“John! John, dear! Speak to me!”
The woman was a superb actress. She had dropped to her knees beside him. One arm was under his feeble head. To the amazed attendant who had rushed up from his desk in the foyer she lifted large, liquid eyes.
“My husband—his heart… He’s had attacks like this before… No, no! No ambulance, please. Our car is downstairs at the curb. If you will call our chauffeur—here he is now, thank God! Hurry, Grimes. Get Mr. Lacy downstairs to the car. He’s had another heart attack. Can you lift him? Oh, be careful, please—”
As the burly Grimes reached down, a faint suspicion of a wink passed between him and the lovely lady.
Without any fuss and with a minimum of excitement the limp body of Lacy was carried down to the lobby and across the sidewalk to the waiting limousine at the curb. The pseudo Mrs. Lacy got hurriedly in. She sat close to the huddled figure in the corner, one arm supporting Lacy so he wouldn’t slide to the floor. The chauffeur sprang behind the wheel.
The whole episode took barely a minute or two. A few pedestrians stopped to stare. But their stares were more for the sleek magnificence of the limousine rather than the fact that it contained a sick man.
Only one pair of eyes appreciated the significance of what was occurring. A few yards along the sidewalk, in the shadow of a jeweler’s awning, a man whispered a faint, startled oath and reached instinctively for a hidden automatic pistol.
He was a small, nervous-appearing little man, with eager eyes and a face wrinkled like a winter apple. He took a single impulsive step forward. Then he changed his mind. His fingers came away empty from the concealed shoulder holster. He turned swiftly on his heel and walked diagonally toward the curb.
The luck of the Lord was with little Charlie Weaver of Amusement, Inc. A woman had just stepped from a taxicab and was walking toward the jeweler’s shop. Weaver popped inconspicuously into the empty cab and slammed the door.
“Uptown!” he growled. “Straight ahead. Make it snappy!”
The ornate limousine was purring slowly north into traffic.
Weaver leaned eagerly toward the opened glass panel behind his own driver.
“Follow that car, the big one just ahead of us. You get ten bucks over the fare if you keep it in sight.”
The hackman’s red face twisted backward for an instant. He grinned pleasantly.
“And not a damn cent if you let ’em get wise up ahead that we’re trailing ’em!” Weaver warned.
“Oke,” said the driver softly.
Charlie Weaver’s jaw jutted grimly. It was only a lucky miracle that he was in this cab following his chief. He had deliberately disobeyed orders by shadowing Jack Lacy. Now he was damned glad he had disobeyed. His worried hunch had been right. The invitation to the picture gallery had been a trick. In some way that devilishly good looking woman had managed to drug Lacy and kidnap him. Except for the presence of the disobedient Weaver the stunt would have been carried out without a flaw. As it was…
Weaver’s eyes narrowed. He seemed to hear Lacy’s well-remembered voice on a previous adventure: “Softly, my dear Charles! Don’t try to rescue poor Caxton. Caxton will make a most excellent decoy. He’ll show us the way to their hangout…”
The memory of that calm, modulated voice had stayed Weaver’s impetuous hand as he reached for his automatic pistol back there on the sidewalk in front of the Fifth Avenue jeweler’s shop. Charlie knew the major’s stern creed. The success of Amusement, Inc. transcended the life and safety of any member of the organization. The fact that Lacy himself was the helpless decoy in the limousine made no difference. In this disciplined war on crime the individual’s life meant nothing, be it the newest marine recruit or the Iron Major himself…
The stealthy automobile pursuit continued swiftly up Fifth Avenue past the long green-bowered wall of Central Park.
Presently the limousine made a sharp right turn and droned east. At Lexington it swung left again. There was no indication that the pursuit was noticed, but the chauffeur of the taxi-cab kept discreetly lagging nevertheless. He didn’t mean to lose that ten bucks bonus!
The chase bore steadily east now and traffic began to thin out. The speed of the taxi slackened. Suddenly with a faint squeal of its brakes it halted in front of a small stationery store.
