The Emperor of Death (16 page)

Though the Phantom could not see into the room, he vividly imagined the scene that was transpiring behind the door. He could see Joe tormenting the girl to a frenzy by, holding a phial of dope before her; he could see the heavy form of Judge Pinelli sitting smugly back in his chair watching the woman’s anguish.

“You’ll get no more snow, Ruby,” snarled Joe. “You’re through, see. You squawked to O’Neal. Hesterberg wants you; what Hesterberg’s got to say to you is plenty. And then it’s the noose for you. I’m going to take you to the boss now.”

The Phantom had heard enough. His eyes were hot and dry; a hard lump was in his throat. The violent hate that consumed his heart twisted his entrails into a hard knot.

Adjusting the mask over his face with one hand, the lean fingers of the other shot out to the knob of the door. With a violent wrench and a kick of his foot he shoved the portal inward.

He stood there on the threshold, the automatic in his hand thrust forward aggressively. His sudden advent was heralded by a stifled scream from Ruby. Joe made a half movement towards his hip but pulled up short as the gun in the Phantom’s hand jerked up to cover his heart. Judge Pinelli sat stupidly in his chair, eyes bulging, while the swarthy color faded slowly from his cheeks.

The Phantom looked steadily at one man, then the other.

“You’re taking the lady no place,” he rapped out, as he stepped into the room. “She’s going out with me and if any one tries to stop her, God help him.”

“Who are you?” demanded Pinelli in a strained voice.

“You know who I am, Pinelli. I am the Phantom. As you have sat in Judgement, so shall I pass sentence on you. You won’t spoil, Pinelli. You’ll wait. I’ll be seeing you again.” He turned to the Mad Red’s henchman. “And as for you — rat — lead is too good for you. I’ll reserve some special death for you that your crawling soul will be able to appreciate.”

He turned from the two men to the girl.

“Ruby, back up around Pinelli’s table. Keep out of range of my gun and back to the door.”

Like someone in a dream the girl obeyed the order. Standing as she was between Pinelli and Joe, she now had to pass between them to gain the far side of the table at which Pinelli sat.

It was at this precise moment that Joe, the gunman, decided to stake all on a desperate gamble. Instead of trying to get his own gun into action, which would have been futile — instead of charging blindly on the Phantom, he threw himself violently at Ruby’s knees.

With a crescendo crash that was seconded instantly by the growl of the Phantom’s gun, they toppled to the floor. The Phantom’s first shot had missed its mark. Joe came up, firing from behind Ruby’s body at the elusive target made by the Phantom as the latter plunged to the right of the doorway.

It was a surprise move and before Joe could shift into position for a second barrage, the gun in the Phantom’s hand jerked viciously twice and the gunman’s rod was silenced forever.

Judge Pinelli sat frozen with fascinated horror in his chair.

The Phantom whipped around and pointed his still smoking automatic at him.

“That’s another crime you can pass sentence on, your Honor,” he said scornfully. “One move out of you and you get the same.”

But Judge Pinelli was too wise a man to tempt the fire in the Phantom’s eyes.

The masked figure talked to the girl over his shoulder.

“Ruby — are you all right?”

Dazed, bewildered, she climbed to her feet.

“Yes.”

“Then let’s get out of here. On the run. There’ll be a squad of police here any minute.” Ruby stumbled across the room to him, clung frantically to his arm. Together they backed toward the door. The Phantom pushed her out into the hallway and then with his gun still covering Pinelli removed the key from the lock of the door, stepped across the threshold and jerked the portal behind him.

It was but a second’s work to turn the key in the lock and snap it off there. Then, half supporting, half dragging Ruby, the Phantom raced down the stairs. He was half way to the front door when the heavy thunder of a night stick resounded against the oaken panel. In mid-stride, the Phantom changed his direction and headed for the back stairs by which he had come.

With a silent prayer on his lips that the house was not already surrounded, he half carried the fainting Ruby to the window he had jimmied earlier in the night. Somehow he lifted her over the sill and dropped down beside her in the courtyard.

