by Lester Dent
He ended up in the basement. This was very large, divided into several rooms—washroom, gym, billiard room, and a larger enclosure which held a furnace.
The furnace was an oil burner, and there was a fuel tank, almost as large as half a railway tank car.
It was very warm in the furnace room. Nace put a hand on the furnace. It was hot. He opened the doors. The fires were out. There was no room for anyone to have been concealed in the furnace.
He went over and started to climb upon the fuel tank, with the idea of peering in the manhole at the top. Instead of doing that, he sprang back, ran to the stairs.
“Come down here!” he called. “I’ve got something for you!”
There was no answer from above.
“Come here!” Nace repeated sharply.
No reply.
Nace climbed the stairs with long jumps, ran into the room where he had left Robin Hood Lloyd and his companions.
Jaxon glared at Nace over the twin blue snouts of a derringer.
“I’m gonna collect that ten thousand yet!” the oil editor gritted.
THE Robin Hood and his two fellows had their hands at shoulder level. Their faces held fierce hate, and also wariness. The derringer held only two bullets. But that was enough to kill two men.
Waving his weapon to cover everyone, Jaxon sidled over and disarmed his prisoners.
“Jaxon—you nut!” Nace started forward.
“Get back!” Jaxon snarled. “I’d like nothing better than to sink lead into you!”
In a loud, wolf-howl of a voice, the Robin Hood said, “He had the hideout up his pants leg!”
“That’s your hard luck!” Nace grunted. “You searched ’im—not me!”
“Shut up and plop down on your faces!” Jaxon ordered.
The Robin Hood’s claw-like hands opened and shut. He exhibited all the signs of a man about to make a break.
“Go ahead—if you want to croak!” Nace told him, and lay his full length on the floor. “This lunk ain’t foolin’! That ten thousand has got him crazy!”
Reluctantly, as if their joints were afflicted with a stiffness, Oklahoma’s master outlaw and his two satellites followed Nace’s example in flattening to the floor. They let Jaxon bind them.
When the job was done, Jaxon stepped back. His face was flushed, his eyes gleeful.
“Now to call a flock of cops!” he gloated.
He went to the telephone, picked up the receiver and listened. Making one of his faces, he flung away from the instrument. “Line’s dead! Wires must be cut!”
He seized upon Nace’s bag, stripped back the zipper, and peered inside.
“Regular bag of magic!” He leered at Nace. “I’ll just take this along. I don’t want you gettin’ away and turnin’ your buddies loose!”
He walked outdoors. The rear door slammed.
Nace sat up. Twisting, he managed to reach his left trouser leg with both hands. He grasped it at the cuff, one hand on either side of the seam, and made a tearing gesture. The seam pulled apart.
Six inches of thin hacksaw blade came out.
Jaxon had used wire clothesline for the binding. The hacksaw blade quickly cut through the bonds on Nace’s ankles. He ran to the Robin Hood.
“Hold the blade!” he commanded. “I’ll saw my wrists free!”
Eagerly, the bandit complied. It required perhaps a minute for Nace to loosen his hands. Twice, he gashed himself. Then he sprang erect.
“Now untie me!” growled the Robin Hood.
Nace laughed harshly. “Who said anything about untying you?”
The bandit snarled like a wolf in a trap. “Damn you! If I ever catch you with a gun, it’ll be your finish!”
Ignoring the ominous promise, Nace glided to a window and looked out. There was no Jaxon. But the man had time to depart.
“Have you been watching this house all afternoon?” Nace asked the Robin Hood.
“Go chase yourself!”
“Have you? This is important!”
“Yeah—all afternoon!” the bandit admitted grouchily. “Why?”
“The blond followed you here, and then disappeared. That proves she’s not here—she couldn’t have been brought in without you noticing.”
“How come you know so much about that blond?” the Robin Hood pondered.
WITHOUT enlightening the puzzled outlaw, Nace dropped from a window and dived into shrubbery. He angled northeast. Reservoir Hill sloped down there with less abruptness.
