The Golden Circle (4 page)

Lt. Colma sat in his swivel chair with a plastic cup of coffee in one hand and his fifth cigarette of the morning in the other. About three feet above his dark head at the spot where a little thin sunlight was shining on the wall, the smoke from the cigarette
mixed
with the steam from the hot coffee. The stocky robbery division detective watched the single misty column go spiraling up toward the dingy ceiling. After a few moments, he looked again at the top of his buttered desk. "Huh," he said.

In the doorway, a big moderately shaggy man was standing with an assortment of loose papers in his hand. This was Detective First Class VerPoorten. He k
new
better than to interrupt the lieutenant when he was in one of his thoughtful moods. He'd been waiting until Colma stopped contemplating the ceiling. "Got the ballistics reports, Lieutenant," he announced now.

"The bullets match, don't they?"

"Yep." VerPoorten eased into the office. "That .38 special was used to shoot Pieters twice in the chest."

Lt. Colma put one knobby hand on the report on his desk which had started him thinking. "And the
only
prints on the damn gun belong to a woman," he said. "A woman who, so far, doesn't seem to have a record."

"Yep," agreed the big VerPoorten. He dropped down into the only other chair in the room.

"So, maybe Walker was telling me the truth."

"Maybe."

"But, then why did he and his dog jump off the damn train?"

"Guilty conscience?" suggested VerPoorten. He fished a memo out of the sheaf of papers in his big fist. "So far there's been no trace of the guy. Nobody's spotted him, or his dog."

After a deep drag on his cigarette, Colma said, "Those three women."

"The ones this Walker guy claimed pulled the job?"

"Those three women, yes. I should have followed up on that"

"Oh, by the way." VerPoorten consulted another piece of paper. "A Miss Toshiko of the railroad reports one of her spare uniforms was stolen from that Chi to New York train last night."

"Huh, that's jim-dandy," said Colma. "It's starting to look like Walker was giving me a straight story. Which means, VerPoorten, I had three members of the damn jewel ring riding on the same train with me and I let them get away."

"Possibly four," said VerPoorten. "From what you tell me, this Walker guy didn't act like what you call an innocent bystander."

"He may have had something else entirely on his mind," said the lieutenant. "I don't know."

"Sooner or later," said VerPoorten, "some of their stuff is going to turn up. They can't keep sitting on a couple million bucks worth of stolen jewels."

"They may not be. They could be fencing it."

"We haven't dug up any evidence of that."

Colma slapped the fingerprint report on his desk. "And we don't have anything on this dame who see

to have shot Pieters last night. But that doesn't mean she didn't do it"

reluctantly VerPoorten nodded his head. "Here's

something else we ought to cover." He was studying

another sheet of paper, a yellow one this time. "Mrs. Mott Smith "

Mirs. Mott-Smith?" Colma stubbed out his cigarette. . . is going to attend a charity costume ball and rock concert in Greenwich Village this evening," explained VerPoorten. "She intends to wear the famous eye of Isis ruby."

She's going to show up with the real thing, not a copy?"

real thing," answered the big detective. "She says she feels prickly all over when she wears imitations and besides this is for a good cause."

Problems. Everybody's got problems." Colma drank some of his coffee. "God, this stuff is awful this morning

"Yep."

"Okay, we'd better have somebody there to watch Mrs. Mott-Smith's bauble."

The chipped black phone on his desk rang.

"robbery division, Colma. Huh? Where was that?" Ho grabbed up a pencil, wrote quickly on a memo pad. "Ask them to follow up on this." Pronging the phone, he told VerPoorten, "Somebody saw Walker last night."

"Good. Where was it?"

"Up in Thornburg, sometime around three in the morning. Patrolman says a guy and ... and a big wolf broke into a clothing store."

"What did they steal?"

"Nothing. Walker took some clothes and left seventy-five bucks to pay for them."

"He's commencing to sound less and less like what you call your ordinary criminal."

"A wolf," murmured Colma. "The guy has to be some kind of acrobat to have made a jump off the damn train. And he's traveling with some kind of wolf dog."

"Should make him easy to find."

The lieutenant was frowning at the notes he'd made of the phone conversation. "He also seems to have been wearing a costume and mask."

"You mean that's what he took from the clothing place?"

"No, that's what he had on when he broke in. 'Some kind of close-fitting costume, boots and a mask,' ao cording to the patrol guy." Colma took another sip of the terrible coffee. '1 don't know, VerPoorten, this is starting to sound like a crazy one. I don't like these screwy ones."

VerPoorten said, "We should be able to pick up Walker sooner or later. He's probably, him and his wolf dog, huddling under some overpass right now."

"I wouldn't bet on it," said Lt Colma.

CHAPTER SIS

The Woolrich was a quiet and sedate hotel on Park Avenue in the East Thirties. By eleven o'clock the sun was shining brightly into the ninth floor room of the man registered as Devlin. He was a large, good-looking man, dressed, in a sedate English-cut suit which lio'd purchased not quite two hours ago in a Madison Avenue shop. He had the
New York Times
open on 11 ie rosewood coffee table before him. He had on dark glasses and, at about nine o'clock that morning, had acquired a small stylish moustache.

