Phantom Detective - Black Ball of Death

by Robert Wallace

  “You’re right,” the Phantom agreed.

  McCabe looked pleased. “Sure. I sent out an alarm. I want to pick that car up and get Pennell for questioning.”

  “A good idea if it works. But,” the Phantom added, “I don’t believe it will.”

  “Why not?”

  “The one — or ones — responsible for young Arden’s murder are clever. Too clever to allow themselves to be caught in a car. You can be sure they’re using wrong markers and are out of the state by now. Or they’re hidden somewhere not on the move, heading for any police trap.”

  Sheriff McCabe puffed on his pipe, thinking it over. He moved his feet.

  “Here’s a funny one,” he said. “Remember the pool ball that was on the floor near the body?”

  The Phantom threw him a sharp look. “What about it?”

  “Arden’s prints were on it,” McCabe said, slowly. “We took Arden’s for files — do things pretty complete around here — and they turned out to be a perfect match for the ones we took off the ball. Which means, Arden put that ball on the floor where we found it!”

  For a minute the Phantom was silent. Again the significance of the eight ball ran through his mind. What the sheriff disclosed added another twist to the riddle. Though, the Phantom realized, the slayer could have clamped Arthur Arden’s cold fingers around the ball and put his prints on it.

  When he mentioned that, McCabe was quick to shake his head. “Too clear for that. These were live prints.”

  “Then,” the Phantom said, “death wasn’t instantaneous. What did the medical examiner say? If Arden was shot twice, and one bullet entered his heart, he didn’t have much time to pick up balls.”

  “That’s right,” McCabe rubbed his chin. “But he could have been standing beside the table when he was shot. He could have had the pool ball in his hand. He could have held onto it and collapsed with it.”

  “And,” the Phantom said, half to himself, “he could have seen his killer before the shots were fired and purposely reached for the ball.”

  “Why would he do that?” McCabe looked puzzled.

  “For a number of reasons. All of them, at the moment, hypothetical.”

  The sheriff shook his head. “According to the Doc, Arden was blanked out fast. Either shot, so Doe said, was enough to have killed him quick.”

  “I think,” the Phantom commented, “I’ll talk to your friend Grundy at the inn. Let me know about the other fingerprints you found when you have the report. Meanwhile,” he added just the right amount of flattery, “keep up the good work, Sheriff. You’re moving in the right direction.”

  “Well, thanks.” McCabe seemed to expand and glow. “Coming from you that means a lot!”

  The Phantom left him and, following directions, stopped at the Lakeside Inn.

  It was a typical summer hostelry, limited to no more than fifty guests. Hiram Grundy, in his too-large, high, starched collar, too-short alpaca jacket, and too-tight trousers looked like a hangover from the Gay Nineties when the Phantom found his office back of the clerk’s desk and made his business known. This time he passed himself off as a New York detective and let Grundy see his shield.

  “Tell me about this Bernard Pennell,” he said. “McCabe has his description. Medium height, dark complexion, thin face with no distinguishing feature or features.”

  “That’s right.” Grundy wrinkled his forehead. “Guess he weighed about a hundred and fifty, maybe less. Nice talker and seemed well educated. Plenty of money.”

  “Did you notice anything about his ears?”

  Grundy looked startled. “Ears?”

  “Was one of them twisted or malformed?”

  “No. Looked the same as anybody else’s to me.”

  The Phantom nodded. “He checked out this morning. Did you notice the men in the car he left in?”

  “No, I didn’t. Pennell took his own bag out. He seemed in a hurry. There were a couple of fellers in the auto. I didn’t get a good look at them.”

  “I’ll take a look at the room Pennell slept in last night.”

  Grundy got a key from the rack and led the way up one flight of stairs. He opened the door at the end of the corridor and stood aside to let the Phantom go in.

  The Phantom glanced around. It was a pleasant room, sunny and furnished with a gaily painted bureau, bed, table, and chairs. The bed had been freshly made and the room otherwise had been cleaned and put in order. A waste basket under the table was empty. If Bernard Pennell had left any clues, the maid assigned to the room had removed them.

