“Well, yes,” he said slowly. “I guess I can spare you one shot.”
“O-oh!” The girl fell upon him gratefully. Her arms went around his neck. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and her trembling fingers stretched out for the soothing powder which would miraculously silence the shrieking of her nerves.
The Dope reached into his vest pocket and withdrew the bottle which O’Neal had given him. He held it out to the girl. She snatched it, and fumbled in her bag. She produced a hypodermic needle.
“Lay off, you fool!”
Cokey Day rose from his desk and threw himself across the room. The girl, seeing him coming, uttered a shrill cry and fled, still holding the bottle and the needle in her hands. The Dope slammed the door hurriedly, thus effectively checking Cokey Day’s pursuit.
“You fool. You fool!”
Cokey was beside himself with rage. The Dope turned an ingenuous face toward him.
“Why? The kid was dying for a shot. I’ll give anyone a shot. I know what it is to go without it.”
“You’ll never give her another shot if the boss finds out about it. You idiot!”
“What boss? Why?”
Day seized him by the arm, wrenching it brutally.
“Listen, mug. How the hell O’Neal picked out such a fool as you I don’t know. But if you care for your worthless life, mind your own business in here. You’ll be lucky if the boss doesn’t find out where Ruby got that stuff.”
He opened the door and pushed the Dope through it roughly. Once outside in the large room, the disheveled figure of the dope fiend shuffled over toward a table and sat down. He lit a cigarette and alertly watched the people around him.
He started as a hand tugged at his threadbare sleeve, then looked up into the eyes of the girl called Ruby. Her whole demeanor had changed now. Her eyes were bright and sparkling. Her hands were steady. Her voice was husky, but firm. Cocaine, that insidious robber of the mind and body, had enhanced her youthful beauty.
“Thanks,” she smiled at him. “Thanks a lot. You’ve done me a favor, and I’ll never forget it.”
The Dope was about to ask her to sit down. He wanted to see if he could extract any information from her. Perhaps Day’s mention of the boss who had cut off her dope supply was knowledge he could use in his own grim game.
“Won’t you sit —” he began. But suddenly the invitation froze on his lips.
He inhaled deeply, and his heart picked up a beat as the picture of a familiar face filtered through his retina. In answer to a friend’s hail, Ruby walked away.
The Dope made no move to stop her. He sat immobile and tense at his table watching a figure walk across the floor. The man walked slowly, heavily, as if in a daze — like a drunk or a person under the influence of some soporific drug.
And deep inside the Dope’s brain something clicked, something whispered: “Danger!” For the man who shuffled so lethargically across the floor was Frank Havens!
Van Loan fought down his impulse to stand up, to call out to his friend. Something sinister was about to happen. Death skulked unseen as Havens shuffled aimlessly and dully across the room.
Then Van was aware that another person had entered the room and was following Havens, some few feet behind. Swiftly he glanced at the second man, and then, in a flash he understood. For the second visitor to Cokey Day’s was a cripple — a little unshaven cripple with eyes like diamonds in a setting of mud.
Havens had again been hypnotized by the little man with the eyes of death. For what motive, what purpose, Van did not know. But both his heart and mind told him that jeopardy was imminent.
Havens and the cripple disappeared around a white pillar at the far end of the room.
It was then that Van arose. It cost him something to maintain the slow, dragging walk of the Dope at that moment when every nerve in his body was counseling him to run. But he did not increase his pace one iota.
Arriving around the pillar, he was just in time to see the cripple slowly stumping up a rickety flight in the rear. Havens was already out of sight. Van cast a hasty glance about him. No one was in sight.
It was then that he cut and ran. He came breathless but silent to the foot of the steps. With a cat-like tread he slowly made his way up the creaking, rickety stairs. At the third landing he stopped. He heard a door open. He heard a babel of voices — and in that babel one voice stood out saliently. It said:
“So you have him? Good. Now we can strengthen the one weak link in our chain.”
