“Back,” ordered the lieutenant to his men. “But keep your guns ready for action.”
“An interesting situation, but I think I hold high cards,” purred the Phantom.
“Like hell you do. Not with fifty men surrounding you.”
“My gun is against Hesterberg’s head. It would give me great pleasure to shoot.”
“Shoot — and not a man of you gets out of here alive.”
“Exactly. I shoot Hesterberg — you shoot me and my friends. One overt act from you, and I dispatch Hesterberg to Hell. It’s a stalemate. I shall keep my guns against Hesterberg’s skull until we are safely on the outside. Then —”
“To Hell you say,” swore the gangster. “I’m no fool. It’s no difference to us whether you kill Hesterberg here or in the police station. If you kill him on the outside, we’ve gained nothing. If you force my hand and kill Hesterberg here — you and your friends get wiped out. That evens the score.”
The Phantom realized that they had reached an impasse.
“What is it you want?” he demanded.
“Hesterberg — and you.”
“On what terms?”
“The only terms. If you don’t agree you’re all wiped out. You — Hesterberg — and all this crowd.”
The Phantom was in the most difficult situation of his career. Gladly would he have laid down his life if in doing so he could have wiped out the menace of the Mad Red. But to lay down the life of his friends, the men he had sworn to protect — that was something else again. No matter what else happened; no matter what happened to him, they must escape.
“I agree,” he said at last. “I will agree to turn over myself and Hesterberg to you — on one condition.”
“And that is?”
“These men here go free. I was the only man Hesterberg wanted tonight. Is it a bargain?”
“Agreed,” replied the lieutenant grimly. “You stay with Hesterberg. The others can go.”
Havens started to protest but the Phantom cut him short with a word.
Though on the surface his bargain appeared to turn him completely over, into the power of Hesterberg, he still had a last trick to play. He had to get Havens, Clairborne, and the rest free before the lieutenant discovered it. He turned to the gangster:
“I am ready. I shall leave with you and Hesterberg. But to insure that there be no treachery, my gun stays at Hesterberg’s head. If you betray our bargain, I shoot. If anyone attempts to lift my mask, I shoot. This problem shall be resolved between myself and Hesterberg when he comes to.”
This was an angle to the matter that the lieutenant had not foreseen. He had to save Hesterberg’s life at any cost; failing this, their entire plot crumbled. He realized bitterly that the Phantom had not gained his reputation for naught.
As long as he held the gun to Hesterberg’s head, even though he was a prisoner, the Phantom was master of the situation. But just how long could one man hold a gun to another man’s head, surrounded by a score of hungry wolves? Yes — the Phantom was asking himself that self-same question!
CHAPTER XII
THE VIGIL
IT WAS a grim, bizarre and altogether insane procession that marched out of the lobby of the Union Club a few minutes later. First went the mock police, the rank and file of Hesterberg’s forces. Bringing up the rear, two men supported the limp body of the Russian, with the Phantom still masked, holding a gun to his head. And he, in his turn, was menaced by the gun of Hesterberg’s lieutenant.
Cars were waiting at the curb; the men dispersed. A minute later the Phantom found himself in a speeding limousine, alone with Hesterberg and the lieutenant.
The car pursued a zigzag course through the city. The curtains were down and the Phantom lost all sense of direction. Once by the rhythmic flashes of blurred light, he realized that they were crossing a bridge. Which one, he knew not. Corners were turned in rapid succession; long stretches, continuous driving along straight roads were traversed.
Then at last, with a sudden jerk, the car came to a halt. The door swung open. Hesterberg was stirring, breathing heavily at the Phantom’s side, whose grip on the automatic tightened as he pressed it against the Russian’s head.
Hesterberg groaned, opened his eyes, winced under the drilling pressure of the automatic.
“It’s a gun, Hesterberg — my gun — the Phantom’s gun,” grated Van.
