen to save their own team from the embattled private operatives.”

“He forgot to say that bunch of cops rung a retired flatfoot in on us for an umpire!” Nace growled. Then, glowering at the baron, he indicated his own darkening left eye. “There’s where that bum of a sergeant sockoed me!”

The rosy man wet his lips three times in quick succession. He ran a hand slowly across his hair where Nace had pulled it.

“You — are — Nace?” he muttered, as if repeating some very bad news.

“In person — not a pinch hitter!” Nace told him with a sort of fierce levity. “The cops chased us out of that ball park — the tramps — and we couldn’t get our clothes out of the lockers. I went to my office. When I came in the door, the phone was ringing.”

He shot his jaw forward belligerently. “It was that woman! She asked if I was Nace, speaking in a whisper. Behind her, I could hear a radio going. Then the woman began to yell. In a minute, she was cut off. But that radio — it was tuned to the Morning Tribune station. They were just starting the baseball scores. This set is tuned on that station!” He pointed at the radio.

Baron von Auster wet his lips several more times. He peered furtively at Nace, then away. He seemed fascinated by the weird serpentine scar on Nace’s forehead, the scar that had become so brilliant it was almost like a design done in red ink.

“I don’t know you!” he said thickly. “I do not know anything about what you have found here! Nein!”

Obviously, he was lying on both counts. He had heard of Nace. He couldn’t have helped it, if he had read the recent newspapers. Nace — dubbed the “Blond Adder” because of his light hair and the serpentine scar on his forehead — had just returned from England, where he had spent some months as technical consultant at Scotland Yard.

Nace made good newspaper copy. He was tough. His language was picturesque and forceful. His methods were spectacular. He knew that newspaper publicity boomed his business, so he went out of his way to accommodate the news hawks. Occasionally, he wrote magazine features.

Nace blew on a fist. “For a little, I’d tap you a few times to see what would shake loose!”

The prisoner squirmed uneasily. Then there came into his azure eyes a foxy look akin to that which had first appeared there when he had leaped back from the front door to draw his gun.

“I am tired of your insults!” he snarled. “We are going straight to the nearest police station! You shall regret your high-handed behavior!”

Nace laughed noisily, angrily. “Yeah?”

Baron von Auster put up his hands and seemed to be having trouble with his chest. He questioned hoarsely, “You won’t — go?”

“No!” Nace said cheerfully. “You won’t, either! You and I are going to hunt that woman!”

The baron had more difficulty with his chest. A minor convulsion seemed to double him over. He sought to straighten.

“My — heart!” he croaked. “This excitement—”

Another paroxysm carried him to the floor. His pudgy hands fluttered, clenching over his heart. He opened his mouth wide and a strange gurgling noise came out. Then he lay motionless.

Nace leaped sidewise — did it as swiftly as he knew how. He crashed to his knees back of a chair, twisting as he did so. His suspicions were right!

Two men stood in the front door. One was round and oily, a small man. The other was a giant, modeled after the lines of a steamer trunk with arms and legs. They both held guns — black automatics.

The weapons were of foreign make, with barrels but little larger than pencils. And on each muzzle was a metal can of a silencer.

Nace whirled the chair toward them. Simultaneously, he plunged for the handiest door. It happened to be the one that led into the kitchen. One automatic made a chung! of a noise. He felt the bullet ridge the Aubusson under him.

Another bullet gouged a fistful of splinters out of the doorjamb as Nace went through. He dived down the hallway. These two behind were seeking to kill him. They had been loitering outside, of course, and had reached the baron with some signal. The baron had sought to draw Nace outdoors into their hands, then, that failing, had sought to keep his attention with a fake heart attack.

Nace sloped into the kitchen, the caulks of his baseball shoes scraping loudly on linoleum.

The cellar door gaped open at one side, a pantry door on the other.

Nace seized a chair, shied it down the cellar stairs — at the same time scuttling into the pantry. He was out of sight before the three men — Baron von Auster had leaped up and joined the other two — came charging in. They heard the clattering chair and were fooled.

“Good! The son of a dog went into the basement!” hissed Baron von Auster. “We will lock him in, then go away from this place! Himmel! I hate to lose my two thousand dollars, which he has!”

“But what about the green skull?” wailed the round, oily little man. “That is worth a lot more than your two thousand!”

“Nein! Our necks are more precious!” the baron snapped. “This man is Detective Lee Nace, the Blond Adder! Have you not heard of him, Moe?”

“Oi! Just a private detective!” Moe looked at the giant who had accompanied him through the front door. “What about that, Heavy? You know New York. Is this Nace such a bad man that we should run away without finishing our search for the green skull?”

Heavy heaved a shoulder against the cellar door, slamming and locking it. “This Nace is worse than bad! He’s hell on runners!”

“Beeilen Sie sich!” rapped Baron von Auster. “Come along! There may be windows to that cellar, although I do not recall seeing any. Let us depart while there is time! I will consider my two thousand dollars as lost!”

They ran out, Moe muttering, “Oi! I don’t see why that Nace didn’t use a gun—”

“He don’t carry any!” Heavy snapped. “At least, no regular gun. Or so the newspapers say!”

Their voices faded into the raucous clamor of the radio.

Nace eased out of the pantry. He glided through the back door, out into the rear yard.

Twilight lay gloomily upon the rank shrubbery and clipped hedges. None of the neighboring dwellings could be seen.

Nace veered around the corner of the house, intent on following the three men who were behaving so viciously.

He stopped suddenly. His eyes, despite the gloom, had detected a path through the grass and shrubs. It looked like some heavy object had recently been dragged to cover.

With long strides, he followed the trail. It led into a bed of tall flowers. It ended at the body of a man.

Nace stared. At the same time, he absently brought his pipe out of his pocket. The pipe was stubby, with a rather new stem and an old, black bowl. He put it in his teeth. He liked to bite on something when he was bothered.

He bit on the stem now — so hard the bakelite broke like gravel in his mouth.

Chapter II Violence Trail

The body lay face upwards. The fellow was tall, athletic. He had been rather handsome.

It was not the sight of the corpse that shocked Nace into chewing up his pipe stem. He had seen many of those. It was another thing, a horrible, grisly object — a thing that made the short blond hairs crawl on his nape. It made the weird scarlet serpent scar come out vividly on his forehead.

The arm of a green skeleton lay on the dead man’s chest. The pointed finger bones were embedded in the fellow’s throat, as though clutching. The bones were those of a right arm.

They were green as the leaves of the plants among which the body lay. The fingertips were stained brown. Some kind of poison!

Nace slowly took his pipe out of his teeth, lipped away pieces of the broken stem, cleared his throat softly.

Out in the street, an automobile engine had come to life. That would be the three men in flight.

Nace stooped over the corpse with the grisly green bones clutching its features. He slapped pockets. All but one were turned inside out. In that one, as if carelessly shunted there after a search, were all the man’s belongings.

He examined them. Cards, some money, a billfold, speakeasy passes. The cards bore a name.

They bore no address except that of this bungalow. This, then, was the owner of the place.

Nace ran to the street. The car was gone, except for a murmur in the distance.

Sprinting, Nace made for his own car. He had parked it around the corner. It was a roadster, big, quiet, expensive, but of a model five years old. It was somewhat battered.

In the rumble seat lay three baseballs, two bats, a pitcher’s glove, and five New York Police Department badges. The badges were Nace’s souvenirs of the fight that had terminated the afternoon’s ball game.

The motor caught with the first stamp of the pedal. But the car bearing the three men was hopelessly gone.