The door slammed again, but not before Van had recognized the voice of Alexis Hesterberg!
For a moment he hesitated. Should he leave Havens there and go for help? That way was too big a gamble. What would happen to Havens in the meantime? Further, there was an excellent chance that Hesterberg would be warned in time, so perfect was his spy system.
No, Van put his loyalty to his friend first. He, the Phantom, would see this through alone.
Cautiously he mounted the remainder of the stairs. By dint of applying his ear to each of the three doors on the landing, he ascertained by the low rumble of voices from within which room Havens was in.
He hesitated no longer now. Swiftly he mounted the iron ladder that led to the roof. Once there, luck came to his aid. At the side of the building was another ladder of iron which led to a fire escape landing below at the very window of the room where Havens was held prisoner.
Like a feline he descended, wrapped his arms tightly around the iron half-way down, and hung like a monkey where he could observe whatever went on, hear whatever was said.
His mouth became a grim, thin line as he took in the scene below him.
Havens sat still as death in an arm-chair in the middle of the room. Behind him stood Hesterberg. In the foreground, his glittering snake-like eyes never leaving the publisher’s countenance, was the cripple. Two other men stood near Hesterberg. The Mad Red spoke.
“Then, this,” he said, “is the end of the international angle. Once I procure the torn half of those papers from the Phantom I am ready to plunge Europe and America into war. Then, I shall embark on the financial angle. Then, I shall force the bankers to send gold to Russia. Then, THE DAY!”
Van Loan nodded grimly. So, it seemed, Hesterberg was as eager to see him again as Van had been to see Hesterberg. The Mad Red wanted those papers, and he could not get them without getting the Phantom first.
Yes," said Hesterberg inside the room. “This is the end. Now we have in our power the one man in the world who knows the true identity of the Phantom. He shall tell us who he is. Then we shall get the papers and the Phantom shall get — death!”
He paused a moment. Van strained his eyes so that he could see the dramatic tableau more clearly. Hesterberg’s guttural voice continued:
“So, Sligo, keep your wicked eyes on him and ask him who and where the Phantom is?”
The iron rung of the fire escape cut deeply into Van’s arm. Now he understood. Hesterberg had sent his hypnotic cripple to bring Havens here. Now, while he was under the cripple’s influence they were asking him who the Phantom was. That should, as Hesterberg had said, be the end. But Van reflected grimly that the Phantom was by no means through yet.
Sligo, the cripple, with the eye of death, took a step toward the helpless Havens. His gleaming agate gaze bored into those of the newspaper man. Hesterberg moved forward impatiently.
“All right,” he said testily. “Ask him, Sligo.”
Sligo nodded. Never taking his eyes from Havens’s face, he spoke.
“Listen to me,” he said.
Havens answered in a dull lifeless monotone.
“Yes, Master.”
Van’s blood boiled, to think that Havens should address this rat of the underworld as “Master.” Still he bided his time.
“Tell me,” went on the cripple. “Tell me, who is the Phantom?”
“The Phantom?” Havens repeated the name hesitatingly as his subconscious fought against his revealing the secret. Van could see the be
ads of sweat on Sligo’s brow as he used every ounce of his will to wring an answer from Havens’s lips.
“Yes,” he said, “the Phantom. Who is the Phantom? What is his name?”
“Ah, yes, the Phantom,” said Havens in that inanimate tone. “The Phantom, Master is R —”
That was enough for Van. He dropped down upon the iron rung. He leaned through the window with his gun in his hand. The automatic spoke once. Sligo, the cripple, uttered a sharp cry of pain and fell to the floor, the blood that ran from his temple crimsoning the rug.
Swiftly Van sprang through the open window and held the room at bay with his automatic.
At the moment that Sligo had lost consciousness and fallen to the floor, Havens had started up in his chair. Now, no longer under the baleful influence of the cripple, he blinked his eyes bewilderingly and stared blankly through the room.