The Russian’s lieutenant went into a hurried explanation. “It was my only out, sir,” he concluded. “I had to save you at all costs. ”But it is just a matter of time until this fool here is unmasked.”
The Phantom commented grimly to himself that it was undoubtedly the truth, but his only chance was in continuing his bluff. Though he hadn’t the vaguest idea how he was to get out of this desperate situation, he had a tremendous advantage so long as his gun was at Hesterberg’s head.
He kept it there, relentlessly. The Russian before him, a man at his own side, they entered the shadowy portal of a darkened building.
The scene was set in a large room on the ground floor. As long as his trigger-finger was steady, the Phantom was in a position to make demands. He made them. A chair was placed for him — his back to the wall. Directly in front of him sat the Russian, lolling in confident ease in a large cushioned chair. Before them stood a group of six — tense, watchful, waiting — each man armed with a vicious sub-machine-gun.
The vigil began.
*****
One moment off guard, one sleepy nod of the head and the Phantom knew that finis would be written to his career. At the very most, he had twenty hours in which to extricate himself from an impossible situation.
He had had little sleep the night before; he had been cramped for the greater part of the day in a stuffy locker. How long would it be before outraged nature exacted her toll; before sleep overcame his already shattered nerves?
He dared not think of it; he had to keep awake. He had to find some way out of that room, despite the six sub-machine-guns trained on him.
Hesterberg removed the plump panatella from his lips and exhaled a pungent cloud of blue smoke. He settled himself more comfortably in his chair, heaved a sigh of contentment and satisfaction.
“Comfortable, my dear Phantom?” he inquired ironically.
“Quite,” purred Van.
“Excellent. I only hope that your vigil will not be too long.”
“You’re keeping it with me.”
“But you forget that I can doze off. Sleep, my dear Phantom — sleep. A gun gets very heavy after an hour or so. Muscles creak and strain. Sleep is a sweet thing — but the sleep of Death is sweeter.”
The Phantom realized that Hesterberg was baiting him. Already the gun in his hand was getting heavier. Fine beads of sweat stood out on his forehead; he clamped his teeth together until he was aware of a physical pain.
He said nothing. Hesterberg would soon tire of his little game if he did not rise to the bait. And anyway, he had to think, think! He had to concentrate on those six men before him! He had to concentrate on those four walls surrounding him!
Where was his escape? How was his escape?
An hour dragged by on never ending minutes and the Phantom was no nearer the solution of his problem than when he had entered the room.
The six guards opposite him were changed. Food was eaten in his presence; wine drunk. Men went to sleep in chairs, on cots before him. Snores filled the room. With every faculty at his command, the Phantom fought off the sleep that was slowly numbing his senses.
The automatic in his hand was a leaden thing of almost incredible weight. A thousand flashes of light danced before his eyes. It seemed to him that irresistible forces were slowly pulling down on the lids of his eyes.
His muscles became cramped; the twisted cords in his neck were a living torture. His whole body cried out in anguish for sleep. But there was no sleep.
With an ever increasing sense of the inevitable doom that was closing in on him, the Phantom realized that only three short h
ours had passed. Three hours! How many more before he nodded off and the wolves pounced in?
By the sheer power of his will he lashed his mind to renewed efforts. He went over the bare four walls for the hundredth time. He stared wide-eyed into the blazing mazda lamp that lit up the scene. Was there no possible way he could compromise?
Another hour went by. Hesterberg awoke in his chair and continued his taunting tactics of before.
“If nothing else, my dear Phantom,” he mocked, “I can assure you an untroubled slumber at the end of your vigil. The peace of the grave.”
Hot words rose to the Phantom’s lips; in an insane frenzy he was tempted to empty his automatic into Hesterberg’s skull; tempted to still forever that taunting voice. But with an iron will, forged in the fires of hell, he restrained the impulse. Hesterberg should die. He had sworn that. But the Mad Red’s hour had not struck as yet. First he had to learn more of the Russian’s plans; find out how far they had matured, whom they involved.