Since it was the shag end of the hill, giving only a view of oil wells, a tank farm or two, and numerous long tin oil-well tool supply houses, there were no mansions.
Weeds grew profusely, and to the size of small trees. A single narrow drive, the concrete somewhat cracked, angled down the slope.
Nace ran along the road, eyes downcast. He was taking a long chance—or maybe it was not such a long chance, considering certain deductions he had made.
He soon found what he had hoped for—a car standing in the weeds a few yards from the seldom-used road. It was a limousine, large, the body custom made.
Nace went to it and looked in. It was empty.
“Julia!” he called.
An echo came back at him from the side of Reservoir Hill, but there was no answer. Nace walked a circle around the car, close to it at first, then more distant.
He found crushed weeds, more weeds which had been broken down, then straightened. A trail! He followed it a few yards.
Julia was tied in a ring around a small scrub oak tree—hands and feet lashed together in a ball. She was gagged with a handkerchief and copious quantities of adhesive tape, also blindfolded.
Nace freed her, helped her erect.
“What was it?” he demanded.
She began to describe the two men he had left unconscious in the little brick house out on Eleventh.
“Not that pair!” he said impatiently. “Or did they leave you here?”
“No,” she said. “It was someone else—one man! But I was blindfolded! I can’t tell you a thing about him!”
“O.K. It’s back to town with you!” Nace cocked an eye at the sun. It was some slight distance above the horizon. “Better still, fog out to the airport and grab the Kansas City plane. One leaves in about half an hour!”
“Nix!” she said.
He scowled at her. “Are you gonna be contrary?”
“No!” she explained carefully. “I’m just not going to leave!”
He shrugged, then led the way back up the Hill. Julia bobbed along at his side. The wind stirred her blond hair, and in brushing it out of her eyes, she pulled a handful where she could look at it. She grimaced, “If this stuff don’t wash off—I’ll be a sight!”
She was limping, stiffened as she was by being tied around the scrub oak.
“How’d you find me?” she demanded.
“By using the old bean. They had you, and they couldn’t have taken you to their hangout, because the Robin Hood was watching. So they had to leave you somewhere. I took a chance on it being nearby.”
“Do you know who’s behind this?”
“Sure!” Nace told her. “But don’t ask me who. So far, he’s been too slick for me to prove anything!”
THE Robin Hood and his two companions glared at them when they entered the rambling, blockish brick mansion. Nace had not gagged the trio. Outlaws that they were, they certainly would not yell for help.
The Robin Hood stuttered, “Who—what—for cryin’ out loud!” Then he rolled over on his face and groaned loudly. It had dawned on him that the blond was Nace’s agent. He snarled, “If I ever catch you with a gun—”
Nace looked at the girl. “You heeled?”
She laughed. “Sure! They never found my hideout, and I had no chance to use it!”
Reaching under the patty of blond hair on her nape—it still retained some of its shape—she produced her tiny gun.
“O.K. Watch these cookies!” Nace gestured at the basement. “I’m going down and
have a look. There’s a furnace down there, and a fuel-oil tank. The outfit is rigged so that the oil runs though the furnace and is heated, boiler fashion.”
The girl shuddered. “You mean—”
“That this is the joint where the victims have been drowned in oil—or boiled in oil, whichever way you want it.”
She shuddered again. “What gets me is whatever suggested such a means of murder!”
“Simple! Hot oil! Get it? Anybody gets too close to the hot oil, and he gets cooked in the stuff! Every time one of those bodies was found, no one had any trouble understanding what was back of it!”
Nace descended the stairs, entered the furnace room and clambered upon the tank. He was wondering if there might not be a body in it. Apparently there was not.
The tank was so hot he could not bear his touch upon it. He perspired, not entirely from the heat; he was thinking of the boiled body in the house on Eleventh.
Concealed in a recess behind the tank were wires for lowering bodies into the boiling oil, and great bolts of oil cloth to bind the cadavers in afterward, and to spread upon the floor so that there would be no stains.