One of Hesterberg’s men shouted:
“The Phantom! It must be the Phantom!”
“Shut up,” said Hesterberg. “That little coke-fiend is not the Phantom. ”Now” — addressing himself to Van — “what does this mean? How dare you intrude here?”
Van knew that there would be little chance of winning a battle here with Hesterberg. He had too many allies in the building for that. If the crazy Red had not recognized him so much the better.
Cokey would know him only as a stool of O’Neal’s. If he could get out of this room with Havens before the alarm was given, they could chance a run for it.
Still keeping everyone in the room within range of his automatic, Van backed slowly toward the door. Havens was staring at each person in the room blankly and in turn. Van smiled faintly as his best friend ran his eyes over the face of the Dope without recognizing him.
“What’s this mean?” said Havens suddenly. “Who are you men? Where am I?”
Thus far Van had not spoken a word. Now he answered the other’s question.
“You’re in a den of cutthroats,” he said quietly. “So am I. Let’s try to get out.”
Hesterberg laughed unpleasantly. “Listen,” he said. “No stranger can get out of here without trouble. Now, what the hell do you want?”
The Dope grinned, and for a moment an intelligence that was alien to a snow addict gleamed in his eyes.
“I want to get out principally,” he said. “And I’m taking him with me.”
He indicated Havens, who still sat with a blank expression on his face, not quite oriented to his environment yet.
“Put that gun away,” said Hesterberg," or you’ll never get out of here alive."
He walked slowly toward Van, holding him with his eyes. Slowly his hand crept toward his hip pocket.
“Don’t do it,” said Van. “Stand back. All of you stand away from that door.”
His voice rang with purposeful command. They obeyed. Van jerked his head toward Havens.
“Come on, you. Stand up. Get over by the door. When I tell you, open that door and run like hell.”
Havens did as he was told. Though he by no means understood how he had come here, who these people were, he realized that he could not go far wrong with a man who wanted to get him out of this room which seemed to hold him captive. He stood with his back to the door, his hand on the knob.
“Now,” said Van coldly, “we’re leaving. I’d advise you not to follow too quickly, or else I shoot from the stairway on the way down. Give us a full minute. It’ll be much safer for you if you do.”
He turned to the still slightly bewildered Havens.
“All right,” he shouted. “Now!”
The door swung open. Two flying figures raced through it. It slammed behind them. As they gained the stair head, Van heard Hesterberg’s voice roar through the panel of the door.
“Go on, you fools! After them, quick!”
Apparently the Mad Red had little compunction about risking the lives of his men. He had no intention of giving the Dope the full minute that he had demanded to make his getaway. And so great was Hesterberg’s power, so great was their fear of their master, that his henchmen did not hesitate to choose between his wrath and possible death outside that door.
For a second time the portal swung open. Two more figures raced through it.
As they turned the landing at the top of the second flight two staccato reverberations boomed above them. Steel ate into the crumbling plaster of the walls. Van pushed Havens ahead of him down the stairs and, taking hasty aim, pressed the trigger of his automatic.
One of the men staggered, but recovered and came on. Now there was an enraged shout from the top floor, and Hesterberg joined the chase in person.
Four revolvers roared. Three from the pursuers and a single automatic took up the defense. The hallway echoed grim crashes, and the air was acrid with the stench of powder.
Van and Havens leaped like cats down the last flight, with such speed that they gained the ground floor some thirty feet ahead of their pursuers. Once there, Havens ran toward the front door of the dive. But Van’s hand caught his flying coattails and pulled him back. He had a better plan than that.
To run through the room, to enter the street was to court disaster. Gripping the publisher’s wrist, Van rushed along the wall toward Cokey Day’s office.
He dragged the breathless Havens through the door, slammed and locked it. Then, even before he turned around he heard a vaguely familiar voice say:
“Oh, Cokey, I’ve wanted —”
What she wanted he never knew. Ruby stood at Cokey’s desk slowly turning her head. Then surprise showed in her brilliant eyes.
