The Avenger 29 - The Nightwitch Devil (5 page)

“Burt went and took, a look around Mr. MacMurdie’s room,” said the chief. “Called me next.”

Cole asked, “Something wrong in the room?”

“Nope,” said Chief Storm, “ ’cept your friend ain’t in it.”

“We’d like to have a look ourselves,” said Cole.

“No reason why not. Won’t tell you nothing though.”

Smitty crossed the lobby to the desk. “You say Mac went out someplace last night?”

The clerk swallowed. “I didn’t see Mr. MacMurdie myself,” he said. “But Wally Reisberson—he does some cleaning up for us—told me he saw him jump out of his window at about midnight.”

“Most interesting,” said Cole.

“Any idea what your friend was up to?” Chief Storm asked.

“I must admit to being completely baffled,” answered Cole. “My associate, Mr. Smith, and I are traveling to Boston on business. Knowing that Mr. MacMurdie was vacationing here, we decided to pay him a visit.”

Chief Storm asked, “Know Dr. Ruyle?”

“It seems to me Mr. MacMurdie mentioned him. What does he have to say about the situation?”

“Got no idea. Ruyle’s missing, too. So’s his housekeeper. Found that out ’bout an hour ago.”

“Baffling,” said Cole.

The chief of police looked from Cole to Smitty. He twisted his finger around in a vest pocket, saying finally, “Show you his room now. Come along.”

“By the tartan of old Rob Roy MacGregor,” said Mac, “they gulled me good and proper.”

He shook his head again and blinked his eyes.

There was almost no light in the room he’d found himself in. A sliver of sunlight found its way in by way of a thin crack in the vaulted marble ceiling.

“Whoosh,” remarked the Scot, “I ne’er thought I’d get a look at the inside of me own tomb.”

For that’s where he was, in a crypt. The thick walls were of real marble. There were marble shelves on three of the walls, no windows. Five coffins, ornate, of ebony and gold, sat on the shelves.

MacMurdie had come to fifteen minutes before. From the look of the feeble light seeping in, it was morning. There was a sore spot at the base of his skull. Mac remembered doing battle with at least three cloaked figures there in the woods. The woman had laughed, then the three had jumped him. Three to one didn’t faze the belligerent Scot, and he’d felled one of the cloaked men when someone hit him from behind with a blackjack.

“I wonder if ’twas the laughing lass who sapped me.”

Across the tomb, up three marble steps, was a heavy metal door. It was locked, Mac had discovered that already. He also found that everything he’d had in his pockets was gone. He had nothing on him with which to pick the lock. They’d even taken his belt, the buckle of which contained a compact two-way radio.

“Well, I’m still pretty lively, for an inmate of a tomb,” said MacMurdie. “I’ll nae give up yet.”

He began another slow, careful circuit of the room. There were two copper lamps bolted to the wall. “Might be able to unscrew those and use them as a weapon on whoever comes to look after me.”

That was only an assumption, Mac reminded himself. No one might ever come to him again. They might have left him here to die of starvation.

Mac moved to the nearest coffin. He should be able to fashion a piece of one of those hinges into a lockpick. First, though, he’d have to get it loose from the coffin lid.

Crouching, Mac scanned the floor to see if anything had been dropped there.

“Hoot,” he exclaimed, “what do ye make of that?”

There were numerous muddy footprints on the marble floor. Some looked quite fresh; others were weeks old. There were prints from different-size shoes and from boots.

“For a tomb, there’s quite a bit of traffic.”

Mac followed the freshest set of footprints. They led him to the blank wall. All the other prints seemed to dead-end there, as well? Several of the muddy prints were cut in half by the marble wall.

“Unless these lads have picked up the handy knack of walking through walls,” observed Mac, “there’s a way to swing this wall open.”

He decided to find it.

“I’m worried about her,” said Sam Hollis. The newspaper editor was standing near his potbellied stove, which was cold today.

“For a small town,” observed Cole, “you have a lot of missing persons.”

“Oh, Anne’s probably not missing,” said Hollis with a nervous chuckle. “But . . . well, I don’t really know where she is. That is, I only know where she isn’t.”

