tantaliz (17 page)

So Duncan had been murdered, and his body taken away in that unidentified car. But how did the murderers leave the apartment? Every door and every window locked inside.

Sergeant Sherris nodded and looked wise. Every so often, for several years, some prominent or wealthy man had been kidnapped. Sometimes they got back alive—blindfolded and unable to relate any clues. Sometimes they didn't come back at all; the money hadn't been sent as directed. There had been Page, the hair tonic king. And Rosenbaum, the hotel man. And Justessen, that rich Dane visiting at the Drake Hotel. All kidnapped by extortionists. ... It was possible that the same gang had come after Duncan. He had resisted. He had been shot. They had taken his body out of the apartment. But—how? And—why?

Edwards twisted uncomfortably in his chair. No denying it—that was where the spooks came in ... at least, a mystery. And now, this strange call, this lighting of Apartment 22's switchboard lamp, when nobody was in the place . . . when he had the only key to the new lock—Guzzzzzz.

"Look there!" cried Shultz. "See it?
The light's on
!"

The rain tore clammily at them while they hurried down the court, as if unseen hands, ghastly and intent, were bent on holding them back from those dark rooms. Edwards lifted his eyes as they passed the last concrete flower bed. The windows of 22 were blank and ominous. ... He didn't want to go. No. Of course, there weren't any ghosts. But in that room—that stained rug where the blood had soaked, and that other place. . . . His senses were screaming at him: Stop, stop!
Go back before it's too late
. . . .

"Come on," he said brusquely, as Shultz halted irresolutely at the vestibule door.

The night operator turned a greenish face to him. "By God, Mr. Edwards, I don't want to go."

"No more do I," growled the manager. "But we're both going."

Their steps shuddered softly on the carpeted stairway. It was impossible to believe that the opposite door of that first landing opened on an ordinary apartment occupied by ordinary people—a man, his wife, their daughters. Apartment 21. There were human beings, there. But across the hall, in 22. . .

Edwards fumbled in his pocket for the key. That new lock gleamed hideously on the damaged door.

Shultz whispered icily, "You got a—a—gun?"

"No, I haven't." And Edwards had a spinning, helpless sensation. "But, listen here. There's nothing to hurt us. Nothing . . ."

The door whined as it turned on its hinges.

Edwards felt along the wall for the light switch. The pressure of his finger flooded the hall with yellow light. As if twisted in their sockets by an invincible suction, the eyes of both men turned toward the telephone stand. And there was no one beside it, or anywhere else within sight.

The telephone stand was of the cabinet type, narrow and high, of carved walnut A small stool had been placed beside it. One door of the cabinet swung partly ajar.

Slowly, Edwards walked toward the phone; it seemed as if years passed before he reached it, and looked inside, and saw the instrument reposing in the shadows. He lifted the bracket; the connection clicked; yes, the phone was in working order. But no one. . .

"Nobody here," said Shultz. He stood close behind; Edwards could feel his nervous breath.

"Well turn on the lights," the manager said. They advanced into the living room, the dining room, the bedrooms. Fearfully, they peered under the beds and opened closet doors. Nothing.

In the kitchen they stared at the outer door, locked and bolted, its heavy safety chain snugly in place. Nobody there. Nobody in the pantry. A vacant apartment—a ghoulish, threatening place—with locked windows, locked doors, and still the thought of something inside.

Once more they toured the rooms, turning on the lights with prodigal haste. The dining room and one bedroom had been refurnished by Duncan to act as galleries for his rare collections. Electricity gleamed sofdy on rows of dark flasks, blown glass, vases. There were tall cupboards along the walls, each containing its fund of glistening treasure. Nothing had been disturbed. Only that ragged hole in the plaster, and the dark stains on the rugs, told what had happened there. . . . The police had told Edwards to leave everything just as it was. They wanted to "investigate further." All right, let them investigate.

See if they could find anything.

Edwards and Shultz made a last examination. They poked beneath the davenports, peered into the hamper in the bathroom. No tracks. No marks of any human being.

As they retreated into the hallway, the manager once more opened the telephone cabinet and lifted the instrument. No, his ears had not deceived him. He could hear that click. The phone was in working order.

"We haven't found anything," he said to Schultz. He tried to laugh. The sound was eerie and startling in those deserted rooms. "I'm afraid it was just—just something the matter with the switchboard. We might as well go." He reached into his pocket for the key, and brought it out—a shining fragment of metal.

"Mr. Edwards!" The voice of Shultz was deadened with a cold, listless horror. "Look at your hand! You've got blood ... all over your hand!"

For a full twenty seconds Edwards stared down at those telltale marks on his right hand. It seemed to him that he could hear his own heart, thundering in that oppressive silence all about. . , . Outside, the rain came down, blackly, dripping, dripping on damp ledges.

Then Edwards straightened. There was a tense, quick tightening of his mouth.

"Turn off the rest of those lights," he said. His voice was unnecessarily loud, perhaps from fear. ... He waited in the open door, wiping his hand on a handkerchief. Shultz leaped back out of the parlor, his lips trembling. "Let's get out of here," said Edwards, "for good."

At the doorway, one finger on the light switch, he motioned for the operator to go ahead of him. Then, with a lightning gesture, he had pressed the key into Shultz's hand.

His voice was a hard whisper:

"There's something here. I'm going to stay. You turn out that light and slam the door; I'll hide here in the corner. If the light shows on the board again, you call the police and come up here, and come in! I don't know where it's hidden; I don't even know what it is. But that blood on my hand came off the telephone! Something's here. Now, beat it!"

The electric switch snapped out the one remaining light. Darkness. With a thud, the door slammed shut. Quietly, Edwards tiptoed across the hall and slid into a comer opposite the telephone cabinet. He crouched there in the quibbering darkness, choking breath down, waiting, waiting.

