“Not on your life, Inspector,” Van said. “You might trap some of the gang, but what about the Chief? You wouldn’t get him, and you wouldn’t put a stop to the murders. He could hire another bunch of killers. If we raid that place it’s got to be done at just the right moment. It’s got to be timed. It’s the only big lead we’ve got. We can’t afford to spoil it.”
“Then what do you advise, Phantom?”
“Some sleep, Inspector, for both of us! Give your men orders to comb the city for Blackwell, then call it a day. Unless something else breaks in the meantime you’ll need all your energy for the party tomorrow night.”
Without explaining what he meant, Van hung up.
The next afternoon something else did break. But it only added a darker tinge to the mystery. Reggie Winstead, the man suspected by Guido of being the Chief, now being watched closely by Farragut’s detectives, lost his nerve completely and swallowed a bottle of poison. His pulse was almost nonexistent, and there was a white froth on his lips when some of Farragut’s men found him. It was obviously a suicide attempt, not murder, for the poison bottle lay right at his side.
A stomach pump brought him back to consciousness.
“Couldn’t stand – the suspense,” Winstead mumbled. “Dancing dolls! They’d get me – anyway!”
He was rushed off in an ambulance and put on the danger list in Bellevue.
Van called Farragut when he heard about it. The inspector was swearing mad and discouraged.
“That’s the last straw, Phantom! I’m stumped! I don’t know where I’m at! And, what’s more, my men haven’t been able to find Blackwell. No trace of him.”
“Then you’ve got two suspects,” said Van grimly.
“Two suspects – what the hell do you mean?”
“Blackwell and Winstead! I’m not saying they’re guilty. I’m only saying they’re first-class suspects. Blackwell was not under police surveillance last night when I saw the Chief. Neither was Winstead. Now Blackwell’s gone, skipped. And though Winstead took poison, he didn’t die. Wouldn’t a suicide attempt be a swell way for a murderer to cover up?”
“Damn!” said Farragut.
“And don’t forget Eben Gray! There’s a man worth watching!”
“Damn!” said Farragut again.
“We won’t know whether Winstead’s guilty or not until tonight – unless he dies first. After tonight I hope we’ll be certain. If it’s okay with you, Inspector, we’re going to raid that house I spoke of. We’re going to make a man-sized attempt to trap the Chief!”
“Now you’re talking!” shouted Farragut. “How many men do you want? Where is it?”
THERE are a few things I’ve got to do first,” said Van “It’s not going to be any cinch. It may miss fire. But with Blackwell still unaccounted for, tonight may be our last and only chance. I’ll call back around ten o’clock, Inspector, and give you all the dope.”
Van hung up. His face was grimly set. He remembered that the Chief had threatened to ditch Guido and the whole murder gang unless they found and killed Blackwell before his return tonight. So far nothing had been heard of Blackwell dead or alive.
Two hours after Van’s talk with Inspector Farragut a yellow taxi swerved to the curb along the block where Blackie Guido had taken quarters in a rooming house. The taxi rolled to a stop five doors away from Guido’s new abode, and on the same side of the street. There were no passengers in it. The driver, nondescript, lanky, tough-looking, lounged behind the wheel. He amused himself with a tabloid paper and a package of cigarettes. He kept the meter running.
When people walked up from time to time to engage him, he shook his head, growled: “Nothin’ doin’! Got a fare.”
DUSK was falling rapidly. As it deepened the cabman’s eyes grew watchful over his paper. He could just make out the windows of the room Guido had taken, two stories above the street. A light suddenly sprang up behind the shades. The cabman waited patiently an hour longer until the light finally went out.
Then he shut off his meter, threw in his clutch, and kept his foot ready on the pedal. His shoulders bent forward over the wheel.
The door of the rooming house opened; and a man dressed in a Chesterfield, derby, spats, and gloves, came down the brownstone steps. It was Blackie Guido, his swarthy face washed out with worry, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. He was slapping his gloves nervously against his leg. Inner emotion, fear, uncertainty, made his usually handsome face look ugly.
The taxi nosed forward as Guido walked up the street. “Cab, sir? Cab?”
Guido saw it, gestured mechanically with his pigskin gloves. He stepped through the door that the taximan pushed open.
“Hotel Chatterly,” he spat. “Step on it!”
“What’s that again, Mac?” The taximan twisted his head back interrogatively as though to make sure of his orders. His tough-looking face was innocently blank.
Guido brought his own sinister, bloodshot eyes close to the open window in the glass partition that separated him from the driver Nervous fury writhed in his pale lips.
“Are you deaf?” he yelled. “I said Hotel Chatterly, damn you!”
Crack!
Guido never saw the small leather blackjack that struck him. The driver swung it so quickly, so dexterously, in a back-handed flip, that it was like a stage magician’s trick. It hit Guido’s temple. There was artistry, calculation in the blow. Guido slumped and lay like a fallen grain sack in the bottom of the cab.
The cab shot forward with its silent, inert passenger that no one looking in from the outside would be apt to see. But the taximan turned into an avenue with few traffic lights, then cut at an angle across the city, choosing the lesser used streets.
The coup had worked out too well for the Phantom to want to take any chances now. Behind his taximan’s disguise his eyes were gleaming. Making a prisoner of Blackie Guido was only the first step in the daring action he planned. The cab was his own, one that he kept always ready in a secret garage.
He drove it now to another garage in the rear of Dr. Paul Bendix’s laboratory. He climbed out, closed the garage doors carefully. Blackie Guido as yet hadn’t even begun to stir. But his pulse was strong and steady. The Phantom’s expert blow had only stunned him. Van lifted him easily, carried him through a short walled passage and into the laboratory itself.
Here, in a small, thick-walled anteroom, was a metal chair bolted to the floor. Van had installed it in case the need arose to interview and subdue unruly captives. He dropped Guido in it, clipped handcuffs over his slack wrists and through rings in the chair, fastened his ankles to the rungs. Then he poured some carbonate of ammonia on a piece of cotton and held it under Guido’s nostrils.
Guido began to twitch at the end of two minutes. His sagging mouth closed, his eyelids opened. He sat up suddenly, glaring at the Phantom with all the ferocity of a wild animal in a trap.
“All right, Guido,” said Van softly. “There are a few things I want to ask you while you’re my guest.”
“Go to Hell!” said Guido. Veins in his forehead stood out. His teeth showed in a tigerish snarl. “I’ll get you for this!”
“You’ll never have a chance. The electric chair’s waiting for you. Do you know who I am?”
For seconds their eyes clashed, Van’s calm ones looking into Guido’s black pupils with a steady, menacing stare. For all his rough disguise as a taximan, Van’s face seemed to acquire dignity and an almost uncanny power. The mottled, angry flush began to fade from Guido’s cheeks. Fear and pallor took its place. He licked his lips, and his voice came huskily.
“I guess you’re – the Phantom!”
“Right! And you’re finished, Guido – done! I know just what you’ve been up to. I’ve got a closed case against you. You’ve had a hand in three killings in the last two days. Any one of them would send you to the death house.” Blackie’s face went pallid.