Death out of Thin Air (5 page)

Even at that, Mickey still didn't know what had happened.

“Come on, Mysterioso,” she said as she steered the big car through a space between two trucks that appeared hardly large enough for a skinny man on a bicycle. “Talk fast. What is this all about?”

Diavolo grinned wickedly. “Just a little impromptu vanishing trick. A benefit performance for Inspector Church and the Homicide Squad. I haven't got time to go to jail. I'm a busy man. So I thought I had better escape his clutches before they got complicated.”

“I
didn't
cue Pat to tell him her bat story; but when he accused me of it, he gave me an idea. And so I did cue her to make a few preparations. I transmitted the idea, in the usual way, that she should see you and have you get the car out and ready to go.”

“She was also to tell Woody to leave the theater at once, go to the cleaners on the corner where Chan had sent my other suit of red evening clothes. He was to change into them and come back into the theater without letting Church see him. He waited behind some scenery, in the wings opposite the Inspector, and, when I took my bow out at the footlights and the curtains closed behind me, he entered from the side in front of the curtain.

“For a moment then the audience saw
two
Diavolos but Inspector Church, behind the curtain, couldn't see any!”

Pat smiled, “Like the drunk that saw us back there, they probably think they had a drink too much. They'll all go home and tell their friends they saw
two
Diavolos vanishing a pink elephant!”

Mickey said, “Okay so far, Don. Woody walked out and then backed, bowing, through the curtains into the Inspector's clutches while you walked off at the side and hid in the wings until they had gone.”

“Yes, Diavolo said, “and Pat here hurried up and started a conversation with him so Woody wouldn't have to talk. I forgot one thing though, Pat, I must be slipping. When I cooked up the idea I never even thought of Woody's blond head of hair. Mine's jet black. And when he showed up out there, his was, too. What did he do to it so quickly?”

“I saw him for a minute in the wings,” Pat answered, “while Church had his eyes glued on your act. He told me that had him stumped, too. All the time he was changing he was wondering why you hadn't given me any instructions on that and if you thought Church was as blind as a bat!”

“He didn't know what to do about it on such short notice until he came out of the cleaner's and he saw a sign in that snooty pet shop across the street. It said, ‘Flea powder in all shades to match your dog.'”

“He went in and bought some to match a black poodle. When the clerk saw him empty the whole package on his head and rub it in, he phoned the cops and told them there was a madman in the place. But by that time Woody's hair was a dozen shades darker and he scrammed. He says he'll pay hush money if you won't let any of the other columnists in town know that he uses poodle flea powder!”

Diavolo laughed and then grew serious. “I'll trade him even if he doesn't mention bats in his story until I've found out what the devil it's all about.”

Mickey said, “Go on, finish it. Woody went back to the dressing room with the Inspector thinking he was you. They wouldn't take him to headquarters still wearing the mask. They'll have caught on by now. And what was that phone call for?”

“Woody went into the dressing room ahead of Church and slammed the door in his face, Mickey,” Diavolo explained. “Then while they were trying to batter down the door he was supposed to shuck my dress clothes and get into one of my ordinary street suits. The phone call was the magician's old standby, misdirection.

“I figured that with any sort of luck at all, when they heard my voice on the phone, everyone's attention should have been riveted on it. And Woody would have time to ease that door open and crawl out behind the divan. I think it worked because I clicked the receiver, pretending to hang up and then listened a moment. I heard the Inspector say ‘I'm damned if I'll believe it! Lieutenant tear that room apart! If you don't find a trapdoor I'll eat my hat.'

“Remind me, Pat, to send him a hat!”

“You don't need to write poetry about it, smarty,” Mickey smiled. “It's a good stunt though. They might even have been upset enough that they dashed into the little dressing room giving Woody a chance to make the corridor.”

“That's what I hope,” Don said. “Even if he could only get halfway to the door he could turn and pretend to be coming in from the hallway.”