Then putting thoughts of all else save escape behind him, he picked up the girl in his arms and sped with her down a narrow alley that ran the length of the building. They emerged onto Seventy-sixth Street and the Phantom got his third break of the evening. A cab was parked at the curb, its driver asleep at the wheel. Opening the door he deposited the limp figure of Ruby on the back seat and jumped in beside her.

He prodded the driver to wakefulness with the point of his gun.

“Get rolling, big boy,” he ordered. “Get away from here fast.”

The chauffeur stared at the masked face for a moment in startled fear, then jumped to obey. He shifted into gear, stepped on the gas and shot eastward toward Broadway.

Ruby came to for a moment, long enough to get a glimpse of the masked figure beside her. Then, promptly obeying the dictates of over wrought nerves, she broke down in a fit of hysterical weeping. The Phantom tried to comfort her; to still the wracking sobs that parted her lips. But she was beyond words, beyond help.

Her hysteria increased; she broke down completely. The Phantom realized that she needed care at once.

He rapped on the glass partition separating him from the driver.

“Pull up at the nearest cop,” he ordered.

The driver was only too glad to obey. At the next corner he swung over to the curb before a burly blue-coated policeman.

The Phantom leaned out the window of the car.

“Listen officer, get this straight,” he said tersely. “I’m the Phantom. I have a woman here. She’s hysterical. Take her immediately to the City Prison Hospital. Put her under guard. No one is to speak to her. Give her the best of treatment, understand. I want to question her later. It’s important.”

The officer nodded dumbly, but made no move.

“Take the girl out of the car,” ordered the Phantom.

The officer picked up Ruby in burly arms and headed for another taxi. The Phantom snapped out his last order to his driver.

“Get away from here fast. Get to West End.”

On a deserted side street he left the cab, saw it disappear around the first corner. Then only did he remove the silken mask from his face and with a lighter step than he had had in days he walked over to Broadway.

He crammed himself into the first telephone booth; dropped a nickel in the slot and swiftly dialed the number of Police Headquarters.

“This is the Phantom speaking,” he barked when the connection had gone through. “I want to speak to Inspector Armitage.” A pause, then: “Armitage — the Phantom. Two things — important things on the Hesterberg case. There’s an hysterical woman in the City Prison Hospital. Ruby Wooley by name. Detail a guard over her, a heavy guard. No one is to be allowed to see her until further orders from me. Secondly, broadcast to your men in the underworld. Have them pick up the trail of every man they see making the following signal.”

Briefly he described to Inspector Armitage the signal that Ruby had passed on to him earlier in the evening. Then, sure that the inspector understood his order, he rang off with a curt good-night.

It was with a light heart and a thin whistle on his lips that Van turned his steps at last toward Havens’s apartment. For the first time since he had been given the task of tracking to earth the Mad Red, he felt that he had the situation in hand.

He had passed on the signal of the ring to Armitage; the inspector in turn would get in touch with the Secret Service. Now that everyone of the Russian’s men were tagged, they were bound to obtain results.

Not only that, but there was still Ruby to be interviewed. He would see her on the morrow, when her hysterics would have subsided. That she had much of importance to tell him he was sure, and he was just as confident that he could induce her to talk.

And then as a final dessert to his evening’s adventures — was Muriel.

At precisely eleven-fifty-four that evening, a telephone jangled in the home of the Secretary of State of the United States. Despite the lateness of the hour, he dressed himself, bade farewell to his wife, and stalked into K Street, seeking a cab to take him to the White House.

*****

He never arrived. Upon anxious inquiry early that morning, the President of the United States denied having telephoned his Secretary of State on the previous evening.

Two minutes after the Secretary of State had left his home Lewis Bond, the international banker, and perhaps the biggest man in the country, received a telephone call from his head groom. Bond was insanely interested in horses, and maintained an elaborate racing stable.

On that particular night he was expecting the birth of a colt from which he expected great things. The groom had instructions to phone him when the delivery was over.

In answer to his head groom’s summons, Bond threw on an old ulster overcoat and walked through the spacious grounds of his estate toward the stables.

It is a matter of record that he never got there.