Let him once get the key figures in Hesterberg’s colossal organization and he would not hesitate to be the one to wipe out the madman himself. He mentally lashed himself to an emotional frenzy in imagining the sadistic pleasure he was to get some day when finally he dispatched Hesterberg to hell. He reveled in the gory details of the execution he planned; he gloated over the dying anguish of Hesterberg. He —
And it was then that the Phantom called a halt. He realized that he was going a little mad, cracking under the strain. Exerting his last ounce of will power he mastered his failing brain and nerves and again concentrated on evolving some means of escape.
His fingers were numb, cold, constricted around the butt of his automatic. A terrific thirst assailed him while the beads of sweat on his forehead trickled crazily into his eyes. Hunger, thirst, sleep, slow paralysis — he had to fight them all.
Hesterberg was asleep again, his high-domed head slumped on one shoulder. In a frustrated frenzy the Phantom listened to the even breath rasp through the Russian’s nostrils. And then he was suddenly calm. He had an idea!
A slim chance, it was true — but nevertheless, a chance. He had nothing to lose and everything to gain. For the past five hours he had been suffering the torments of hell waiting for the inevitable. Now he had a faint hope of being able to frustrate the net of doom that was slowly closing in on him.
Slowly, inch by inch, he began to put his plan into operation. Hairbreadth’s width at a time he eased his body slightly forward. So slow and steady that no eye could detect the movement his right hand went out toward Hesterberg’s slumped body.
It reached the Russian, crawled up the side of his coat, and with stealthy fingers probed into Hesterberg’s pocket.
A wave of exultation swept over the Phantom. His fingers had come in contact with the cold steel of an automatic in the other’s pocket. He wanted to shout; he wanted to risk all on whipping out that gun, but by some miracle of nerve he restrained the impulse.
As slowly as his hand had delved into the Russian’s pocket, it was withdrawn. The Phantom knew that the six grim pair of eyes were riveted on the gun pressed against Hesterberg’s skull.
They were watching his right hand, waiting — waiting until it had wavered the fraction of an inch. But his right hand did not waver and slowly, imperceptibly he removed the automatic from Hesterberg’s pocket with his left.
A quick analysis of the situation told the Phantom that his only possible chance was to kill the lights. The door to freedom was on the left, equally distant from himself and the six guards. With the advantage of the surprise attack on his side he had every confidence of making it.
He had noted in the hundred times he had searched the walls of the room that a fuse box was against the far wall. This must be the focal point of his attack and there were two problems that confronted him. First, from the awkward position he was in would he be able to hit it with the automatic in his left hand? Second, did that fuse box control the light in the room?
It was utterly futile to ponder the matter. The Phantom had to gamble and gamble then. His aching nerves reacted to the stimuli of the coming encounter; he took a deep breath; his index finger constricted slowly on the trigger of the automatic.
Four things happened simultaneously.
The Phantom shouted hoarsely. The gun in his hand exploded. The lights over head went out. And before the weird, electrical flashes from the fuse box had died away, the Phantom was streaking toward the door.
All hell broke loose in the room on a rising crescendo of noise. Hesterberg’s wild bellow rang out high above the crash of the machine-guns. Chairs were overturned, tables barged into as the Russian’s henchmen milled about wildly.
A savage burst from one of the machine-guns was answered by a piercing curse in Russian. Hesterberg’s men were mowing down one another. Chaos; pandemonium reigned.
Hesterberg’s voice shrilled out again, frantic with fear and anger.
“Hold fire, you fools! Lights! Lights!”
But when the flickering light of a match lit up the scene some ten seconds later, the Phantom was gone.
Though the Phantom knew that Hesterberg and his men would have long since cleared out by the time the police arrived, he nevertheless called up Headquarters and gave them the address of his prison.