“But what are you going to do, Don?” Pat asked. “The Inspector told headquarters to send a detective detail to search the Fox Street house. Even if we do go in the back way we'll be trapped there. You're so well known that if you stick your nose out after that, cops will land on you from all directions.”

“I'll use disguise Number Four, Patricia my girl. And I'm going to locate the person whose name the murdered girl was trying to write on the floor with her lipstick just before she died.”

“But she wrote Chan's name,” Pat said. “I don't see—”

“Look.” Diavolo made the motion he makes when he produces a fan of playing cards at his fingertips. Only this time he produced the folded paper he had taken from the girl's purse.

He handed it to Pat and pointed to the list of names that was written on the side opposite the vampire notes.

Estelle Saylor

Ogden Saylor

Mabel Owens

Avery S. Chandler

“Chandler, the theatrical producer!” Pat said. “She might have been trying to write his name! And she didn't get it finished before she….”

“That's the idea, Pat. I hope.”

The scarlet car cut across Sheridan Square and vanished into one of the tiny, tucked-away streets beyond, in the heart of Greenwich Village. The street was a
cul-de-sac
across the end of which stood an old apparently unused carriage house. Mickey drove the car straight at its wide closed doors.

Diavolo touched a button on the dashboard of the speeding car. Instantly the carriage house doors moved inward, folding back on themselves. The button Don had pressed blew a horn that gave off a note too high in frequency for human ears to hear. But the electric ear that set the doors in motion heard it and acted. The car slid silently into the dark interior and the doors closed automatically behind it.

Diavolo, springing from the car uttered aloud the mystic words, “Om Mani Padme Hum,” the magic Buddhist prayer. A sliding panel moved in the wall and a moment later the scarlet car stood silently in the carriage house — alone.

The houses on the street in front, like most of those in the Village were easily a hundred years old, and were built adjoining each other — no space at all between. On the bell push of the red-brick house next to Diavolo's there was a card that read:

Parish House
The Rev. O. O. VanLio, D. D.

An anagram player with nothing better to do, seeing the good Reverend's name, might have noticed that its letters, rearranged slightly, also spelled Don Diavolo. But the police officers who were busily searching Don's house next door had — or thought they had — something better to do. And they weren't interested in anagrams — they were concerned with murder.

Don Diavolo went immediately to a large glass panel set in the wall of the Reverend's house. Looking through it, he saw into the living room of his own house next door. The house that people called the House of Magic.

Karl Hartz was there, watching the detectives make their search and keeping an eagle eye out to see that they didn't walk off with the silverware. They could not see the smiling Diavolo who watched them because, on their side, the glass panel appeared to be only a great mirror set into the wall above the fireplace. It was made of the “one-way” glass commonly used in gambling casinos by a management who wants secretly to inspect its customers on the way in.

Don touched a second button and he could hear their voices. He also heard, after a moment, a ringing phone. He saw Karl Hartz go to take it and one of the detectives step in ahead of him. Don lifted a phone nearby and cut himself in on the conversation.

“Hello?” he heard the dick say.

A businesslike voice at the other end asked, “Is Mr. Diavolo in?”

The dick, speaking in the polite, but subservient manner of a butler or a secretary said, “I'll see. Who is this calling, please?”

The voice hesitated for a moment and then replied, “Mr. V.M. Pyer.” And, just to make sure, he spelled it.

The detective said, “Thank you. Just a moment.” He held his hand over the mouthpiece and called, “Muller, get to that prowl car outside, quick. Radio headquarters to trace this call. Step on it!”

That was when Diavolo cut the detective off the line. Into his mouthpiece he said, “Mr. Diavolo speaking, Mr. Pyer. I was hoping to hear from you. With a name like that I suppose your friends call you ‘Bat,' don't they?”

The voice laughed. “I wanted to be quite sure that you'd come to the phone,” it said. “And I didn't want to give my right name to your man. I want you to come at once. I can tell you who the Bat is!”

“But,” Don said, frowning, “what makes you think I want to know anything about a bat, and where are you and who are you?”