Nace knew the machine; he had made a mental note of it when he entered the bungalow — a brand new sedan of inexpensive make.

He wheeled his car westward. He drove fast, using only one hand. With the other hand, he picked a flat case out of the door pocket. This held half a dozen extra stems to fit his pipe. He replaced the broken stem, stoked the pipe with tobacco from a bright silk pouch and, crouching low behind the windshield, fired the weed.

Ten minutes later, he came in sight of a sign that read: The Plaza.

The Plaza was a swanky apartment hotel on the shores of the Sound. It was big, new. It had everything the Park Avenue places boasted, as well as small, good shops downstairs. It had its own golf course, beach, and swimming pools.

Baron Marz von Auster’s white monkey jacket had been labeled as coming from a shop in the Plaza.

The rush of night air — it was now fairly dark — had cooled Nace’s forehead. The weird serpentine scar was gone, almost magically. His shaggy blond hair blew about like a plume. This uncovered the upper part of his left ear, disclosing a large notch — the mark of an old bullet. Nace wore his blond hair long to hide that scar.

He wheeled in to the curb, pipe smoke a fog about his bony face.

A brand new sedan of moderate price was pulling up before one of the numerous side entrances of the Plaza. Baron von Auster and the other two! Nace was sure of it — positive when, an instant later, he saw the trio hurry to the side door and fit a key in the lock.

Nace drew a bag from the roadster rumble. It was rather large, that bag, of canvas and closed with a zipper fastener. It was shabby, for it had seen use. Nace always carried it when he went on a case. It was his bag of tricks, and there were those who said it had no bottom.

His cleated baseball shoes gritted noisily on the curbing. He frowned down at them, then eased into nearby shrubbery. When he came out a little later, he had exchanged his baseball suit for a dark coat and trousers and soft-soled shoes. The dark clothes and sneakers had been in the zipper bag.

His baseball suit was rolled around the noisy shoes. He pegged the bundle into the roadster rumble. He ran to the apartment house. He had been in the Plaza when dallying with the idea of taking an apartment there. He liked the idea of those side entrances. He knew of no other place in town that was arranged just like this.

The entrances were fairly private — each admitted to a bank of automatic elevators serving the apartments immediately above. There was no bother of wandering through long halls and leaving and entering through a central lobby — unless one desired to do so.

The door was locked. Out of Nace’s zipper bag came a bundle of master keys. These locks were usually not very complicated. This one was not — in twenty seconds, he was inside.

The elevator was still going up. Nace drew a slender steel rod from the bag and waited. The elevator cage stopped somewhere overhead.

Nace promptly inserted his rod in a small hole provided by the elevator manufacturer for just that purpose, and got the sliding doors open. This broke the electrical connection that permitted the lift to operate. The cage would remain where it was until the doors closed.

Nace propped them open by wedging half a dozen matches in the track. Then he ran up the stairs, hunting the cage.

The car had stopped on the top floor — the sixth. There were doors opening off a small corridor. All were closed. Five of them! His quarry might be behind any one.

Out of Nace’s zipper bag came a can. It resembled a talcum powder container, even to the perforated top. He sprinkled a fine yellow powder over the handiest door knob, then brought his nostrils close to it and sniffed.

There was a pungent odor. But it was not strong.

Nace tried another knob — another. From the fourth, he got a very strong odor. He tried the last one. But only at the fourth was there a pronounced result.

This told him which apartment the men had entered. They had not worn gloves. The hand of one of them, in grasping the knob, had left an oily film — the same sort of a film that accounts for fingerprints. Nace’s powder, a concoction of his own, produced an odor when it mingled with the oil. But so microscopic was the oily deposit that it would not react with the chemicals in the powder after being exposed to the air for some minutes.

Nace listened at the door. There was talk, but it came to his ears as a hollow, unintelligible murmur. The keyhole was not of a type that extended completely through the door. He tried the crack at the bottom. Nothing doing there, either. The crack would not have let a sheet of paper through.

Nace felt of the door, pushed gently. It was of metal, a thin sheet.

Out of Nace’s zipper carry-all came a remarkable device. This consisted of a super-sensitive microphone that could be held to a flat surface with rubber vacuum cups of the type employed in sticking ashtrays on car windows. There was a powerful amplifier, utilizing vacuum tubes of small voltage, and a sensitive phone headset. All three were connected by wires.

Nace set his microphone against the door, donned the headset, and switched on the amplifier. He twirled the volume dials. The murmur of voices loudened rapidly. Somewhere downstairs, a door slammed and, so sensitive was the apparatus, it was like a thunderclap. A truck ran past in the street outside, and the phone diaphragms roared with vibration.

Voices finally became understandable.

“What’s the matter with leavin’ the shade up an’ watchin’ from the darkened room?” Heavy was demanding.

“Oi, and why not?” Moe echoed.

“Does it not occur to you that Reel or Hoo Li, like ourselves, may possess binoculars?” Baron von Auster asked dryly. “They might catch the reflection of starlight upon our own glasses. We will cut small holes through the shades. Ja!”

“O.K.,” Heavy agreed. “There ain’t no sense in takin’ chances, at that!”

There was a little stirring about in the room; a knife ripped noisily at a window shade.

Nace scowled, fingering absently at the sweat-shirt sleeves projecting from the short sleeves of his baseball blouse. These three were watching two men named Reel and Hoo Li. The latter name sounded Chinese. The other — English, probably.

“Hell — they’re there now!” Heavy barked suddenly.

“Nein! I noticed nothing!” Baron von Auster snapped.

“That orange light—”

“That does not mean Reel or Hoo Li are present! Reel, I believe, keeps that light burning in his room at all hours, whether he is there or not. It is, I believe, a light made from one of Reel’s green skulls.”

“Green skulls — ugh!” Moe muttered. “I can’t get it out of my head how that Jimmy Offitt looked when we found him! Them green bones diggin’ into his face!”

Nace was nothing if not surprised to hear this. He had mentally attributed the killing of Jimmy Offitt to these three. Now it seemed otherwise!

“We should’ve left the body of Offitt layin’ where we found it,” Heavy offered grouchily. “We left tracks draggin’ it into them bushes from off the lawn.”

“We could not leave it lying in plain view to be seen by any tramp who chanced to cross the yard!” sneered the baron. “Anyway, the tracks do not matter. That private detective, Nace, already has us connected with the affair. Der Hund!”

“We should have put the croak on that shamus!” Moe snarled.

Heavy gave vent to a big, uneasy rumble of a laugh. “We done the wise thing in beatin’ it! This Nace is poison, I tell you!”

For fully four minutes, there was silence. Then Heavy made another of his nervous, grumbling mirth sounds.

“Why not go over an’ be friskin’ Reel’s house for this green skull?” he demanded. “Then, when Reel and Hoo Li show up, we can grab ’em! I know ways of makin’  ’em talk!”

“My friend, I also know ways of making men talk!” Baron von Auster said softly.

“Then why not go over?”

Baron von Auster let several seconds pass, then made a clicking sound with his tongue.

“Himmel! Have you ever been near that black house, my friend?”

“Hell, no! What’s that got to do—”

“A great deal! That house is a place of peril! I am honest when I tell you I would not dare go there unless Reel and Hoo Li are on hand to welcome us. And you know I am no coward.”

Nace considered this. They were watching a house — and they were afraid to go near it.

He took out his pipe, put it away again. He felt absently of the notch in his left ear. The apartment house was very silent, probably due to the soundproofed construction.

Nace fell to wondering about the mysterious woman who had called him. He did not know her name — knew nothing except that she had called him with an excited plea for aid.