The driver grinned as he glanced backward at his fare. He winked with a friendly cunning.
“Walk over to that corner newsstand, Bud, and buy yourself a paper.”
Weaver got out promptly and mooched over to the stand. He picked up a paper and threw down three cents. As he stood there pretending to look at the headlines, he let his eyes dart curiously down the side street.
The limousine he had trailed was parked quietly at the curb. As Weaver watched across the top of his paper, he saw the uniformed driver of the expensive car cross the sidewalk with Tattersall Lacy’s limp form slung across his brawny shoulder. The girl followed him and both disappeared into what looked like a brownstone private dwelling of the better class.
Weaver stepped nimbly back to the waiting taxicab and drew out his wallet. He held on tightly to the folded bills in his hand and frowned at the hackman.
“Are you sure you’re not wondering what this is all about?”
“Who, me? Don’t be silly, fella. I got a livin’ to make.”
“That’s fine. Scram!”
The cabman’s grimy paw snatched the dough. The taxicab made a wide left turn and shot west with a toot of its horn.
Charlie Weaver walked slowly down the street past the brownstone dwelling into which he had seen Tattersall Lacy carried. He made a leisurely circuit of the whole block, mapping the terrain with an experienced military eye. Some fifteen minutes or so later he stepped into a drugstore phone booth and closed the soundproof door behind him.
He dialed an unlisted number and a brisk voice replied almost immediately.
“Marine headquarters. Private Kendall, on switchboard duty.”
“Attention, Kendall! Captain Weaver talking. Put Mr. Harrigan on the wire at once.”
A click sounded, followed by Pat Harrigan’s jovial foghorn roar.
“Hello, Charlie. Where the hell did you skip to so mysteriously?”
“Alert!” Weaver barked in tense command. “Alert!” Harrigan repeated swiftly. He said no more.
Into a dead silence at the other end of the wire the doughty little chief of staff of Amusement, Inc., began to issue orders with a careful and even precision.
CHAPTER II
THE MASTER’S LAIR
John Tattersall Lacy awoke with a dull, pounding headache. He was flat on his back on a chaise lounge in a room that was illuminated with a soft blaze of artificial light.
For a moment he thought it was night. Then suddenly he realized with a start that the room was a sealed chamber. The walls were an even silver tone, unbroken by doors or windows.
Mechanically he groped for his watch and found it still ticking. The hands pointed to ten minutes past twelve. Was it midnight or noon? Inside of a sealed room he couldn’t be sure. But the instinctive feeling persisted that he hadn’t been unconscious very long.
He swung his feet to the floor, sat up gingerly, tensed his stiffened muscles. Except for the dull headache back of his ears he was perfectly alert and normal. A swift search of his pockets disclosed the fact that nothing had been taken from him. His pistol was still tucked snugly away in its concealed spring shoulder holster.
He took a turn about the room, peering at the unbroken expanse of silvered walls. He knew with a sick feeling of wrath and despair that he had been neatly tricked by a very beautiful and very clever woman. He was penned up for slaughter like a steer in an abattoir. By whom? For whom?
There was only one answer. The Scarlet Ace! A faint sound brought Tattersall Lacy’s pistol out of concealment like a flash. He stared watchfully at th
e wall in front of him.
A voice behind him said sweetly: “Good morning, John dear!”
He whirled. The woman from the picture gallery was smiling at him with faint, acid mockery. A panel in the wall closed with a click.
She made a little pouting face at the gun.
“You wouldn’t shoot your poor wife with an empty pistol, would you, dear?”
He stared at her with a hard, expressionless countenance and a leveled weapon. He was suddenly furious at the assured mockery of her tone and bearing. For a second their eyes clashed. Then, without a word, he pulled the trigger. There was a dull click as the hammer fell on an empty chamber.
In spite of herself the woman shuddered. The smile went out of her eyes.
“That was a deadly thing to do, my friend.”
“I’m a deadly man, my dear-er-wife, I believe?”
“The name,” she said coldly, “is Zita.”