“You said,” said Smitty, “you were worried.”

“I have a feeling Anne’s mixed up in something,” answered Hollis. “Some odd things have been going on in Nightwitch lately. John Ruyle’s disappearance, followed by MacMurdie’s. Anne knows more about that than she’s told me, I’m pretty sure.”

Cole asked him, “Where was she supposed to be?”

“Well, she came in here about three hours ago,” said the editor. “Looked sort of upset, like she was trying to make up her mind about something. Of course, maybe she’d just had a quarrel with her young man, I wasn’t sure. Anyhow, we got a call there’d been some kind of boating accident down in the harbor near Frenkel’s Boatyard. They had the victims in the boatyard proper. I was going to trot down, it’s a couple miles from here, but Anne said she’d cover the story and take some pictures.”

“And it doesn’t usually take her three hours to do a job like that?” Smitty said.

“Anne’s not like your average lady writer,” said Hollis. “She’s fast and efficient.”

Cole moved toward the office door. “What about the beau you mentioned?”

“That’s Gil Lunden, up and coming young lawyer he is,” said Hollis. “Matter of fact, I just now called him to see if Anne was maybe with him. Girl who does his typing said he was out seeing the widow Waxman about her will. Not likely he’d take Anne along.”

“We better see what they know down at that boatyard,” suggested Smitty. “How do we get to the joint?”

“Yes, that’s a good idea,” said the editor. “I tried to telephone, but nobody’s answering.” He gave them instructions on how to find the boatyard. Then he asked, “What’s all this about? I don’t like to pry, but I wouldn’t be a newspaperman if I wasn’t a curious bird.”

“You’ve been very helpful,” said Cole. “We can’t though, tell you anything until we find Mac.”

“I smell a story,” said Hollis.

“I smell something, too, but I’m not sure what it is.” Cole opened the door, and he and the giant left.

“Dismal,” remarked Cole.

A clammy mist was rising off the choppy waters of the Nightwatch bay. It seemed to come stumbling in huge billows toward them as they walked toward the boatyard.

“Not a picture postcard view,” agreed Smitty.

A bedraggled-looking seagull was staggering along the oily planks of the boardwalk which led to the high wood fence around the yard.

“Not unless you’re used to having Gustave Doré do your postcards,” said Cole. “I don’t notice any evidence of the presence of our sought-after sob sister.”

“Naw, this joint looks like it’s been closed up since Hector was a pup.” Smitty reached out a huge hand and rattled the rusty padlock on the boatyard gate.

Eyes narrowed, Cole took in their surroundings. There was nothing around here but a few old shacks which were leaning against each other for support and a baitshop with a clocksign in its door promising to be back at 2. The broken windows indicated the promise would not be kept. “Does it occur to you, Smitty, that Miss Barley may have been lured here for some purpose other than a newspaper yarn?”

The giant’s head bobbed. “Yeah, it’s starting to look like that.”

“Think you might be able to boost me over the fence?”

“I can pick you up and toss you over.”

“A boost will suffice,” said Cole. “I want to make sure nobody is in there.”

“Don’t seem likely.” Bending, Smitty cupped his hands together.

Cole stepped aboard and was lifted up until he could grasp the fence top. “Well, up, up, and away,” he said as he climbed over.

He landed, wide-legged and flat-footed, on the patch of weedy ground. When he faced around he said, “Don’t actually want to buy a boat, merely browsing.”

“Nice and easy, raise up your hands, palsy-walsy,” instructed the thick-necked man who stood confronting him. He wore a peajacket, bellbottom trousers and, for some reason, a straw hat. He held a .45 automatic in each hand.

“Don’t think I’m trying to find fault, but it’s too early in the year for a straw hat,” said Cole.

“Up with the hands, smart guy.”

Cole obliged.

Carefully stuffing one of the automatics in a coat pocket, Straw-hat frisked Cole.

The boatyard covered several rundown acres. It was mostly weeds intermingled with a few weathered piles of lumber and a few decayed sheds.