He would, he was sure, recognize her voice if he heard it again.

Word of the girl suddenly came from within the room.

“That girl, what about her?” Moe asked abruptly.

Baron von Auster chuckled. “I should not be surprised to learn she is lying somewhere with a part of the green skeleton clutching her pretty face. No doubt she possesses dangerous knowledge. Reel and Hoo Li will not give her a chance to get to the police.”

“Blazes!” Heavy grunted. “You say Reel is doin’ the killin’ with the green skeleton?”

“Ich weiss nicht!” snapped the baron, then translated into English. “I do not know — for sure! But who else could it be? Jimmy Offitt and the girl — Rosa Andricksen — were working together, against us. We all know that. Ja!”

A match scratched — evidently Baron von Auster lighting a cigarette.

“The green skull vanished!” he continued. “Who could have gotten it but Jimmy Offitt or Rosa Andricksen? It is obvious Reel and Hoo Li sought to recover it, just as we three are seeking it. Ja!”

“And they got it first!” Heavy growled. “They croaked Jimmy Offitt, after scarin’ him into tellin’  ’em where he had it hid! The girl was there, so they grabbed her, too. She got to the phone and squawked to this Nace guy. That’s how it figures, huh?”

“That is how it figures, mein Herren. Reel and Hoo Li now have the green skull. As soon as they appear at Reel’s black house, we shall go and have our try at getting it!”

Silence fell. One of the men coughed, and the concussion in Nace’s headset was ear-splitting. The trio seemed to have settled down to wait, binoculars glued on some neighboring dwelling. A black house where an orange light burned.

Nace detached his listening device and eased it into the zipper bag. He walked down the stairs, carrying the bag, released the elevator doors so the cage could operate and swung out into the night.

He was going to hunt that black house with an orange light. It looked as if the next developments would be there.

Chapter III The Grasping Foot

Lee nace made a tall, bony, somewhat incongruous figure in the pale night, dark clothing and sun-broiled features merging with the gloom. Removing his shapeless white Panama, the only article of his attire which clashed with the murk, he rolled it and shoved it inside his vest. At the end of the apartment house, he stopped and let his gaze rove.

Before him lay the Plaza golf course. It sloped down to the sea, spotted with trees, and with some carefully cultivated brush between the fairways. It had the name of being a sporty course.

Beyond the golf links were scattered houses, great mansions. Nace knew the men upstairs must be watching one of these — they were looking in that direction.

The moon had come out faintly, and was casting creamy luminance. Two of the distant houses were very white. A third, one nearest the water, was extremely dark — black and ominous as a coffin. An orange light glowed from a downstairs window.

“That’s it!” Nace decided, and set out.

He charged his short pipe, planted the cracked stem in his teeth, and gnawed it as he strode along.

He swung in a wide circle, keeping out of sight of the three sinister watchers in the Plaza, and reached the shore of Long Island Sound. He followed the beach.

The golf course shrubbery now shielded him from the watchers at the Plaza. He shook dottle out of his pipe, chewed it cold.

The black coffin of a house bulked bigger and bigger. Nace neared it from the rear. Bushes, small trees, dotted the grounds. A concrete drive down to the beach, walled with a low hedge. Moon shadow lurked in the lee of the hedge like shapeless black animals.

Nace drifted into the shadow, but did not go far. He crouched in the murk, drew softly on his unlighted pipe, and did some pointed wondering.

The trio at the Plaza had been afraid to venture near this place. They were not cowards — their attack on Nace at the bungalow showed that. Therefore, there must be deadly danger about this casket house.

Nace was going in. But he was going to use some care.

He retraced his steps to the beach. A rowboat was drawn up on the sand. It held oars. Nace got one.

Probing ahead with the oar, he advanced along the hedge, keeping low and out of sight. The black house grew even more in size as he came nearer. It was of some expensive dark brick, roofed with black tile. On one side was a garage large enough for four or five cars, and tool houses. On the other side lay a commodious swimming pool.

There was a macabre air about it, as if the place encased a gigantic, deadly corpse. Nace stopped suddenly.

He punched gently with the oar. It came again — the thing that had halted him. A sharp, ugly tap on the end of the oar!

From his bag, Nace produced a flashlight. This light was peculiar in that it threw a beam of unusual shape — a thin rod of light, no thicker through than a finger. He streaked the ray at the end of the oar.

His scalp crawled. Cru-n-c-h! went his teeth through the new pipe stem.

Before him, a loathsome cone of yellowish-brown coils glistened in the light, squirming and heaving. A hideous hood waved like a gently moving fan.

Nace had no trouble recognizing the species of the snake. It was the likeness of just such a reptile that he was doomed to wear to the grave as a scar upon his forehead. A scar, fortunately for his association with the rest of mankind, which only became visible when his skin flushed with anger — the scar which had given him his nickname of the Blond Adder.

The cobra was picketed with a small wire, tied tightly just below its hood and running to a steel peg thrust in the ground. Like a frightsome watchdog!

Nace struck at the blunt, venomous head with the oar. The single blow put the thing out of commission, and without much noise.

He went ahead, somewhat more cautiously, leaving the reptile lifeless behind. It was not without reason that the three watchers in the Plaza had feared to come near this place, he reflected.

The sepulchral shadow of the vast black house enwrapped Nace. He kept probing with the oar, not knowing what other death traps might await.

Reaching a window without incident, he drew his listening device out of the canvas bag, stuck the microphone to the glass and clamped on the headset. Tiny sounds within the house assumed gigantic volume.

He could hear two or three clocks ticking, a radiator bubbling, and a drone that probably came from an electric refrigerator in the kitchen regions. If there was anyone in the house, they were keeping very quiet. Nace replaced his listening apparatus.

From the bag he took a bottle of chemical and a fine brush. Wetting the brush in the chemical, he ran it around the puttied edge of the window pane. Almost at once, the putty was softened to a paste.

Nace had put in many hours of experimenting in his own laboratory to perfect the ingredients in that chemical concoction. He pulled out small brads around the pane, using pliers.

Applying a rubber suction cup to the pane, he lifted it out.

But he did not go through. Instead, he daubed another chemical on a long, slender, stiff wire and passed it up and down and from side to side in the opening.

Nace knew burglar alarms utilizing a beam of invisible ultra-violet light impinging upon a photo-electric cell were in common use. Interrupting the unseen light beam operated the alarm. The chemical on Nace’s wire was one that fluoresced, or glowed, when exposed to ultra-violet light. It did not glow now.

Apparently there was no unseen alarm. He entered.

The room, a parlor of some sort, smelled of an Oriental incense. His unaided ear could now detect the ticking of one clock. The gurgling radiator was in this room, also. Evidently the heat was on so as to dispel the cool dampness of the sea breeze.

Out of the capacious zipper carry-all, Nace picked a small cardboard carton. He strewed the contents of this on the rug behind him as he crossed the room. It was ordinary corn flakes, which would crackle loudly if stepped upon.

The darkness was intense; the overpowering strength of the incense made breathing unpleasant. Just as the exterior of the strange house was coffinlike, so was the interior like an Oriental sepulchre.

Nace calculated, decided the room where the orange light burned was to the right, and headed in that direction. He was resolved to wait there for the return of the mysterious Reel and Hoo Li. They seemed the only link to the woman — Rosa Andricksen.

He entered a hallway. Ahead, he discovered the light. A crack of it marked the lower edge of a door. He advanced, still strewing the corn flakes.

He was reaching for the knob when there came a faint crunching sound behind him. Some one stepping upon the corn flakes!