A roaring taxicab carrying him away from the scene of his late exploit, he sank back on the cushions, closed his eyes and completely relaxed for a moment. He felt strangely weak, weaker than he had ever been in his life. His muscles ached like a torment, his hands trembled, daggers of fire pierced his eyes.
There was nothing he wanted so much in the world as sleep. But bitterly he realized that there would be little sleep for him that night. Bitterly he realized that there would be little sleep for him so long as Hesterberg’s mad schemes were allowed to mature.
The dawn was still-born as his taxi, his third by this time, raced up the deserted length of Fifth Avenue. It came to a grinding halt at a block in the Fifties. Throwing a bill at the driver, Van raced up a short flight of stone steps, squashed the bell by the side of the door with an impatient thumb.
Two minutes later he was wringing the hand of Havens.
For a moment neither could speak. They merely stood there mute, dumb, staring into each other’s eyes for strength.
“God, boy!” mumbled Havens at last in a broken voice. “I never — I —”
Van waved the words away with a gesture and sank wearily into a chair.
“Neither did I,” he said simply. “A drink, man — I need a drink. A stiff one.”
Havens busied himself with whisky and soda, Van brushed away the soda and downed the Scotch with greedy gulps.
“You look almost ten years older right now,” breathed Havens in an awed voice.
“Not only ten years older, but ages older,” answered Van. “I’m back to you from the dead.”
“What happened?”
Van helped himself from the bottle again and in a few terse words told Havens of what he had gone through since leaving the Union Club with a gun at Hesterberg’s head.
Food was brought in. Van fell to with a prodigious appetite, renewing his frazzled nerves and energy. Over his second cup of coffee and a cigarette Havens again plied him with questions.
“What has been puzzling me all along,” he began, “is how you disposed of Hesterberg at the club. I know you drugged him, but how?”
Van permitted himself a smile.
“I accomplished that with your subtle aid.”
“You don’t mean that glass of whisky Hesterberg and I drank together?”
“Exactly.”
“But then how was it that I wasn’t drugged, too?”
Van lit another cigarette and smiled fondly at the publisher. “That part is very simple, old man. When you and I were having our little conference in the locker, I offered you my pocket flask. You took a long pull and along with the whisky you imbibed the antidote to the drug I put in the bottle of Scotch I offered to y
ou and Hesterberg.”
Havens looked at his friend and smiled at him wryly. “And you wouldn’t tell me?”
Van shrugged. “There was no use in putting that added strain on you. But that part is in the past, forgotten. There are other worries to confront us. Frank” — and here his voice became tense and hard — “there is a traitor close to you; someone who knows your movements and consequently mine. How did Hesterberg know so positively that I would be at the Union Club last night?”
For another hour they discussed the matter, trying to place their fingers on the guilty man, but without success. For another hour they discussed Hesterberg and his diabolical plans, trying in vain to devise some master stroke to get the Russian into their power.
CHAPTER XIII
“I CAN’T TALK”
VAN SPENT the late afternoon and evening with Havens at the latter’s office at the Clarion. He was worried, troubled. That Hesterberg was slowly maturing his plans he knew but for once he felt himself absolutely helpless to frustrate the Russian.
Though he had succeeded on occasion to turn the tables on the Mad Red, he was accomplishing nothing to put a definite end to Hesterberg’s plan. Hesterberg was still at large; he still dominated his minions of the underworld. Where he would strike next, God alone knew.
At any moment Van expected to hear that another figure of international importance had received the threat of death. Until that happened he was helpless, powerless to lift a hand against Hesterberg.
He realized bitterly that that was where he was at a disadvantage. He had to sit supinely by, twiddling his thumbs until Hesterberg made the first move. He was making no moves of his own! He was the one who was on the defensive.
“Yes,” agreed Havens. “But good God, man, what can you do?”
“I’ve got to contact the underworld. I’ve got to get a direct line on Hesterberg through the underworld. Can’t you see it, Frank? Once I have a few strings out on the Russian, I can move myself. I will be able to act, do things, make demands.”
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