“I'm at my offices in the Theatrical Arts Bldg.,” the voice said. “This is Avery Chandler.”

C
HAPTER
VI

No Living Man

D
ON
D
IAVOLO
changed from his scarlet evening clothes with the rapidity of a lightning change artist. He quickly applied a light coating of tan makeup (Max Fischer's No. 4), pulled on a tuxedo, popped a monocle into his right eye, and was tying a long, pale green, dress turban around his head with swift practiced motions when Pat knocked and came in.

“Don,” she said, “Do you know the name of the new ballerina at the Music Hall?”

“Inez LaValle,” he answered. “But I'm not greatly interested. Why?”

“I mean her real name.” Pat said.

“No,” replied Don. “I didn't even ask her for her phone number.”

“I didn't think you knew when you showed me that list of names. But I think you should. She's on it. She is Mabel Owens.”

Diavolo turned to look at Pat. Then he tucked the end of the turban in place and said, “I am interested now. So, one of the persons on that list turns out to have been in the building this afternoon when what happened happened. This is beginning to be fun.”

He placed a cigarette in a long black holder and a small automatic in his hip pocket — a curious gun that was painted flesh color. He lit the cigarette, glanced at a mirror, and nodded with satisfaction at the suave Oriental potentate he saw there.

“The Maharajah,” he announced, “is going to pay a social call. When those dicks next door leave, go in and tell Karl to bar the door and not allow any more of them in without a search warrant. And sit tight. I'll be seeing you.”

Don made a pass with his hand above his coat lapel. By some conjurer's means this caused a green carnation to appear there instantly. The Maharajah of Vdai-Loo
⁴
walked down the front steps of the Reverend VanLio's house. He was thinking of Inspector Church and softly whistling a swing version of
I Can't Give You Anything But Love.

Mickey Collins, wearing her black wig now, sat at the wheel of an inconspicuous black sedan. Outwardly, it was completely ordinary, but beneath its hood there was a supercharged motor that could show its heels even to the big red Packard.

“I'll drive, Mike,” Don said, and she moved over.

The Theatrical Arts Building, a recently completed skyscraper, was uptown, just a few blocks from the Music Hall. Don gave Mickey the wheel and got out.

“Wait for me,” he said. “If any cops try to date you up, keep a stiff upper lip. I'll bail you out. Be good.”

He saw the headlines on the evening papers as he passed the newsstand in the lobby.

UNKNOWN GIRL KILLED IN MUSIC HALL
D
IAVOLO ARRESTED FOR MURDER
THEN VANISHES INTO THIN AIR
!
Police Baffled!

Diavolo nearly started to whistle again,
Yankee Doodle
this time — but remembering that he was supposed to be an Indian Prince, grinned instead.

Chandler's offices were on the 51st floor. Diavolo stepped from the elevator, walked the length of the corridor, and pushed at the door. It swung inward a few inches and then stopped against something soft and yielding. Diavolo looked down and saw that what blocked it was the body of a girl.

Almost instantly his gun was in his right hand. His left pushed firmly on the door, shoving the body aside.

He raised the gun and then stopped — too late. The door of Chandler's office, beyond the anteroom, closed sharply and Diavolo heard the lock click over. But he had had one quick glimpse — his first one — of the Bat!

It had, beneath the flowing black cape, the figure of a man — a man who could move, as he had just done, like lightning. And Don had caught one swift glimpse of the horrible bat face with its grinning brutish smile and its sharply-pointed, gleaming teeth.

Don took a quick look at the girl. He saw the fallen stenographer's notebook at her side. Chandler's secretary, evidently. He could find no marks on her neck, and, though her face was pale, she breathed regularly.

Don crossed the anteroom in four long strides, knelt by the closed door and drew from his pocket a key ring on which were a number of slender, curiously shaped, angular instruments. He eyed the lock, selected one of the picklocks, inserted it in the keyhole and began probing.

There was a familiar clicking sound behind him and he threw a quick glance over his shoulder.

The secretary had quietly pulled herself to her feet. She was dialling the phone.