HE twisted the head of his flash, which prepared it for the throwing of a wide beam. He extended it. His thumb sought the button. But he did not press it.

Instead, he leaped high in the air.

The encounter with the cobra had sharpened his already keen alertness. He had heard a scraping noise underfoot — his first thought was to get somewhere else as soon as possible. It might be another snake.

An instant later he knew it was no reptile — the thing slapped noisily against a wall. A disgusted gasp followed.

Nace guessed that a loop of wire had been spread on the hallway floor. His jump had saved his ankles from being trapped.

He sprayed his flash beam. But he was off balance, and the light spouted in the wrong direction. It did disclose the wire loop, however, still squirming and dancing where it had fallen after being jerked. It was common wire clothesline.

Nace’s flash splattered a door just as it was shutting. He caught no glimpse of the person who had gone through. A key rattled in the door lock.

Nace took two fast steps, a jump — hit the door feet first, legs stiff. There was a crack. The panel, shucking free of its hinges, lowered like a drawbridge — and carried Nace, sled-fashion, down a flight of stairs, finally dumping him on a cool concrete basement floor.

He had bargained on nothing like this — he only wanted the door open. He came to his feet like a sprinter, high-jumped the first six stairs of the flight down which he had slid, barked his shins, swore, and made the top in two more jumps.

Drawing a tear-gas gun, constructed to resemble a fountain pen, he fired it down into the basement.

Some of the gas was bound to swirl back into the hallway. He ran to the door behind which burned the orange light. Might as well take a look there while there was time!

He entered, blinking owlishly, eyes roving.

The place seemed a combination of a sleeping room and study. There were a desk, smoking stands, easy chairs, in addition to a bed. The bedstead was big, old-fashioned, a fourposter affair with a canopy.

On it lay a sheet-swathed form.

Nace advanced, saw a cane lying on the desk, picked it up and used it to lift an end of the sheet.

The body underneath was that of a man of rather stout build. He was perhaps fifty. His hair and close-clipped moustache were gray.

Upon the man’s chest lay an assembly of green bones — the framework of a human leg. The tips of the toe bones, filed sharp, bore sticky brown smears. The points were not, however, embedded in the man’s rather swarthy features.

Nace lifted the bones gingerly, using his handkerchief to keep his hand from contacting them. He sniffed of the brownish stains. There was an almond odor, very faint.

“Some poison with prussic acid in it,” he decided. “Prussic is usually blue, but this is mixed with some brown stuff, maybe molasses.”

Shuffling steps, a series of choking gasps, came from the hallway.

Nace, smiling fiercely, the adder scar on his forehead glowing red, fished a pair of handcuffs from a hip pocket. He was careful not to let the links chink together. The bracelets were the type that closed and locked automatically when slapped against a wrist.

He dashed the manacles against the wrist of the man on the bed — wrenched hard and snapped the other ring to the stout headpost of the bed.

The prone man came to life, emitting a frenzied scream.

He must have screamed in hopes of startling Nace, for his eyes, open and dark, looked quite sane. Whatever his object was, it did him no good.

“Damn you!” he shrieked, and kicked at Nace. The gaunt detective dodged.

The fellow on the bed flounced about. He grasped the green skeleton leg and flung it at Nace. Nace dodged. The bones, hooked together cleverly with wire, clattered loudly against the wall and fell to the floor.

The man continued to convulse like an animal in a trap. In an instant, his free hand came up with a gun. He had been reposing upon it.

The weapon tangled in the bed clothing. Lunging, Nace captured the gun wrist. He twisted. The man on the bed screamed again. This time he had a reason, for Nace’s bony hands were capable of opening horseshoes.

Nace had the gun when he backed away. He unloaded it as he backed to the desk. He struck the weapon, broken open, upon the desk. The blow was terrific. The steel bit deeply into the hardwood. Nace hit again. That smashed twisted barrel and cylinder upon the frame so they would not close together properly. He flung the useless revolver into a corner.

Moving swiftly, Nace went to the door.

There was a girl in the hall, blinded by the tear gas. It was obviously she who had fled into the basement after trying unsuccessfully to snare his feet in the clothesline loop.

She was trying to get out through the front door.

There was some tear gas in the hall, seepage from the basement.

Shutting his eyes, Nace ran to the girl, captured her arm and jerked her back into the room where the orange light glowed.

She struck madly at him. Her fists landed twice before he ducked away. He shut the hall door.

The girl was worth the look he gave her. She was dark-haired, dark-eyed, with a trace of suntan. She had an excellent figure.

“Rosa Andricksen?” Nace asked sharply.

She said nothing, but rubbed briskly at her eyes, accelerating the tear flow in hopes of soon clearing her vision. She wore a gray sport dress, very trim.

Nace waited five minutes, seven, ten. The man on the bed squirmed, fought the handcuffs. But there was scant chance of his getting away. He said nothing, except to vent hisses of rage.

Once Nace asked him, “Are you Reel?”

The man only snarled.

The girl began to be able to see.

“I am Lee Nace!” Nace told her.

She did not answer. Turning slowly, she eyed the man on the bed. Her movements were graceful.

Then she sprang headlong at Nace.

Chapter IV Sinister People

Her struggle was silent, ferocious. She took Nace a little by surprise and he was on the floor before he recovered himself. She was strong. He had fought lots of men who were easier to handle.

Too, he did not like to paste her one on the jaw. That handicapped him. She clawed at him, tore the pocket of his coat. His pipe and tobacco and other articles spilled across the floor.

“Cut it out, sister!” he roared. “I’m Nace! If you’re Rosa Andricksen, I’m the guy you sent for!”

The effect of this was surprising. She stopped struggling, held her head up to bring her ear close to his lips.

“What did you say?” she asked in a very pleasant voice. “I’m a little hard of hearing!” It was the voice that had phoned Nace!

“A little!” Nace snorted, then, very loudly, “I am Lee Nace! Sometimes people are kind enough to call me a private detective.”

“Oh!” The girl disentangled herself. “I thought you were one of Reel’s men!” She pointed at the man on the bed. “That’s Reel!”

She seemed contrite, although there was a queerly set, vacant look about her face. Moving over, she picked up his pipe, tobacco and matches. She thrust the articles in his trouser pocket, as if he were a little boy.

“What’s behind this mess?” Nace yelled.

“I don’t know,” the girl replied in the queerly soft voice the hard-of-hearing sometimes use.

Nace gave her a hard eye. “Now don’t start slipping me fast balls, sister!”

There was something he did not trust about her manner.

“What?” she asked in her gentle voice.

“Tell me the truth!” he shrieked. “Was it you who called me?”

“Yes!” she breathed gently. “It was I.”

“Why did you do it?”

“What?”

The adder glowed purple on his forehead as he bellowed, “Why did you call me?”

“Oh! This man,” she pointed at the fellow handcuffed to the bed, “came to my apartment tonight and seized me. He took me to that bungalow. I got to the phone and tried to call you. I didn’t think I had gotten you.”

“What did he take you to the bungalow for?” Nace roared.

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

“Did you know Jimmy Offitt?” The bellowing was making Nace hoarse.

Her answer surprised him.

“No,” she said gently.

Nace scowled. There was something wrong here. It did not hook up. He eyed her wrists, her ankles. Purple marks showed where she had been tied recently.

That gave him an idea. He swept into the hallway, got the clothesline wire with which she had tried to snare him, and came back.

Although she squealed and struggled, he tied her wrists and ankles. He did not bind so tightly as to cause pain, but when he was done, he was sure she would not get away.

He left her sitting on the floor, glaring at him, and went out to investigate the rest of the house.