Lacy bowed ceremoniously and watched her narrowly. He knew that he was in stark peril, but in spite of his predicament he found himself fighting down a rising wave of admiration for this cunning agent of the Ace. Against the glowing background of the silvered wall the woman’s beauty was so flawlessly superb!
She had changed from her street costume to sleeveless lounging pajamas of pale water-green silk. On her feet were tiny green pointed mules. From jeweled shoulder clasps her bare arms emerged like pale slender ivory. Beneath the soft green folds of the silken jacket her ungirdled figure was frankly firm and rounded.
She came forward slowly and the loose trousers she wore accentuated the feminine sway of her hips. Her smile was again a jeer.
“And how is my poor John?”
“A trifle puzzled, thank you,” Lacy said dryly. “May I ask why you’ve honored me again with your charming presence? I thought that you had already successfully completed your part in this little comedy. Or should I say tragedy?”
The girl’s eyes fell before his, Her face suddenly was a shade paler. Then she resumed her mockery.
“I came to see if my dear spouse was himself again. The Master is anxious to interview you.”
“The ‘Master,’ of course, being the Scarlet Ace?”
“Of course.”
Her voice still struck at that memory chord in the major’s brain. He looked at her searchingly.
“Tell me, have I ever spoken with you before this morning’s-er-mishap?”
She laughed with tinkling amusement. “Not directly, my poor John. I spoke once and you listened, I believe. Surely you remember.”
And then he knew! His mind flashed back to a poisoned phonograph disk whirring softly in his penthouse library while the men of Amusement, Inc. listened behind the protection of grotesque gas masks to the first bombastic challenge of the Scarlet Ace. A woman’s tones had spoken first from the disc. She had bid them in a charming voice to listen carefully to the message from the “Master.”
That woman was Zita!
Lacy cursed inwardly. If only he had…
“Exactly, my dear,” Zita replied, reading his thought. “My voice was the only weak link in the kidnap scheme. We gambled on the fact that you wouldn’t remember in time. And we won.”
“True enough,” Lacy replied steadily. “And I suppose I’ve lost. I’m going to be killed, I presume.”
Again her mocking eyes wavered before his gray ones.
“Or tortured?” he continued insistently. “The Scarlet Ace would undoubtedly love me to betray to him the names of the men on the Emergency Council, decent members of society who are cheerfully risking their lives to stamp out a vicious cutthroat and murderer.”
Her head came up and the dark eyes flamed. Then she shrugged listlessly.
“Call him what you like. It’s nothing to me. I’m only a small cog in a marvelous machine. I’m only his—”
“His lovely and devoted mistress,” Lacy purred.
The sting of her open hand on his face drove him backward a step.
“Your filthy liar!” she panted. She was like a tigress poised to rend him. She was stiff with anger—and was it an incredulous horror?
The major’s eyes remained flinty. There was little mirth in his short laugh. His face was a dead white except for the crimson splotch where Zita had struck him.
“I stand corrected,” he said gravely. “You’re just a member of his murder gang. You admire him for his skill as a wholesale killer. Is that it?”
She said harshly: “You’re wasting your breath, Major. Save it for the time when you confront the Master.”
As she turned contemptuously away Lacy’s right hand, gripped her shoulder and swung her around to face him. She struggled for a second, saw the hopelessness of pulling free, and relaxed. “Please let me go! You’re hurting me.”
“That doesn’t matter a damn,” Lacy rejoined evenly. His grip tightened on her shoulder. He saw her wince.
“I’m going to tell you something, my dear Zita,” he said quietly. “God only knows why except that you’re as lovely a murder tool as I’ve ever seen—and, frankly, I can’t figure you out. You look decent, you sound decent; and yet you deliberately lured me to my death. Why, my dear Zita? I get the same feeling of amazement when I look at you as I would if I found a scented and full-blown rose in hell. It’s not logical. Why should a woman of your type consort with ape-faced gangsters and a maniac in a blood-red mask? A moment ago I tested you with a filthy accusation and you reacted the way I hoped you would. In God’s name, what queer mental quirk binds you to a monster like the Ace?”
