Nace had not told her the details of his evening’s procedure. Coming here, he had merely advised her that he expected to find the three men.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he snorted, trying to exasperate her.
She shrugged. “I don’t blame you for feeling huffy! In your place, I wouldn’t answer, either.”
Nace, contrarily, decided to feed her a little information. It might serve as a bait to attract a statement that would help to clear up the muddle.
“Baron von Auster and the other two were getting ready to go after Reel in hopes of getting the green skull,” he said.
The words got results far beyond his fondest hopes. The young woman’s hands clenched.
“What?” she choked. “They were — didn’t — didn’t Baron von Auster and his two have the green skull?”
“Apparently not,” Nace said dryly.
“I — thought they had it!” she gulped. “I turned — turned Reel loose so that he could get it from them!”
“What made you think they had the thing?”
She hesitated. “Why, because, when Reel took me to the bungalow tonight, some one had already been there — and murdered my brother!”
“And searched the house?”
“No-o-o!” She drew the word out, as if agonized. “The bungalow had not been ransacked. Reel started to do that. But when I got to the phone, he became scared and fled, taking me.”
Nace’s adder scar flushed redly. This was a mixup. Baron von Auster’s men had spoken as though they had not slain Jimmy Offitt. And now the girl was as much as saying Reel had not done it, either.
“Do you think Reel murdered your brother?” he asked bluntly.
She sobbed a little. “No. He did not act like it. He was very surprised when we — found the body!”
Nace went over and shoved his face close to hers. “If none of the others have that green skull thing, hadn’t we better go after it ourselves?”
She said nothing.
He guided her for the door, saying, “We’re going to that bungalow! The thing must be there!”
Chapter V
The Green Prize
They had a wide boulevard across town. Nace wheeled his roadster into the center, horn hooting steadily, and made fifty and sixty most of the way. There was not much traffic. Half a dozen cops ran gesturing into the street after he had passed. Some of them got his license number.
“It’ll rain summonses in the morning, I’ll bet!” he growled.
He parked his machine two blocks from the bungalow, after approaching with horn silenced. The girl got out willingly — a bit too willingly.
“You’d better decide to play ball with me!” Nace suggested.
She maintained silence.
“All right, sister,” he told her. “When I settle this thing, it’ll be in my own way. And I don’t want to hear you squawking.”
She began, “You’re not getting paid anything—”
“Like fun I’m not!” he snorted. “I’ve already collected two thousand smackers — off Baron von Auster!”
She jerked back from him. “He paid you, and you double-crossed—”
“Nix! I took the jack away from him!”
“Oh!” She seemed to consider. “I’ll pay you that much more to go away!”
He laughed softly, ironically, said: “I don’t work that way!”
They wended, via backyards, to the vicinity of the bungalow. Stars overhead and a silver half of a moon cast pale light. In the shadow of a rose bush in somebody’s lawn, Nace surveyed the street.
On the corner lot, the boys still played with their baseball. There were only four of them now, and their game had turned onto a makeshift version of two-old-cat.
Nace, surprised that the lads were still out, eyed his watch. It was only ten o’clock — he had thought the time to be much later.
Two cars were parked in the thoroughfare.
Baron von Auster’s new, inexpensive sedan stood near the corner, under a tree that cut off the brilliance of the corner street lamp.
Nearer was a roadster, a black machine. Reel’s car — the one in which he had fled his black coffin of a mansion.
Both vehicles were empty.
Nace glanced upward, saw a cloud approaching the moon, and waited until it flung darkness into the street, then eased himself across. The keys were not in the roadster ignition lock. He opened his pocketknife and wedged it in front of a rear tire so that, should the car roll, there would be a puncture.
He lifted the hood of the little sedan and tore out the ignition wires. It would take at least twenty minutes of work to get the machine going.
The girl watched these preparations in silence.
She said nothing, offered no resistance, as Nace guided her toward the bungalow.
Shrubs, small hedges, furred the lawn and offered concealment. Haunting these shadows, Nace skirted the bungalow with his companion.
Soon the rear door slammed softly.
Staring, Nace heard, rather than saw, a figure glide into the low bushes. It lingered a moment, then returned.
The closing rear door choked off the light. Nace was not quite able to identify the man, due to the creepers that draped portions of the rear porch.
He eased to the bush the skulker from the house had visited. Exploring, his hands encountered a fat, small traveling bag. The container was stuffed to capacity.
Nace opened it, found what felt like a bundle of candles. He lifted these out, brought them close to his eyes to discern what they were.
His grip tightened when he saw the labels. Dynamite!
With his fingers, Nace searched further. A box holding what felt not unlike blank .22 cartridges reposed in the bottom of the briefcase. Detonator caps!
A fuse, a cap crimped to the end, extended from one of the dynamite sticks through a knife slit in the handbag side.
Nace carried his find to the roadster. The explosive and the caps, he placed in the rear compartment of the car.
And there, in the rear compartment, he made an ugly discovery.
It was the body of Moe.
The round, greasy little form was still warm. A hideous claw of green bones clung to Moe’s throat, the pointed fingertips hanging like embedded thorns.
Moe had been struck a blow upon the head to produce unconsciousness before the grisly thing of green was applied to bring death. This wound had flowed some scarlet, staining the floorboards of the compartment.
Nace considered, then moved to the new sedan. On the front floorboards, he found scarlet stains.
Moe had been killed in Baron von Auster’s machine and transferred to the rear of Reel’s vehicle, it would seem.
Nace grasped the girl’s trembling arm. “Listen — I want a straight answer to this question! Did Reel get a telephone call just before I arrived? I mean — did you hear the phone ring while you were getting loose in the basement?”
She was slow answering, then said: “The phone rang. But I did not hear what was said. That was not more than five minutes before you came to the black house.”
“That explains it!” Nace breathed fiercely. “Baron von Auster gave Reel a call and they combined forces! They’re both in that bungalow now — hunting the green skull!”
Nace now continued his preparations with the dynamite.
He made a bundle of a screwdriver, a can of tube patch, a couple of wrenches, which he found in the rear of the roadster with Moe’s body. He substituted this for the dynamite. He inserted the fuse in the slit in the bag, leaving the cap in place because he did not care to risk getting a hand blown off in removing it.
He carried the body of Moe to a patch of shrubs and concealed it there in the murk.
Carrying the bag, which now contained the harmless bundle he had exchanged for the dynamite, and guiding the girl by an arm, he went toward the bungalow.