The place was big, like a castle. Nace put a fresh stem in his pipe, thumbed in tobacco, and lit up. He left tobacco smoke in each room, mingling with the Oriental incense odor.

There seemed to be no servants. In two of the rooms, he found cobras picketed. He found the snakes because he was looking for them. Had he been prowling, burglar-like, he probably would have been bitten.

One upstairs bedroom was fitted with Chinese ornaments — a dragon tapestry, idols, and such.

In one corner was a trunk, plentifully plastered with steamer labels. The trunk seemed to have gone over most of Europe. Some of the customs stamps bore dates. They ranged over a period of the past three years.

Nace opened the trunk. It seemed to hold curios — timetables, hotel advertisements, bottles of perfume, bits of lace. The things most travelers pick up. But the Oriental nature of the things indicated this was the room of the Chinaman, Hoo Li.

On a dressing table was a picture of a plump Chinese. In the drawer of the table was a passport with the same picture. It was Hoo Li.

With the passport was the printed sailing list of an Atlantic liner that had docked in New York some three weeks ago. Nace ran through the list. As he came to names that interested him, he underlined them. When he was done, he had seven names.

Nace swore, fingered his notched left ear.

“The whole outfit came into the States on a liner three weeks ago,” he grunted. “And the black-haired queen told me she didn’t know a thing about this! The hell she doesn’t!”

He barged for the stairs. Somewhere outdoors, an automobile engine started. Nace took the stairs, six at a jump.

The girl sat in the hallway. She was still wired hand and foot. But the door behind her was closed.

Nace tried the door. It was locked. There was no key in it.

The automobile engine was receding rapidly down the driveway. Nace plunged through the front door. Tires screamed as the car skidded into the street. Nace caught a glimpse of the machine as it scudded under a street lamp. No one but Reel was in the vehicle.

Nace knew his chances of catching the car were nil. He did not try. He swung around the side of the house, fanning the ground with his flashlight, lest there be more anchored cobras.

A window in the coffin of a house was open. It gave into the orange-lighted room. Reel had departed by this route.

Entering, Nace inspected the handcuffs. They had been unlocked off Reel’s wrist.

Dark-faced, Nace glowered at the source of the orange light. The base of this was a weird green skull. He went over, seized the light and smashed it on the floor.

The green skull was only plaster. It flew all over the room, a myriad of pieces.

He went to the door, hard-heeled, made sure no key was in this side of the lock. He kicked the lock out. That eased his anger somewhat. But the scarlet serpent was still hot on his forehead when he towered over pretty, dark-eyed Rosa Andricksen.

His voice a low, tearing whisper, he said, “Are you going to give me the handcuff key and the key to that door, or do I have to hunt for them?”

His voice had been pitched very low. Had she been the least bit deaf, she could not have heard him.

“I’ll give them up!” she said, proving there was nothing wrong with her hearing. She had, it was plain, faked the deafness so as to enable Reel to overhear Nace’s words.

Nace threw the keys away. His hair was down over his eyes, and his jaw was knobby. His stubby pipe was sunk deep in his jaws.

“You jumped me that last time to get the key to the handcuffs from my pockets,” he said grimly. “I’ll hand it to you, sister! You’re the slickest dip I ever ran into.”

She smiled impishly up at him. “You don’t seem to like me!”

He scowled. “That means you won’t talk?”

“I did talk,” she replied. “I told you that Reel came to my apartment tonight, got me, and took me to that bungalow, and I called you. Then Reel brought me here. I got away — I was tied in the basement. I set that wire loop on the floor of this hall. I was after Reel. But you came along.”

Nace grinned wryly. “You’ve got one thing I like.”

She blinked. “What’s that?”

“Nerve!”

He went into the room where the orange light had burned. He had not yet taken the time to search it thoroughly. Under the window where Reel had escaped stood a large window-seat chest.

Nace opened the chest lid.

Cr-a-c-k! went his pipe stem.

He swore a deep thumping oath in his chest. Then he called, “Have you seen Hoo Li tonight?”

“I know no one by the name of Hoo Li!” she replied.

He went back and untied her. “In that case, I’ll show him to you!”

He led her in and showed her what was in the window box. He knew by the way that she gulped and began to tremble that she had not known what was there. No actress was that good!

Hoo Li lay in the box. He was knotted grotesquely — that is, his body was. For he was quite dead. Upon the moon features were five grisly purple splotches, a tiny puncture in the center of each. It was as though a sinister, poisoned claw of bones had grasped.

Nace indicated the green skeleton leg which had been upon Reel’s chest, and which Reel had flung at him.

“That must have killed the Chinaman,” he said dryly. “Reel took it off the body when he wanted to play dead. He played dead to fool me, of course. He wanted to stick around and see what that rumpus in the hall was, and he figured playing dead was a good way to do it.” Nace frowned at the girl. “That’s what happened, wasn’t it?”

She shuddered. “I guess so. I was really a prisoner, and got away! That much is the truth.”

Nace went down into the basement. He found wires that obviously had been used to bind the girl. He came back.

“I believe you,” he said. “Now, what else do you know?”

“Nothing.”

“You came back from Europe with all this crowd three weeks ago. What were you doing in Europe? And what is this green skull thing they want?”

She shivered. “I wish now that I had not called on you for help.”

“Why did you?”

“I was afraid Reel was going to kill me.” She shivered again. “He would have, too.”

“You made a deal with him a minute ago?”

“No.” She sounded earnest. “I merely let him go. He would have killed me even then. That’s why I came into the hall and locked the door.”

Nace frowned shrewdly down at her. “I see it! You’re after the green skull, too. You let Reel loose in hopes he would get it, so you would have a chance of seizing it from him.”

The girl blinked at him — tears were in her eyes. “You are clever!”

“And you and Jimmy Offitt were working together!” Nace suggested.

She suddenly burst into tears. Her shoulders shook convulsively. No acting about this! He held her close with an arm about her shoulders and let her sob.

“Jimmy Offitt was my brother!” she said at last. “My name is Rosa Offitt.”

“Go on,” Nace urged.

She shook her head. “No! I will not tell you any more! And I wish you would go clear away! Forget all this! Report the bodies, if you want to. Tell the police what you know. But go away!”

Nace grinned wolfishly.

He took his Panama from inside his vest, yanked it low and glowered from under the brim.

“Nix, kid!” he snorted.

He led her outdoors, and headed for the Plaza.

“Where are you going?” she wanted to know.

He told her.

“So that’s where Baron von Auster, Moe and Heavy are hanging out!” she gasped. She seemed genuinely surprised at the news.

There was no excitement around the Plaza — no one lurking near. Nace made very sure of that. Then he took the girl in and rode the elevator to the sixth floor.

The corridor was quiet, except that, from down below somewhere, a radio was making a soft mutter.

Nace had brought his canvas bag. He got out his listening apparatus and planted it against the door where he had eavesdropped earlier in the night.

He heard no sound. Gently, he tried the knob. The door was unlocked; it swung open. Lights were on in the apartment. Without crossing the threshold, Nace stared inside.

“So Heavy is the latest guy to take the three-strike!” he murmured grimly.

Heavy was a pile on the floor. He looked like the victim of some horrible joke, a prank concocted by a twisted mind — a brain with a twirk of utter fiendishness in its makeup.

Nace was tough. But the sight on the floor was too much. It got him. He swung forward with long strides and knocked a hideous green skull away from Heavy’s features.

Some sinister jokester had arranged the skull in a position of biting hungrily. Brownly poisoned pegs, substituted for front teeth had brought death to Heavy. A knot on his skull, however, denoted he had first been knocked out by a blow from behind.