The cache was in a metal box which fitted in a niche that was disclosed when bricks were lifted out.
There was quite an armament with the other stuff—three army rifles, a half dozen automatics, sawed-off shotguns, and a machine gun. The latter was no diminutive Tommy, firing pistol cartridges, but a full-size weapon chambering long .30-calibre rifle slugs. It was a regulation military gun, airplane type.
Nace was looking at it when the next development came.
“Nace!” the blond called from above. “Watch out!”
NACE scrambled madly off the tank, carrying the machine gun. He ran for the stairs.
There was scuffling above. Before he came in sight of the stairway, he heard feet clattering down it.
Driving a hand inside his coat, Nace brought out one of the cigars. He clamped it between his teeth. Raking a match on a partition, he lighted the weed. He was puffing strongly when he came within sight of the stairs.
Blond Julia stood on the steps. She was struggling, kicking. But she was held quite helpless by the man who was behind her, using her as a shield.
The man wore a long raincoat. His trouser legs were pulled up, so that only his hairy shanks showed below the raincoat. His features were entirely masked by two bandanas, one tied so that it hung behind, and the other in front, perforated with eyeholes. His hands were cased in cotton gloves. One held an automatic.
He pointed the weapon at Nace.
“Drop it!” His voice was hoarse, unreal—a disguised tone.
Meekly, Nace dropped the machine gun. He drew on the cigar and ran a plume of smoke from his nostrils.
“C’mon up here!” he was directed. “And get them hands up!”
Nace followed the orders to the letter.
The Robin Hood and his two satellites still lay on the floor, wired tightly. They glared, cursed in low voices.
“This is the big shot!” snarled the Robin Hood. “The guy who murdered my kid brother!”
“You had no business sending your kid brother punking around to find out who I was!” the masked man growled. Then to Nace, he snapped, “You get over against the wall!”
Nace backed until his shoulders were clamped to the wall. The cigar protruded stiffly from his teeth.
The masked man advanced, menacing Nace with the automatic, shoving the girl ahead of him. He slammed her against the wall, snarled, “You stay there! Behave, and you may live a few minutes longer.”
Then he reached out to search Nace.
Nace blew smoke in his face.
The man cursed, straightened, and brought up a hand to knock the cigar out of Nace’s teeth.
There was a loud crack. Sparks, tobacco, geysered from the end of Nace’s cigar.
The masked man jabbed both hands convulsively in the air. He slanted stiffly backward, as if his heels were hinged to the floor. In his forehead, on the right side, where it had penetrated the brain, was a circular hole somewhat more than an eighth of an inch across.
He crashed his length on the floor, hitting so hard that his heels flew up, then banged back.
Nace took the remains of the cigar out of his teeth, pinched out flaming shreds of tobacco, and pocketed it. The firing barrel inside the cigar, chambered for a .22-long-rifle cartridge, was expensive. Another cigar could be built around it. The thing was fired by a hard pressure of the teeth.
Stooping, Nace started to strip off the mask. Then he hesitated, eyed the girl, and asked, “Want to bet that I can’t name him?”
She shuddered. “Don’t be dramatic!”
He shucked off the mask.
The cherubic, Santa Claus features of Ebenezer App, white beard and all, were disclosed.
THE Robin Hood, rearing up from the floor, cried out, “For yellin’ out loud! The last hombre on earth that I suspected!”
“Sly old duck—he was!” Nace said grimly. He looked at the Robin Hood. “He owes his downfall to you!”
The bandit glared. “You’re nuts! I didn’t even suspect—”
“Maybe not! But it was your finagling around with me when I first got here that started App worrying. He thought I smelled a rat, because I hadn’t reported to him. He decided to fake his own death and clear out, I guess.
“Probably that body on Eleventh Street is one of his own men who was about his build. He dumped the fellow in oil, then took him out and bundled some white whiskers in with the body.”
Julia walked to the door and outside. She didn’t like to look at dead men. She called back, “But you said you suspected who it was?”