“Would you be the watchman?” asked Cole when the gunman had completed his search.

“My station in life, palsy-walsy, don’t matter.” He dug out his second gun. Pointing them both at Cole, jabbing at the air with them, he added, “Walk down toward the water, now.”

There was a wide opening in the far wall of the fence, where a launching dock may once have stood.

“This is as close to the ocean as I can safely go without getting seasick,” said Cole, wondering if Smitty was hearing any of what was going on in here.

“Your friend ain’t going to come to your rescue, palsy-walsy,” Straw-hat told him. “By now, we got him, too.”

Cole said, “Who do you represent, exactly? You look a bit gruff and burly to be a witch.”

“It don’t make no . . . Hey!”

The planks of the fence over which Cole had climbed began to shake.

Somebody on the other side cried, “Oof!”

The fence shook again, this time starting to splinter.

That distracted Straw-hat.

Cole dived straight at the burly man, low and under the guns. He butted him hard in the lower belly.

“Hey!” repeated Straw-hat.

The force of Cole’s charge pushed the gunman back against a pile of rain-warped lumber.

Cole brought both of his hands swinging up, and a fist slammed into each of Straw-hat’s armpits.

He dropped one gun, but clung to the other.

Cole pulled on the empty-handed arm, spinning Straw-hat around and slamming him harder into the man-high pile of two-by-fours.

Then Cole caught the gun hand, squeezed the wrist hard.

“Hey!” howled Straw-hat.

“Your vocabulary has diminished sadly, palsy-walsy.” Cole increased the pressure on the gunman’s wrist.

“Okay, okay.” Straw-hat dropped the second gun.

Cole kicked at the gun, to get it out of the way. The ground was muddy here; his foot slipped. He slid, stumbled.

Straw-hat threw a punch into Cole’s chin.

When Cole went down on one knee, the gunman didn’t try to hit him again. Instead, he grabbed a board off the top of the pile. “Just as soon finish you here, smart guy, as any place.”

Cole had regained his balance. He made a try for the fallen automatic.

Straw-hat swung the board like a baseball bat.

Its end dug into Cole’s ribs. He went swooping back into the lumber pile.

Straw-hat stalked in on him, the board raised for another crack.

The fence exploded into slivers and chunks of wood. Smitty came smashing through.

“Hey, you!” warned Smitty. “Lay off my buddy.”

Straw-hat turned and sent the board flying at Smitty.

The giant sidestepped it.

Cole tried to hold onto the tumble of boards, trying to get his breath back, but he lost his balance and fell on his backside on the ground.

Smitty slowed and let Straw-hat get a good running start for the water. “You okay?” he asked the gasping Cole.

Cole waved a hand at the retreating gunman. “Catch him,” he tried to say.

The giant got hold of him under the arms, lifted him to his feet. “I’ll prop you up here, Cole.”

Before Smitty could take off after Straw-hat, an engine started up ait the water’s edge. Seconds later, a motor launch was cutting across the gray water.

“Lost him,” gasped Cole.

Smitty walked a few feet away and picked up something from the ground. “He left his skimmer behind,” he said, spinning the straw-hat around on his finger.

“What about . . . the guys who jumped you?”

“They ran off,” said Smitty. “I tossed them into the fence a few times, and it seemed to discourage them. I figured I’d better come in and see about you before I took off after them.”

“Quite a . . . dramatic entrance, old chum. Right through . . . the fence.”

The giant shrugged modestly. “The wood’s old and not too strong,” he said. “I could have climbed over, but . . .” He shrugged again.

Cole, taking a wheezing breath, lifted the straw hat off Smitty’s fingers. “So we don’t have the hoodlums,” he said, “and we don’t have Miss Barley.”

“We ain’t got Mac, either.”

“This is a setback,” admitted Cole, fanning himself with the straw hat. “I’m pretty sure it’s only temporary.”

Cole reached up to the dangling strip of sticky flypaper and rescued the fly who was newly entangled there. “Stay away from places like that,” he said. He was in a dim corner of Nightwitch’s largest general store, using the wall phone.