Pivoting from the macabre sight on the floor, Nace got the girl. She had not tried to flee, but possibly that was because he had been keeping an eye on her.

Nace went from room to room of the apartment. He found no one. The stereotyped nature of the fittings told him the place had been rented furnished.

He tried the inner doorknob for fingerprints, using white powder from his carry-all. The knob had been wiped clean.

His attention next went to the green skull. He picked it up between two books he found in a case, and placed it on a table, under a lamp.

An article called the green skull was behind the mess, it seemed. He wondered if this was the skull. He found nothing to bolster that belief.

He frowned at the girl while stemming his pipe. “This wouldn’t be the green skull everybody is after, would it?”

She hesitated — not thinking up a false answer, but debating whether she should tell him the truth or not.

“No,” she said at last. “That — is not it!”

“What does the green skull look like?”

“I do not think I’ll answer that.”

“Now, look here—”

She held up both hands. “Oh, don’t start yelling at me! I’m trying to think it over — trying to decide whether to tell you the whole story or not.”

Nace squinted his eye that had been darkened in the fight on the baseball diamond that afternoon. Then he turned his attention back to the green skull.

The color, use of a few chemicals from an analysis kit in his bag showed, was due to nothing more mysterious than malachite green aniline. The skull had apparently been soaked in the concoction, a form of green dye.

The skull itself was undoubtedly genuine. It was impossible to tell with certainty how long the owner had been dead.

“Do you know where this came from?” he asked the girl.

She took time to debate her answer.

“Hoo Li, the Chinaman, was a devotee of an Oriental cult known as the Hara Sabz Haddi, the cult of the green bones,” she said finally. “Instead of the usual form of image, a green skeleton is used by the Hara Sabz Haddi. Hoo Li carried one around with him. I don’t know where he got it — the Orient probably.”

Nace took another squint at the green skull. “It has got the characteristics of an Oriental skull, all right.”

“It must be part of Hoo Li’s religious rigamarole,” the girl said slowly. “He was a fanatical follower of his cult. He tried to convert all of them to his heathen religion at one time or another. I think Reel was half won over. He had green skulls on the brain. Take that reading lamp, the one with the orange bulb, for instance.”

“You know a lot about them!” Nace said.

“I ought to!” she retorted.

“You were one of the gang, eh?”

“No!” She sounded emphatic, “But my brother and I have followed them and watched them for weeks, both in Europe and America.”

“So that is why you all came into the States on the same liner?”

“Yes!”

Nace felt of his notched ear, felt of his bruised eye, and scraped blond hair down over his forehead. He felt an urge to grab the woman and shake her. She got under his sunburned hide. She was, he realized, about as clever as they came. She was playing a game — and she was going ahead with it, even though he did have her a prisoner.

She seemed worried.

“Did you find out anything while trailing Baron von Auster, Moe and—” she indicated the body on the floor, “—this man?”

Nace had not told her the details of his evening’s procedure. Coming here, he had merely advised her that he expected to find the three men.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he snorted, trying to exasperate her.

She shrugged. “I don’t blame you for feeling huffy! In your place, I wouldn’t answer, either.”

Nace, contrarily, decided to feed her a little information. It might serve as a bait to attract a statement that would help to clear up the muddle.

“Baron von Auster and the other two were getting ready to go after Reel in hopes of getting the green skull,” he said.

The words got results far beyond his fondest hopes. The young woman’s hands clenched.

“What?” she choked. “They were — didn’t — didn’t Baron von Auster and his two have the green skull?”

“Apparently not,” Nace said dryly.

“I — thought they had it!” she gulped. “I turned — turned Reel loose so that he could get it from them!”

“What made you think they had the thing?”

She hesitated. “Why, because, when Reel took me to the bungalow tonight, some one had already been there — and murdered my brother!”

“And searched the house?”

“No-o-o!” She drew the word out, as if agonized. “The bungalow had not been ransacked. Reel started to do that. But when I got to the phone, he became scared and fled, taking me.”

Nace’s adder scar flushed redly. This was a mixup. Baron von Auster’s men had spoken as though they had not slain Jimmy Offitt. And now the girl was as much as saying Reel had not done it, either.

“Do you think Reel murdered your brother?” he asked bluntly.

She sobbed a little. “No. He did not act like it. He was very surprised when we — found the body!”

Nace went over and shoved his face close to hers. “If none of the others have that green skull thing, hadn’t we better go after it ourselves?”

She said nothing.

He guided her for the door, saying, “We’re going to that bungalow! The thing must be there!”

Chapter V The Green Prize

They had a wide boulevard across town. Nace wheeled his roadster into the center, horn hooting steadily, and made fifty and sixty most of the way. There was not much traffic. Half a dozen cops ran gesturing into the street after he had passed. Some of them got his license number.

“It’ll rain summonses in the morning, I’ll bet!” he growled.

He parked his machine two blocks from the bungalow, after approaching with horn silenced. The girl got out willingly — a bit too willingly.

“You’d better decide to play ball with me!” Nace suggested.

She maintained silence.

“All right, sister,” he told her. “When I settle this thing, it’ll be in my own way. And I don’t want to hear you squawking.”

She began, “You’re not getting paid anything—”

“Like fun I’m not!” he snorted. “I’ve already collected two thousand smackers — off Baron von Auster!”

She jerked back from him. “He paid you, and you double-crossed—”

“Nix! I took the jack away from him!”

“Oh!” She seemed to consider. “I’ll pay you that much more to go away!”

He laughed softly, ironically, said: “I don’t work that way!”

They wended, via backyards, to the vicinity of the bungalow. Stars overhead and a silver half of a moon cast pale light. In the shadow of a rose bush in somebody’s lawn, Nace surveyed the street.

On the corner lot, the boys still played with their baseball. There were only four of them now, and their game had turned onto a makeshift version of two-old-cat.

Nace, surprised that the lads were still out, eyed his watch. It was only ten o’clock — he had thought the time to be much later.

Two cars were parked in the thoroughfare.

Baron von Auster’s new, inexpensive sedan stood near the corner, under a tree that cut off the brilliance of the corner street lamp.

Nearer was a roadster, a black machine. Reel’s car — the one in which he had fled his black coffin of a mansion.

Both vehicles were empty.

Nace glanced upward, saw a cloud approaching the moon, and waited until it flung darkness into the street, then eased himself across. The keys were not in the roadster ignition lock. He opened his pocketknife and wedged it in front of a rear tire so that, should the car roll, there would be a puncture.

He lifted the hood of the little sedan and tore out the ignition wires. It would take at least twenty minutes of work to get the machine going.

The girl watched these preparations in silence.

She said nothing, offered no resistance, as Nace guided her toward the bungalow.

Shrubs, small hedges, furred the lawn and offered concealment. Haunting these shadows, Nace skirted the bungalow with his companion.

Soon the rear door slammed softly.

Staring, Nace heard, rather than saw, a figure glide into the low bushes. It lingered a moment, then returned.

The closing rear door choked off the light. Nace was not quite able to identify the man, due to the creepers that draped portions of the rear porch.

He eased to the bush the skulker from the house had visited. Exploring, his hands encountered a fat, small traveling bag. The container was stuffed to capacity.

Nace opened it, found what felt like a bundle of candles. He lifted these out, brought them close to his eyes to discern what they were.

His grip tightened when he saw the labels. Dynamite!

With his fingers, Nace searched further. A box holding what felt not unlike blank .22 cartridges reposed in the bottom of the briefcase. Detonator caps!