Even while the Secretary of State was searching for the taxicab, even while Lewis Bond was walking ingenuously toward his brood mare and her progeny, Arthur Remis was having trouble with his automobile. Just outside Pittsburgh, as he was returning from a bibulous and riotous evening at his country club, a big Lincoln suddenly cut him off and almost ran him off the road.

Remis stopped dead as did the Lincoln. Then Remis, the munition king, confident in the arrogance of superlative wealth, proceeded to tell the driver of the Lincoln precisely what Arthur Remis thought of him.

The driver took it well, at least a ghost of a smile hovered over his face as Remis came close to him. That faint smile was the last thing that Remis saw for a few hours.

Of a certainty, he never saw his own home that night.

So it was with Naylor, with Carson, and others. Most of them knew each other, and if they were not acquainted the Fates provided for that contingency.

They met that night.

CHAPTER XVI
HESTERBERG STAKES ALL

THOUGH IT WAS two o’clock in the morning, the occupants of the Havens household were very much awake. Richard Van Loan, clad correctly in evening clothes, without an alias, was playing what was presumably a business call upon the publisher.

They sat together in the library. The door was closed as they spoke in low tones. Without, in the room beyond, sat Muriel Havens. She read idly and wished inwardly that her father would choose someone other than the handsome Dick Van Loan to talk business with. She would much prefer to talk to Dick herself.

Even though her father and Van had been closeted together for the better part of four hours she waited patiently until she could play hostess to the most eligible young bachelor in New York, until business should succumb to the social. But had she known it, she was destined not to speak to Van again that night.

In the library a cheery fire flared in the grate, throwing dancing shadows on the wall beyond. Havens sat back in an arm-chair and flicked the ash of his cigar carelessly on the rug.

“Yes,” Van was saying. “The plans are complete now. Every important member of the underworld is being watched. With the cooperation of the police and Secret Service, my plans are at last working. Unless Hesterberg has already got his coup ready — and I don’t think he has — it’s only a matter of time now until his machine is completely broken.”

Havens nodded. He indicated a late evening paper that lay on his desk.

“It looks as if your scheme is working already. Did you see the paper?”

“No. What’s in it?”

“It seems that for the first time in years, in this town, there have been so few arrests in twenty-four hours. Hardly a major crime has been reported since midnight of yesterday. What do you think of that?”

Van breathed deeply. His eyes held the other’s.

“I think it’s dangerous as hell,” he said quietly. “Let me see that paper.”

He picked it up and what he read corroborated the statement of Havens.

“This is ominous,” he said. “This means that Hesterberg is ready for his big moment. He’s going to gamble everything now. He’s ready.”

Havens stared at him in surprise.

“Why? What do you mean? You read an item in the paper which seems to me to be good news, then you apparently get alarmed.”

“I do,” said Van grimly. “And I’ll tell you why. There have been no arrests here for twenty-four hours. Why? Because there are so few criminals in the entire metropolitan district.”

Havens looked at him blankly. Still he did not understand.

“That means,” continued Van, “that Hesterberg has at last mobilized his men. He is ready to strike with all his murderous forces. They are mobilized somewhere, God knows where. There is little crime in New York because there are so few to commit a crime. They are all with Hesterberg at his base. We must act quickly, and think more quickly.”

Havens looked alarmed as the full significance of the apparently cheering piece of news in the paper dawned upon him.

“Then,” he said, “you’ve been too late?”

Van reached for the telephone. “We’ll soon see,” he said tensely. “But I think you’re right.”

He put in a call to Police Headquarters and asked for the deputy commissioner in charge. Then he said: “This is the Phantom. Have your men been following everyone who made the sign I told you about?”

Then came the answer which confirmed his worst fears.

“Why no. Our men haven’t been able to find anyone making that sign all over town. They’ve looked everywhere. I think your tip was phoney.”

“Perhaps it was,” said Van as he replaced the receiver on the hook. He turned to Havens. “So,” he said bitterly, “even that plan has gone awry. Hesterberg has made his final move. As I suspected there’s not a member of his band left in town. They’re getting ready for their coup. And God only knows where they are! I’ll try something else.”