  With a shrug the Phantom stepped back into the hall.

  “Thanks,” he said to Grundy. “That’s all.”

  The hotel man seemed a trifle surprised. Evidently he had expected the New York detective to go through a Headquarters routine, checking the room from floor to ceiling.

  The Phantom went back to Sheriff McCabe’s office. At the curb there, his big black sedan stood parked under a tree. Steve Huston, on the front seat, was making shorthand notes. He slipped the book in his pocket as the Phantom joined him.

  Steve’s freckled face wore an optimistic look. “Just got back from the State Attorney’s office. Nice guy. But no new angles on Arthur Arden’s murder. Did you have any luck?”

  “Plenty — all bad.” The Phantom spoke laconically. “Mc­Cabe inside?”

  “He went out about ten minutes ago — on a phone call from somebody named Ruddy who claims he found a boat he thinks the killer used last night. Maybe we’d better go over and see what it’s all about.”

  “I’ll tell you on the way back. Finished here?”

  “Temporarily.” Steve Huston tossed his cigarette out the window and slouched back on the leather upholstery.

  The Phantom’s word picture of morning activities at Lake Candle was brief but. to the point. Huston listened attentively. When the Phantom came to the shots fired at him from the woods, the reporter straightened.

  “Then the killer’s on the loose — at the lake! What are we going back to town for?”

  “Not the killer.” The Phantom’s tone was crisp. “He’s too smart to lurk around the scene of last night’s tragedy. But he’s left a rear guard. Someone to cover the neighborhood, keep him informed on what progress is being made by the law and —”

  “Knock you off!” the reporter cut in. “How do they know you’re in it?”

  The Phantom moved his shoulders. “I’ve been pretty much in evidence since I arrived at the lodge last night. They had a watcher staked out in the woods there. A pair of high-powered binoculars could have picked me out this morning on several occasions.”

  “What now?” Huston asked, when they were on the main highway, heading swiftly back to Manhattan.

  “I’ll have something for you to do — later. You,” the Phantom told him, “and Chip Dorlan. . . .”

  *****

  IT WAS almost three o’clock in the afternoon when Dorlan came into the Green Spot, that Broadway tavern which the Phantom found convenient as a rendezvous whenever he was on a case.

  The Green Spot occupied a Times Square corner and had a rear room where conversation was possible without being listened in on. With Steve Huston beside him, the Phantom watched the electric clock over the door that led to the circular bar in the front of the place.

  At exactly the time he had set, Chip walked in.

  Like the redheaded reporter, Chip Dorlan was a valued assistant to the Phantom Detective. Born and reared on the West Coast, Chip had come up the hard way. He claimed San Francisco as a birthplace, and his early training in the University of Hard Knocks had been buffed and polished during the war with Army Intelligence.

  Now, equipped with exactly the qualifications the Phantom needed, Chip’s wartime training, quick wits, and sound judgment, made him a big help on any case. Sometime, the Phantom knew, Chip was going to step out and open an agency office of his own. He had all the necessary attributes that went to make a first-class private detective.

  Sl
im, wiry, and sharp-eyed, Chip shook hands with the Phantom when Steve gave him a significant nod. Dorlan pulled up a chair.

  “Don’t tell me,” he began. “Let me guess. It’s the murder at Lake Candle last night.”

  “It’s your jackpot.” Steve grinned. The Phantom gave Chip Dorlan a concise, two-minute rsum of the killing at the lodge. Then he leaned forward. “I want you two to find a blonde named Vicki. She was a friend of Arthur Arden, probably one of the last to see him alive. She’s important. She has to be located!”

  “A blonde?” Dorlan drew a breath. “Like looking for a haystack in a flock of needles.”

  “Arden spent a lot of time and money in the night spots around town,” the Phantom pointed out. “Somebody should know Vicki. Waiters, hat-check girls, doormen, bus boys — I want you both to get busy checking them immediately. Steve can prepare a list of all the main places. Divide them up between you, and start at once. This girl has got to be found!”