A fuse, a cap crimped to the end, extended from one of the dynamite sticks through a knife slit in the handbag side.

Nace carried his find to the roadster. The explosive and the caps, he placed in the rear compartment of the car.

And there, in the rear compartment, he made an ugly discovery.

It was the body of Moe.

The round, greasy little form was still warm. A hideous claw of green bones clung to Moe’s throat, the pointed fingertips hanging like embedded thorns.

Moe had been struck a blow upon the head to produce unconsciousness before the grisly thing of green was applied to bring death. This wound had flowed some scarlet, staining the floorboards of the compartment.

Nace considered, then moved to the new sedan. On the front floorboards, he found scarlet stains.

Moe had been killed in Baron von Auster’s machine and transferred to the rear of Reel’s vehicle, it would seem.

Nace grasped the girl’s trembling arm. “Listen — I want a straight answer to this question! Did Reel get a telephone call just before I arrived? I mean — did you hear the phone ring while you were getting loose in the basement?”

She was slow answering, then said: “The phone rang. But I did not hear what was said. That was not more than five minutes before you came to the black house.”

“That explains it!” Nace breathed fiercely. “Baron von Auster gave Reel a call and they combined forces! They’re both in that bungalow now — hunting the green skull!”

Nace now continued his preparations with the dynamite.

He made a bundle of a screwdriver, a can of tube patch, a couple of wrenches, which he found in the rear of the roadster with Moe’s body. He substituted this for the dynamite. He inserted the fuse in the slit in the bag, leaving the cap in place because he did not care to risk getting a hand blown off in removing it.

He carried the body of Moe to a patch of shrubs and concealed it there in the murk.

Carrying the bag, which now contained the harmless bundle he had exchanged for the dynamite, and guiding the girl by an arm, he went toward the bungalow.

He replaced the valise beside the bush where he had first found it. Then he glided close to the rear porch.

Voices murmured in the bungalow, apparently in the living room. Nace tried the porch door, and it opened silently.

They entered. Nace kept his grip on the girl. But she moved with a stealth equal to his own. They advanced until the voice murmur became distinguishable words.

“That is too bad,” growled Baron von Auster. “It is possible the green skull is not concealed here after all!”

“That is conceivable,” admitted another voice. “We can only search. And since we have combined forces, our chances of finding it are considerably greater!”

The girl brought her lips close to Nace’s ear, breathed, “Reel!”

Nace nodded. He had guessed the two in the front room were Reel and the baron.

“Joining hands was a wise move for both of us!” Baron von Auster agreed. “It is regrettable that each of us thought the other was using that green skeleton to murder!”

“Yeah,” muttered Reel. “Which one do you think is really the killer — the girl, or that detective, Nace?”

“I do not know. One or the other, it is obvious!”

Nace scowled blackly. It seemed those two had put their heads together and decided he or the girl was the green-skeleton killer. He looked down sidewise at the dark-eyed girl. He could see her face faintly in the dim glow from the front room. Her features were pale, set.

She glanced up at him, shook her head, shrugged, breathed, “I did not do it!”

The door into the front room was about half-open. Nace took a chance and looked through the crack.

The two men were systematically taking the room apart and slicing paper off the walls and digging beneath with knife points. Each had a pistol thrust in his belt, where it could be gotten at handily.

A spike-snouted, silenced automatic lay on a table. This was one of the unusual guns Moe and Heavy had carried earlier in the night.

Nace considered briefly. Then he flung himself into the room. He scooped up the gun on the table before the two men could move.

“Catch a couple of high balls!” he rapped.

The two might not be baseball fans, but they understood the lingo. Reel’s hands went up. But Baron von Auster only glared.

“Nein!” he sneered. “The gun is empty! We drew the cartridges before we placed it there!”

Leering, Nace squeezed the automatic trigger.

Chung! It was loaded, all right. The bullet streaked so close to Baron von Auster’s head that he ducked wildly. His hands went up.

Advancing gingerly, Nace disarmed the pair. Because there was no place else, he stuffed their guns in the belt of his trousers.

The girl stood back, dark eyes thoughtful, and watched.

Nace frowned at her. “I have a hunch you know where that green skull jigger is hidden! You and your brother got it from these two. Don’t you think it is about time you were digging it up?”

She surprised him by nodding agreeably. “I’ll get it!”

She stepped to the radio. It took most of her strength to twist the heavy cabinet out from the wall.

“The thing should be hidden in a spare tube in the radio,” she explained.

She reached into the instrument with both hands. Her left hand brought out a vacuum tube. The silvered glass of the bulb concealed what was inside.

Her right hand whipped out a small automatic which had been hidden in the cabinet. She pointed the weapon at Nace.

“I’d hate to shoot you!” she said grimly.

He blinked. He had not expected anything this desperate. He had his silenced gun trained in her direction. But he greatly disliked the idea of firing upon a woman.

“What are you going to do now?” he asked angrily.

“Get out of here!” she retorted. She hefted the silvered vacuum tube. “I’m going to dispose of this to the agent who is here from Europe to purchase it. Then I shall hunt you up, after waiting a sufficient time to permit the agent to get out of this country, and tell you the whole story.”

“Yeah?” Nace was not sure whether to believe her or not.

She backed for the door.

Then disaster came. She had her back to Baron von Auster and Reel, all her attention riveted on Nace.

Baron von Auster sprang. He seized the girl, using her for a shield from Nace’s bullets. With a free hand, he trapped her automatic. Twisting, he got it.

The thing happened in flash seconds. Nace suddenly found himself looking into the snout of the little automatic.

“You will drop your weapon, mein Herr!”

Nace did not debate long. He might have plinked Baron von Auster through the skull — except that the gun in his hand was unfamiliar and felt unnatural. He did not trust himself to miss the young woman.

He dropped his gun.

Chapter VI The Green Skull

Laughing a bit hysterically, Reel came over and relieved Nace of his weapons.

Nace gave the girl the blackest look he could manage, “You fixed things up nicely!”

She shivered. “Thanks!”

“That was no compliment!” he snorted.

“I mean — thanks for not shooting and maybe hitting me! That took nerve.”

He grinned in spite of himself and the undoubted danger. This young woman not only had nerve, but it was evident she had walked the paths of danger before.

“Ruhig!” gritted Baron von Auster. “Quiet! Now we will inspect the contents of that radio tube!”

Together, he and Reel worked on the tube. They gave it a twist. The glass bulb came free of the base — it had merely been glued in place. The bottom of the bulb was open; the filament, plate and grid elements had been removed. The silvered coating of the tube still concealed what was inside.

Reel shook the bulb. An object wrapped in tissue was jarred out. He tore off the tissue. The green skull was disclosed.

The thing was not what Nace had expected. It was flat, not unlike a silver dollar, except that it was enameled green. On the face was a raised design of a skull.

“This is it, mein Herr!” chortled the baron.

Nace watched intently. He saw Reel place the plate between his palms and give a twisting motion, as though loosening the crystal of a watch. The plate screwed apart!

It was composed of several flat, thin discs. The surface of these discs had a strangely dull look.

Reel scrutinized the surface of the discs.

“It will take a powerful microscope to read the inscribed data,” he declared.

He went into the kitchen. There was a sound of glass breaking. When Reel came back, he had the bottom of a milk bottle in hand.

“This will magnify sufficiently to show whether the disc is genuine.”

He held the bulging glass over the discs. “Yes, it is the real thing! All the information is here! Location of frontier fortifications, size and number of guns—”

Nace’s jaw sagged. He saw it all now. This disc — or the several discs — held writing engraved with a special mechanism which reduced the letters to such smallness that they were invisible to the naked eye!