“Oh, it’s you. I thought it was Cokey. What —”
“Listen,” said Van swiftly. “Get us out of here. Hesterberg’s behind us. He’ll kill us if he finds us. There must be an exit from this office. Cokey’s not the kind to let himself get trapped in an office like this. Get us out.”
Already the patter of running feet could be heard without. Hesterberg’s voice demanding information as to where the quarry had fled boomed through the panel.
“Hesterberg —” Ruby repeated the name and her voice was pregnant with hatred and loathing. “Quick! Here!”
She turned, walked to the south wall. Her slim hand lifted a lithograph from its place. Her finger touched a small button imbedded in the wall. Slowly a huge bookcase moved outward. Then with a jerk it stopped, revealing an aperture some five feet square in the center of the wall behind it.
Van shoved Havens into the black opening. Then he stopped a second and took the girl’s hand in his.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll repay you for this some day.”
Her shapely lips were distorted by an evil smile.
“If I’ve crossed Hesterberg.” she said bitterly, “that’s payment enough.”
Van squeezed her hand quickly, and a moment later joined Havens in the pitch black of the secret exit. The bookcase swung into place behind, just as Hesterberg’s imperious knock crashed against the locked door.
CHAPTER VIII
THE MAD RED STRIKES
VAN LOAN’S flashlight picked out a yellow path through the labyrinth of underground passages beneath Cokey Day’s dive. Of course, Van realized that if Hesterberg knew of this exit, he would post his men at all its adits, and the pair of them were no better off than they had been in that top-floor room.
Yet, he reasoned, it was unlikely that Cokey Day had told anyone of the passage. In fact, he was a little surprised that Ruby knew of it. In Cokey’s precarious position — that of playing fast and loose with both the underworld and the police — he had to be prepared for any emergency.
The flashlight revealed six wooden steps leading to a trap-door. Van preceded Havens up the stairs and cautiously pushed the trap open. A gust of clean night air swept into his face. His eyes strained into the street beyond. They saw nothing.
“Come on,” he said to Havens.
The publisher followed him into the dingy, deserted street of tenements. The trap-door slammed shut behind them. They walke
d in silence down the street. A vagrant taxi passed, and Havens hailed it. He gave the driver an address, then turned to his savior.
“I’m still by no means sure what happened to me tonight,” he said, “but I do know that I’ve you to thank for getting me out of it. You must come home with me and tell me who you are. Perhaps I can do something for you.”
Van laughed, then for the first time that evening spoke in his natural voice.
“You can give me a drink and a bath, Frank,” he said with a smile. “I can’t think of anything else I want just now.”
Havens gasped. His jaw fell, his eyes gleaming mirrors of utter amazement.
“Van!” he exclaimed. “You! But how? What —?”
“I’ll tell you all about it over the drink,” said Van, grinning at his friend’s stupefaction. “I can talk better with this wax out of my handsome features.”
Van peered carefully through the rear window of the cab to make sure that they were not being followed, then gave the driver the address of the secret apartment which he and Havens kept for just such exigent occasions as these.
In fact, even now, they had the cab stop a block or so away. In their position they could afford to take no chances. Once inside the apartment, Van removed his disguise, bathed, and donned one of the suits that were always waiting there for the day when their owner, pursued by danger, should need them.
As he dressed, Havens related as much as he knew of the circumstances which had brought him to the dive of Cokey Day as he remembered. Then with the story almost finished, he broke off and exclaimed excitedly: “Oh, Van, I forgot to tell you. I haven’t seen you for a few days. Isaac Block’s been killed.”
Van’s fingers stopped in the adjustment of his collar pin, and he turned his head ever so slightly.
“Block?” he said. “Killed? Why?”
“As a warning. He was found shot in his library yesterday. The news was suppressed because of the panic his death would cause in the Street. But it’ll break in the papers tomorrow. Probably the bulldog editions have it now.”
The Emperor of Death Page 6