The minutes passed like heavy bats, circling low, unwilling to alight

It seemed an hour before Edwards heard the downstairs door shut, and knew that Shultz was in the court, hurrying toward the office. The constant fury of rain was somewhat abated; water still came down outside, but in an intermittent dribble. Far away, the siren of a fire truck screeched with a horrid earnestness, but in the apartment there was a bated silence as if unguessed monsters were only biding their time—waiting to spring out

He was crouched in the further corner of the hall, opposite the outside door, between the opening into the bedroom and the wider doorway which gave on the living room. No person, no thing, could come from any direction without his seeing it Lights from the alley and from the court shone in, faintly and bitterly, yet strong enough for Edwards to discern the bulk of furniture.

That telephone! The first time he picked it up, he had not placed his hands on the standard. The second time he had done so. And immediately afterward, Shultz had cried out his awful news. . . . The blood—the fresh wet stain—of something. . . .

Far away, in one of the other rooms, there was a sound. It was unmistakable—the creak of wood, of an opening door. Edwards waited, swallowing fearfully. Something had moved. He was not alone!

Creak
. Once more. Then, the tinkle of glass. A sound of footsteps, creeping slowly and heavily.

It was coming. It was moving nearer, out of the dining room into the living room. Its body thudded softly against some piece of furniture; there was a horrid sound, half human and half animal, a muffled cough and growl. . . . Edwards shrank closer against the wall. His fists were clenched tightly; the nails bit into his palms.

Nearer, nearer. It moved between him and the court window, a thin shape like a clothed skeleton. Yes, it was coming to the telephone again. It couldn't stay away. It must call, call on the telephone! ... It was in the doorway now, black and gruesome, an arm's length away. Edwards heard that same choking sound, and a spasm of strained breathing. The door of the telephone cabinet banged open. That faint dick and sputter—the lifting.

Edwards plunged forward. His clawing hands encountered flesh, damp and clammy. He was grappling with the thing—he had it in his arms. With a thud, the phone was on the floor.

But this creature, ghost or murderer, made no sound—no resistance. Quite suddenly and hideously, it had collapsed against him there in the close blackness. He struggled out into the living room, dragging his terrible burden. And the light from the court shone in its face—the white skin and staring eyes of Duncan, the man who had been murdered.

With a scream, Edwards leaped back. There was the heavy thud of a falling body. The manager felt his own hands raking the wall for a switch. And then, mercifully enough, his fingers encountered metal. He squeezed down. The room was flooded with light

Duncan lay before him on the floor, clad in pajamas. Stained towels, ghastly and encrusted, were wound around his neck.

"Duncan!" cried Edwards. "It's ... are you dead? Are you . . ."

Trembling, he dropped down and lifted the shape in his arms. Duncan's eyes were staring, his lips moved soundlessly. He was alive—he seemed conscious.

"What was it?" Edwards gasped. "What happened? Where were you?"

The head of the injured man moved slowly. His eyes seemed seeking beyond the hotel manager, beseeching some object. The other man turned. On the table behind him lay a small bronze-covered notebook and ornate pencil. He seized them and lifted Duncan to the couch, pressing the book and the pencil into his hands. On a side table was a decanter of whiskey. He forced a few drops between the man's blue lips.

"Write it," he said. "Write it if you can. You're going to . . ."

Falteringly, the pencil slid over the notebook in a weak scrawl:

They came in back way as always. LeCron got arguing about his split. We had trouble. Baletto cut me with his knife but I shot him. They took him away in car and I was afraid Edwards tore off the sheet of paper. The pencil still moved, its words barely legible:

police would come hearing shot I knew so I hid in my place. Lost much blood and tonight thought I would give up and send for police and doctor. Tried phone but could not talk and lost my nerve. When you came I hid again. Thought I might get out alive and get away but it started bleed again and I came out to phone again

The pencil wavered and dropped from his stiffening fingers. His head lolled back, jerked; there was a choking sob. His eyes stared glassily upward.

Outside, feet trampled in the hall. Men pressed against the door, noisily, fiercely.

"What I don't see," said Shultz, "is where he was hid."

The sergeant straightened up. "We can find that out in a minute. Wonder he lived as long as he did, his throat was almost cut in two."

"If you want to look now," Edwards said, "I think we can find it, and get to the bottom of this thing. When he came out, I heard glass tinkling."

They covered the body with a scarf, and Edwards led the way into the refurnished dining room, Shultz and the officers pressing close behind him.

The manager bent down and inspected the cabinets of glassware with great care. On the bottom shelf of the last cabinet, he found an irregular red circle. "This must be it."

It took them some time to ascertain the combination. At length Edwards fumbled with one old flask which seemed cemented on the shelf. Glassware and all, the big bureau began to turn slowly in its place, disclosing a narrow closet behind the shelves. In the compartment behind were a few cushions, an automatic pistol, a big briefcase stuffed with papers, and the traces that showed all too well how Duncan had weakened and suffered during the hours he lay in hiding.

The red-faced detective sergeant needed only a few minutes' perusal of the papers in the briefcase to tell him what he wanted to know. I was partly right and partly wrong," he admitted. "Looks as if he had made that cubbyhole when he installed the cabinets, figuring he would need a hideaway for his stuff, and maybe for himself. We can get the rest of the gang from the names he wrote in that notebook, Mr. Edwards. But I was wrong on this: here I thought he had been murdered by that kidnapping gang which has raised so much hell for three years, and all the time he was the brains of the mob. Look at these papers and clippings."

Shultz heaved a vast sigh, and turned to his employer. "Just the same, I think I'll quit my job, Mr. Edwards. I'd go nuts if I was on the board tonight and another call came in from Apartment 22."