“You’re hurting me,” she repeated dully. “I have nothing to say. Think what you like.”
Lacy’s grip relaxed on her shoulder but she didn’t move.
“A year ago,” the major went on tonelessly, “I resigned my military commission and abandoned an honorable career to wage war on the rats who kill decent citizens and fatten on the fruits of organized blackmail. I did it as a patriotic duty and because a beloved leader high in the councils of our government told me I was the man best fitted to do the job. I couldn’t stop now if I wanted to, because the dead voices of my comrades who have been killed in this war on vice and filth wouldn’t let me quit—nor, by God, would I ever want to.” His voice became even quieter.
“Hitherto I’ve been lucky, Zita. But today you made me ridiculous. That hurts. Although I realize that a woman of your beauty could make any man ridiculous. And so the comedy ends, my dear-er-wife. I go to meet the Scarlet Ace presently and everything ends for me.”
A faint pulse was throbbing rhythmically at Zita’s throat. The pale tracery of blue veins under the ivory flesh fascinated him.
“It’s war,” she murmured. “You said so yourself.”
“So I did. But neither of us quite believe that, do we? Even you must realize that this is no counterpart to honorable war. It’s justice with the bandage off her eyes, striking down ugly vermin. Do you mind looking at me?”
Her glance wavered past his square-cut chin, the clipped sandy mustache, the lean and high-boned cheeks.
“Do you honestly think, my dear Zita,” he said, “that the Ace and I are just a pair of rival generals—that there’s no other difference between us?”
“Please! There’s nothing to be gained by this kind of talk. I think you’re merely a foolishly brave… It—it doesn’t matter what I think.”
“Oh, yes it does, Zita. Your thoughts are important to me. After all, I’m your comic opera husband, you know. You even wore a ring to prove it. You still have it on, I see.”
She snatched the hand away angrily Her red lips twisted. Lacy could see that she was desperately forcing herself into a rage. She tried to pull away from him but he cupped her rounded shoulders with both hands.
“Let me go, you ridiculous fool!”
“Why should I?” he retorted, “After all, I’m your husband.
”
She fought pantingly to free herself. Her breasts stirred under the green silk. Her slippered feet kicked at him. Lacy in cold anger swept her against him in a crushing embrace and his lips pressed against hers.
His head swam suddenly with the perfume of her dark hair. He bent her backward and his mouth slipped hungrily against the curve of her throat. Zita’s arched body went limp. Lacy held her with a kind of savage triumph for a long heart-thudding instant.
When he released her his hands were trembling.
He said thickly: “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect to do that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she breathed vaguely. Her own voice was thick, drowsy. She lifted a weak hand toward her disordered hair.
A soft clicking sound made Lacy whirl. Across the room, in the wall opposite the one through which Zita had entered, a square opening yawned.
A man stepped through. His face was masked, but to Lacy’s surprise the hood was black—not scarlet.
Two unmasked men followed the intruder.
They were heavy, powerful looking, with thick shoulders and squat, bullet heads. Prizefighters, Lacy thought swiftly. Then his eyes dropped to the massive legs, the long arms with the fingers unconsciously curling and twitching. Wrestlers, whispered the major’s alert brain.
He stood quite still, watching the trio. The gun in his hidden holster was empty. To try for a break would be suicidal. He forced a thin smile and bowed ironically.
“Come in, gentlemen,” he said dryly. He waved a vague hand about the room. “Sorry we haven’t more chairs.”
The two wrestlers blinked. The man in the black mask paid no attention whatever to the suave irony. His slitted eyes swung toward Zita.
“Quite an informal costume,” he sneered. “I presume you’ve had the Master’s permission to visit this man?”
Zita’s lovely face twisted into an expression of mingled scorn and disgust. Her antipathy for the man in the black mask needed no explanation. Lacy was himself conscious of the same crawling dislike. The fellow’s gracefully effeminate hands, his light womanish voice, the very poise of his body were offensive to the major.
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