  A few minutes later the Phantom left the Green Spot. His intention was to stop off for a word with Frank Havens. He always did that when he was working on a case, keeping the publisher informed as to what progress had been made.

  The Times Square pavements were crowded as usual. Out-of-town visitors, the habitus of the district, and sightseers rubbed elbows and shins in the passing parade.

  The Phantom started south, but he hadn’t gone more than a block before his intuition told him someone had picked up his trail. Another block and he turned and walked into a haberdashery shop. There, before a clerk bustled up to wait on him, he shot an inquiring glance back through the doorway — and glimpsed the one who had been shagging him.

  Near the curb, slowing perceptibly, was a man of medium height, quietly dressed, with one distinguishing feature. His left ear was oddly twisted!

  CHAPTER VIII

  BEHIND THE DOOR

  IT WAS the same character the Phantom and Steve Huston had lost in the traffic that morning. The Phantom’s first flush of annoyance, brought on by knowing the Green Spot had been pegged, faded. A sardonic smile edged his mouth. Frank Havens could wait — until later.

  The Phantom knew what had happened. Twisted Ear had gone back to his old stand across from the Clarion Building. Steve Huston, in his haste and eagerness to get over to Times Square, must have left himself wide open for a tail. The man had followed him and hung around outside the tavern.

  The thought ran through the Phantom’s mind about the same time the clerk said deferentially, “Something I can show you, sir?”

  “That’s right.” The sardonic smile bit deeper. “A rear door out of here!” The Phantom added, “Police business. There’s a man outside I want to slip.”

  While he spoke, he palmed his badge. The clerk, a well-­barered and-manicured young man, with plastered-down hair and a flower in his buttonhole, was startled.

  “Police? You —”

  “How do I get out of here without using the front door?” the Phantom broke in brusquely.

  “There’s a side entrance — this way.” The clerk spun around on his elevated heels and started toward the rear of the shop. “It leads out to the washroom and back hall.”

  “Where does the back hall go?”

  “A door at its end opens into the millinery store on the corner.”

  “That will do. Thanks.” The Phantom stopped and turned. “If a man comes in for me, a person with a twisted ear, tell him which way I went.”

  Another minute and the Phantom created a mild disturbance by stepping directly into the workroom of the millinery establishment mentioned. Four women, busy at work planting artificial flowers on hats, stopped to stare and ask what he wanted.

  He went hastily through to the front of the store, flashing his badge en route. Beside a folded length of drapery at the window, he looked cautiously out.

  The man with the twisted ear, after a glance into the haberdashery shop, had started down Broadway again.

  “Sorry to have bothered you.” The Phantom gave the stout, formidable proprietress one of his best smiles.

  “I don’t know what it’s all about,” she rumbled, “but that badge looks official. What’s the trouble?”

  The Phantom laughed. “Cops and robbers.”

  He let himself out, melting into the crowd with one easy, gliding motion.

  Long experience had perfected him in the fine art of successfully trailing a suspect. The Phantom used finesse and strategy that might have been borrowed from an Indian tribesman. He never made the mistake of over-anxiety or allowing himself to be outmaneuvered. Following the man with the twisted ear, he put into play all the deft tricks of his trade.

  In the upper Thirties, the one he was after turned abruptly west. The side street was not as crowded as the avenue had been, and the Phantom had to drop back. Now he used his keen, searching gaze to observe his prey’s progress. He sent it arrowing after the other while he cut across to an opposite pavement, flipped down the brim of his hat, and changed his gait.

  Twisted Ear went along without a backward glance. The Phantom had done nothing to arouse suspicion or impress him with the feeling he was being dogged. Halfway down the street the man went up a short flight of steps that led to the entrance of a remodeled private house.

  There, for the first time, he looked up and down the block before he opened the door and went in.

  Passing leisurely, the Phantom gave the place an optical going-over. It was one of those ancient edifices from which the owner derived more rent from business than he could have obtained from furnished rooms or small apartments.