“Sure!” Nace grunted. “When App told me over the phone that he knew who was behind the hot-oil business, he wouldn’t say who it was. That was queer. It occurred to me that the old goat just wanted me to hurry over and find out he was kidnapped!”
Swinging over, Nace began untying the Robin Hood and his two men.
“What’re you going to do?” snarled the bandit.
“Let you go bye-bye! You did save my life, you know!”
The Robin Hood purpled. “By hell, I wish I’d let the guy slug you with his shotgun when he looked under the flivver! I like you less than any guy I ever saw!”
“Just a pal!” Nace jeered.
“If I ever catch you with a gun, I’m gonna kill you!” the Oklahoma outlaw yelled.
In the distance somewhere, a police siren was wailing. That would be Jaxon and his policemen.
Leaving the bandit and his two men to get to their feet and finish untying themselves, Nace went to the body of Ebenezer App. He searched briefly—found a twin to the automatic which the man carried and dropped when he died. Nace picked up both guns.
He examined the weapons. Both were clipped full of cartridges.
He tossed one to the Robin Hood.
The bandit caught it. He stared, surprised. “What the—”
Nace rapped angrily, “You’ve been shooting off that mouth about what you’d do if you ever caught me with a gun! Well—”
“You’re askin’ for it!” the outlaw ripped. He jutted the gun at Nace.
There was a terrific roar—two shots, almost one, but with a slight stutter which marked a shade in timing.
The Robin Hood squawled. He waved his gun hand madly over his head. It was mangled, and scattered scarlet drops over walls and ceiling.
His automatic skittered along the wall behind him.
Without a word, but with an expression of agonizing chagrin on his wolf face, the Robin Hood whirled and dived through a window. His two men followed him. Running rapidly, they were soon lost to sight.
Nace went to the door.
Blond Julia gave him a disapproving frown.
“Dramatics!” she snapped. “Some day, that stuff is going to be your finish!”
Nace pretended he hadn’t heard, and watched a police phaeton moan up the hill and careen into the drive. Dapper
Jaxon sprang out, along with numerous policemen. The oil editor was like a peacock hen with a brood of blue chicks.
“Hot after his ten thousand!” Nace said dryly. “Speaking of dramatics—you’re gonna hear ’em when he finds his bird has flown!”
The Flaming Mask
The Chicago World’s Fair had a new and amazing attraction—a red-hot meteor. Buried in this molten mausoleum was a man’s skull, and a square-cut diamond. The papers played it up as an unlucky planet dweller hurled earthward to doom. But Lee Nace, ace detective, doubted that star dwellers wore square-cut diamonds—and he went out to take a look for himself. It was then that he came face to face with—the flaming mask.
Chapter I
The Hell Heat
THE alleged meteor fell slightly after midnight. The morning papers carried a story about it. The item was interesting. But it was not half as arresting as the astounding and horrible discovery which was made a bit later.
Agency Detective Lee Nace read the papers that morning. There was also a short double paragraph about himself. It was on the front page, and said Nace, renowned sleuth whom Scotland Yard had once kept in England for a time as consultant, had stopped off in town to see the Century of Progress. The meteor item was on an inside page.
Nace clipped the bit about himself, filed it in a brief case. That kind of publicity was good for his business.
The alleged meteor was taken to the Century of Progress grounds for exhibition. That afternoon, a scientist put it under a powerful X-ray. What he saw caused the scientist’s eyes to pop. He called wildly to his associates.
A portion of a human skull was embedded in the upper part of the supposed meteor. Inside the skull were what appeared to be brains, thoroughly cooked.
In the lower portion of the meteor was a diamond. The gem was cut with large facets, a setting from a ring, perhaps.
The skull was that of a man.
Nace went out to look. No one invited him. Nobody paid him. He was simply interested in unusual murders. This looked like one.
Of course, the newspaper scribes wondered—in front page print—if the meteor was not a fallen star, and the skull that of an unlucky dweller from another planet. Nace doubted that star dwellers wore square-cut diamonds.