He went carefully through both morning papers, pausing now and then to drink some of the orange juice from the small glass which rested on a white saucer near the edge of the table. He did all this with gloved hands.

The Phantom had gotten into New York City a few minutes before nine that morning. He was alone, and liad arrived by bus. His faithful Devil he'd boarded nl a kennel a hundred miles outside New York, in a town where a helpful truck driver had set them down. You couldn't disguise Devil, so he'd have to stay safe u nd out of sight while the Phantom investigated the riddle of the golden arrow.

The
Times
contained only a paragraph about the murder and robbery of Pieters. The
News
gave it more

attention, and a photo, on page three. Neither newspaper account made any mention of the Phantom, under his Walker name or otherwise. Apparently Lt Colma wasn't giving the media that information just yet.

Finishing the orange juice, the Phantom got up. "Let's start looking for the golden arrow girl," he said to himself.

A dozen or so blocks from his hotel, in a narrow lane between two high-rises, was a small antique and jewelry shop run by a dapper seventy-three-year-old man named Goulet. The Phantom had dealt with him before, on previous visits to Manhattan, and he knew the little Goulet had a considerable knowledge of the j jewelry business, legitimate and otherwise.

Goulet was alone in his small cluttered shop preparing himself a pot of tea. "Ah," he smiled as the Phantom strode in, "it is Mr...."

"Devlin," said the Phantom.

"Mr. Devlin, to be sure," said the little old man. "Time has hardly touched you at all, while myself . . . ah."

The Phantom remarked on the wrinkled Goulet's appearance of robust vitality, then drew the golden arrow pin from his pocket. "What can you tell me about this?"

Goulet reached under the counter, brought up a tin of tea biscuits. He pried off the lid, selected two thin biscuits and shut up the box. After placing the two biscuits beside his teacup, he stuck his jeweler's glass into his left eye. "Allow me to examine it, Mr. . Devlin."

"I hear there's a fairly successful gang of jewel thieves operating hereabouts," remarked the Phantom while the little old man studied the golden arrow.

"As always," said Goulet, "where there are jewels there are those who wish to acquire them."

"You know nothing about them?"

"A most interesting pin." He popped the glass from Ills eye and caught it in his free hand.

Smiling at the old man's evasion of his question, the Phanntom asked, "The pin's not machine-made, is it?"

"Ah, no. This is a handcrafted item. Most certainly," the old man assured him. "The metal is quite unusual, a gold alloy of some sort. Quite unusual."

"Who made the pin?"

Goulet set the golden arrow very carefully on the glass counter top. Picking up one of the tea biscuits, tin took a dainty bite. "At best I could but hazard a

guess."

"Hazard away." !

After chewing meticulously on his tiny biscuit for almost half a minute, Goulet Said, "The craftsman you seek might just be a young man who operates a shop down in the Village. He calls himself Sweeney Todd, though that is quite obviously not his name. His
is
shop is located on Morse Lane, just off Bleeker."

"And what makes you think this is his work?"

Goulet brushed a minute crumb from his upper lip with his little finger before replying. "A man's style is
as
easy to recognize as his handwriting," he said, "to an expert. There are several signs which indicate this pin was fashioned by the young man who calls him
self
Sweeney Todd. I know, further, he is much taken with the idea of odd alloys."

The Phantom asked, "Would you say Sweeney Todd is honest and upright?"

"I was about to add a word of caution," replied the old man. "It might not be advisable to question Swee
ney
Todd too openly. No, I suggest you don't walk Into his place of business and ask him directly about the pin, if you understand my drift?"

"That I do," said the Phantom. "Now what about the jewel gang we were discussing before?"

"There is nothing positive I can tell you." Goulet poured tea into his fragile china cup. "However, I shouldn't be surprised if you learned more about it in the very near future. Yes, very near."

"Thanks." The Phantom placed two folded bills on the counter, took back the golden arrow pin.

'Thank you," said Goulet, not touching the money. "Do you have time for a cup of tea?"

"No, but thanks."

"Ah, perhaps some other time."

Pocketing the golden arrow, the Phantom left the little shop.

Sweeney Todd's Jewelry & Handcrafts Boutique occupied a wide brick-faced store on a short narrow street in Greenwich Village. The display window was filled with simple silver bracelets, bead necklaces and dangling medallions. Two lean young men in overalls and nothing else were coming out of the shop as the Phantom approached it. To the left of the doorway a frail old man with a substantial beard was bent over searching a wire trash container. He salvaged a mint condition copy of the
Wall Street Journal
and shuffled off reading its front page.

Glass chimes tinkled as the Phantom opened the door and entered Sweeney Todd's. The big high- ceilinged room smelled of teakwood and a musky incense. From a speaker hanging on a rafter came very low Indian sitar music. There was no sales counter. An antique cash register, rich with Victorian filagree, was propped on a red painted apple barrel. The shop was empty of people.

The Phantom roamed the bare wood floor. He found a tray of pins set out on an iron-legged table. There were pins based on the signs of the zodiac, pins using Egyptian motifs and pins inspired by a variety of other symbols and signs. But there were no golden arrows on display, nor were any of the costume pins made of exactly the same gold alloy as the one in his suit pocket.