  A music publisher held forth on the main floor, a furrier plied his trade in the basement. The windows on the second floor were gold-leafed, Horgan and Carter, Attorneys-at-Law, Bail Bonds. The last two words were in large, impressive script.

  The Phantom mounted the short flight of front steps. The door the man had gone through was unlocked. Stepping into a dusty, uncarpeted foyer, the Phantom was greeted by a flurry of piano music swirling from the open transom of the music publisher’s office.

  The Phantom frowned at the closed door below the transom. Had the man gone in there? Determined to find out, he opened the door and found himself scrutinizing a small anteroom where a tired brunette was busy counting out freshly printed copies of some musical composition. There was no one else visible.

  “Did Mr. McGregor just come in?” the Phantom asked.

  Without change of expression or a break in her counting, the girl answered, “No one came in — except you. And who’s Mr. McGregor?”

  “My mistake.” The Phantom shut the door after him as he backed out.

  There were no other doors along the entry hall. On the landing above, the Phantom considered the ground glass expanse of Horgan and Carter’s place of business. Then he shook his head and went on to a final flight of stairs. They took him to the third floor and brought a quick stir of interest when, emerging on that landing, he found himself face to face with a series of doors.

  The piano music filtered faintly up to him. He hardly heard it. He tried the knob of the first door and looked into a storeroom. Files of music told him which tenant rented it. The second door was locked. The third, labeled PRIVATE showed gloom behind its half-pushed-back transom.

  The fourth door, when the Phantom reached it, produced better results. Beside it, head lowered, he caught a drift of conversation. Two men were talking.

  As he listened, he heard one say, “So you let him get away again?” It was a cold, ironic voice. An unpleasant, gravelly tone, spiced with contempt.

  Another voice said, “Listen, this party you put me on is a smart operator. He’s been two jumps ahead of me right along.”

  “Sure, sure. But you’re expected to catch up with him after the first slip.”

  “So I didn’t. So what?”

  The frosty, unpleasant voice said, “Nothing. Tell that to Bernie when he drops around. Maybe he’ll buy it.”

  The Phantom’s nerves went tight. This
was better luck than he had expected or hoped for. Separated from him by the narrow width of the wooden door were two men who, in some way, were definitely concerned with Arthur Arden’s killing!

  “When do you expect Bernie around?” the second speaker asked. The Phantom guessed he was the one with the twisted ear.

  “Any time. He left Jersey around noon. Had to do some sharp finagling. The local gendarmes had a call out for him.”

  The Phantom’s mind went back to the Lakeside Inn — to the Bernard Pennell who had checked out early that morning.

  Bernard Pennell — ‘Bernie’?

  The Phantom began to sketch out his next move. He had the choice of breaking in on them, or staying off and waiting for Pennell’s expected arrival. He decided on the latter course after a minute’s quick thought.

  The gravelly, icicle-packed voice began to speak again. The Phantom wheeled around. His sharp ears had caught the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. He took three steps away from the door, turning casually and staring down at the landing below.

  There, in the murky light, he had a glimpse of a man who wore a pearl-gray felt hat, a dark suit. He glimpsed a shadowed, thin face, but had no time for more than a superficial glance.

  The man in the gray felt opened the door of Horgan and Carter’s office on the floor below and went in.

  The Phantom’s face grew thoughtful. He had an odd feeling that the man intended coming on up to the third floor, that he had selected the law office on the spur of the minute.

  The Phantom’s eyes moved from the landing below to the door he had listened beside. A minute ticked away, several more, and then a telephone in room rang.

  “Yes — speaking.” The cold voice was level and hurried. Its owner listened and said, “I get it. Thanks,” and hung up.

  His companion said, “Was that Bernie?”

  The other didn’t answer. Instead, he asked, “Seen this morning’s paper? There’s an article in it that might interest you — Let me get it for you.”

  The legs of a chair scraped on the floor. Swiftly, the Phantom’s hand dipped in his coat, to reach for the gun in his shoulder holster. As his fingers closed over it, the door before him was swung open.