The idea was not new — Nace knew of a novelty shop in New York where one could purchase ordinary pins upon the heads of which was engraved entire poems.

The discs held military information! The location of secret fortifications in some European country! Reel was an espionage agent. Baron von Auster, Moe, Heavy, Hoo Li — all had been working with him.

As for the girl and her brother — Nace eyed the young woman.

“You are in the employ of the government of the country from which this military information came, aren’t you?” he asked dryly.

She hesitated.

Baron von Auster and Reel scowled at her.

“You might as well tell him!” Reel sneered. “We know the thing he has just said is the truth!”

“Yes,” she told Nace. “That is right. That is why I was working alone — not telling you anything. I was afraid you would destroy the green skull — or give it to your own government.”

Nace lowered his uplifted hands enough to thoughtfully touch his notched ear. She had judged him accurately. He had no sympathy for espionage systems. Trouble-makers! He would most certainly turn that green skull over to the American Intelligence — he would yet, if he could get his hands on it.

He eyed Reel, asked suddenly, “Did you know the body of Moe is in your roadster?”

Reel did not know it. His start of surprise showed that. He gulped, “What?”

Nace sighed. Reel’s actions had given him his final clue. He knew who the murderer was — it couldn’t be anyone else.

“You had better watch your friend, Baron von Auster,” he said dryly. “His system seems to be to kill everyone, so that he may collect for the sale of this green skull, and keep the money all for himself!”

Reel and Baron von Auster exchanged looks. They were not friendly looks.

Nace continued grimly, “Baron von Auster stole Hoo Li’s green skeleton, poisoned the thing, and started killing everybody. He did in Jimmy Offitt, probably when Offitt wouldn’t tell him where the green skull was hidden.

“He killed Hoo Li to get him out of the way, just as he killed his two men, Moe and Heavy. And just as he intends to murder you, no doubt!”

Reel had started trembling a little.

Nace, guessing partly, filling in what he did not know with what he thought had occurred, went on, “Baron von Auster killed Moe in his own car, and transferred the body to your roadster, Reel. Why do you think he did that, if not to frame the blame on you, should the chance come?”

Reel glared at Baron von Auster.

The latter shrugged. “Nein!” he told Reel. “You are wrong! Come! Let us go in the kitchen and discuss this privately! I can explain everything, Ja!”

They tore wires off the radio and bound Nace and the girl, wrist and ankle. Then they stepped into the kitchen.

One of them kicked the door shut. Voices murmured for a moment.

Then there was a loud gasp, a blow, a stifled cry! Another blow! A form collapsed noisily to the floor. After that, silence!

Nace gave the girl a stiff-lipped grin, said, “It looks like one of them hit into a double-play!”

The back door slammed. But a moment later, it opened again. Sounds indicated the unconscious body was being moved by the survivor. But it was not moved far.

A series of moans, a gasp or two, followed. Then Baron von Auster’s voice shrilled out.

“Himmel!” he wailed. “Mein Herr Reel! You are not going to kill me with that dynamite? Please?”

A sharp slapping sound stopped the cry. It might have been a palm against flesh. There was more shifting about in the kitchen. Five minutes it lasted. An age!

Came a scraping rasp — a match being ignited. Then a fizzing. That would be the fuse burning.

Baron von Auster screamed shrilly. “He is blowing me up with the dynamite—”

A blow ended that cry.

The kitchen door slammed. Feet pounded away in rapid flight.

Nace, rolling with difficulty because of his wired ankles and wrists, reached the girl. She was seeking to work toward the door. Lacking Nace’s agility, she was not making much headway. Her face was white; fear stared from her eyes.

“Cool off!” Nace told her, low-voiced. “There’s no dynamite in there! I took it out, hid it in Reel’s roadster, and substituted screwdrivers and stuff! You saw me do it!”

“He may have found the — exchange!” she gulped.

“I don’t think so! Here — I’ll get your hands loose. Then you free me!”

Nace worked furiously at the girl’s tyings. He tore his fingernails, scratched her wrists. The bindings finally gave.

“Now get mine!” he directed.

She obeyed — to his relief. A moment later, they were both free and on their feet.

A report thumped in the kitchen. The percussion cap exploding! The sound resembled a small firecracker. The fact that the dynamite was not in the bag had not been discovered.

Nace and the girl ran into the kitchen.

A man lay face-down beside the handbag. The valise itself was partially torn open from the blast of the percussion cap. Nace turned the man over. He wore the Baron von Auster’s summer evening dress.

It was not Baron von Auster — but Reel. He was lifeless, skull crushed in, evidently from a blow by the baron’s gun.

The girl gasped, “But I thought—”

“Baron von Auster is pulling a fast one!” Nace grunted. “He thought the explosion would tear the body up so it couldn’t be identified. See, he even changed clothes with Reel! The baron figured he’d have no trouble getting away if everybody thought he was dead! The pick-up order would go out for Reel.”

Nace charged out the rear door.

Flame jumped at him from the shrubbery. Lead took part of the glass from the kitchen door. Baron von Auster had evidently waited to see how his scheme worked.

Threshing leaves denoted that he was in flight.

Nace let him go, then followed at his leisure. The girl bobbed along at his side.

“He’s getting away with the green skull!” she groaned. “That means my country — it will lose valuable information! In case of war, it will mean the death of thousands of men!”

Nace snorted. He was not going to get steamed up over wars in Europe.

The chase arched around to the street. Baron von Auster began shooting again. Lead squealed, slashed savagely at leaves. Powder smell filled the street. The chung, chung, chung reports of the silenced automatic were vicious.

Nace made himself and the girl as thin as possible behind a tree.

The baron ran on and tried to get away in his little sedan. But Nace had plucked out the ignition wires.

Back to the roadster belonging to Reel, Baron von Auster ran. He sprang in. The keys were evidently in his possession. He must have had the foresight to take them against just such a contingency as this.

The machine lunged ahead.

The jackknife Nace had planted pierced the tire. Air began escaping to the tune of a shrill, erratic hiss.

Leaning against the tree behind which he had taken shelter, Nace watched. The roadster fled under a street lamp.

The flat tire was making the rear end bounce up and down.

The girl half sobbed. “He’s getting away — the murderer of my brother—”

Nace dropped an arm on her shoulders. “Wait, kid! He’s going to get his, unless I’m mistaken.”

A moment later, Baron von Auster got his. The ground jarred. A roaring explosion slammed against Nace’s eardrums. Windows broke all over the neighborhood, amid much brittle jangling.

Rosa Offitt held to Nace with both hands, trembling.

He crooked an arm around her shoulders. “The jarring set the dynamite. You wait here, and I’ll see how it came out.”

He ran forward. The roadster was spread over much of the street. The body of Baron von Auster was not greatly mutilated, although the man was undeniably dead.

In a coat pocket, Nace found the troublesome plaque — the green skull.

He went back and showed the girl the grisly trinket.

“Now I pay you off for not playing ball with me!” he said dryly.

“You mean — you won’t give it to me?”

“That’s exactly what I do mean. This thing goes to the American Intelligence, if they want it.”

Her reaction surprised him somewhat. She sighed. “That’s all right, I suppose. You know — we have no fear of the Americans attacking us.”

Nace squinted down at the girl. He was, he made a mental note, going to take a future interest in her. She was a swell number.

She shrank against him, as if for comfort, shivering. “What about Baron von Auster—?”

“That guy,” Nace told her grimly, “fanned out!”