“That bird’s a neckpain,” Nace said, indicating Jaxon. “Let’s get our talk before he wakes up!”
“An idea!” The Robin Hood jutted his wolf face at Nace. “I want to make a deal with you, feller!”
Nace shrugged. “If the deal is to give you the name of the man behind this hot-oil business, when I find out who it is — nothing doing!”
The Robin Hood’s long jaw lowered almost to his necktie. “How’d you know that was it?”
“What else could it be?” Nace spread his hands. “The man dead in the morgue is your brother. You’re out to pay somebody for getting him.”
“I’ll be damned!” grunted the Robin Hood.
“That’s what you came to the airport to see me about,” Nace continued. “And you arranged the hotel trap in case you couldn’t get to me at the airport. You did fix that hotel business, didn’t you — leaving the note in the newspaper office for Jaxon?”
“Yeah!” the Robin Hood admitted. “Say — you’re pretty sharp!”
Nace eyed him intently. “If you’re not afraid of incriminating yourself, you can tell me some things.”
The Robin Hood laughed harshly. “Say, feller, I ain’t afraid of admittin’ anything! If the law ever puts the shuck on me they’ve already got plenty to hang me! A little bit more won’t hurt!”
Nace grinned. “You know, I’d kinda hate to see ’em get you, at that.”
“To hell with what you think!” the Robin Hood scowled. “I’ll blow your damned head off if I ever catch you with a gun! What do you want to know?”
“Have you been mixed up with this hot-oil ring?”
“Sure, I’ve been doing most of the dirty work.” The wolf face became fiercer. “And I got it in the neck! The big boss is trying to hog the proceeds! I don’t know who he is. I never have known!”
Nace waved his arm. “What about this house?”
“This is where the boss always met us. That is, he’d come and talk to us from one room, while we stayed in another.”
Chapter VI
The Smoke Trap
Nace squinted at the Oklahoma badman, absently fingering the cigars in his pocket.
“Well, don’t you believe me?” the man scowled.
“What difference does it make?” It was just as well, Nace reflected, to feed the fellow a little sass and keep him guessing. The Robin Hood might have likable qualities, but that did not mean he was a pleasant customer.
Should he get the idea Nace was no longer useful, he would be as likely as not to shove a gun in the private detective’s hand and demand that they shoot it out, wild-west style. He was that kind of a character.
“I’m going to look around!” Nace said, and started for a door.
“I’ve already done that!” The Robin Hood scowled blackly. “You stick here!”
Nace pivoted. “You know that blond girl?”
“Sure! And don’t you go making cracks about her, shamus! She’s a straight little number!”
“Don’t I know it!” Nace said earnestly. “You don’t, by any chance, know where she is?”
The Robin Hood hesitated. “I ain’t seen her since we split up, after leavin’ the Crown Block!”
“I thought so!” Nace’s voice suddenly sounded old, weary. “She has disappeared! The lice working for the big brain back of the hot-oil ring grabbed her!”
The Robin Hood swore softly. “How d’you know that?”
That, Nace reflected, was something else to keep the fellow guessing. No good could come of letting the Robin Hood know that Julia was Nace’s assistant.
Saying nothing, Nace passed through a door. He was cursed at, ordered to come back. He ignored profanity and summons, and began to search.
None of the upstairs rooms yielded anything. The glass-walled box of a room which sat atop the house was entirely bare of furnishings. There was a dust on the floor, a thin film. It was smudged and tracked where men, in the hours or days past, had crouched to watch the surroundings.
He ended up in the basement. This was very large, divided into several rooms — washroom, gym, billiard room, and a larger enclosure which held a furnace.
The furnace was an oil burner, and there was a fuel tank, almost as large as half a railway tank car.
It was very warm in the furnace room. Nace put a hand on the furnace. It was hot. He opened the doors. The fires were out. There was no room for anyone to have been concealed in the furnace.
He went over and started to climb upon the fuel tank, with the idea of peering in the manhole at the top. Instead of doing that, he sprang back, ran to the stairs.
“Come down here!” he called. “I’ve got something for you!”
There was no answer from above.
“Come here!” Nace repeated sharply.
No reply.
Nace climbed the stairs with long jumps, ran into the room where he had left Robin Hood Lloyd and his companions.
Jaxon glared at Nace over the twin blue snouts of a derringer.
“I’m gonna collect that ten thousand yet!” the oil editor gritted.
The Robin Hood and his two fellows had their hands at shoulder level. Their faces held fierce hate, and also wariness. The derringer held only two bullets. But that was enough to kill two men.
Waving his weapon to cover everyone, Jaxon sidled over and disarmed his prisoners.
“Jaxon — you nut!” Nace started forward.
“Get back!” Jaxon snarled. “I’d like nothing better than to sink lead into you!”
In a loud, wolf-howl of a voice, the Robin Hood said, “He had the hideout up his pants leg!”
“That’s your hard luck!” Nace grunted. “You searched ’im — not me!”
“Shut up and plop down on your faces!” Jaxon ordered.
The Robin Hood’s claw-like hands opened and shut. He exhibited all the signs of a man about to make a break.
“Go ahead — if you want to croak!” Nace told him, and lay his full length on the floor. “This lunk ain’t foolin’! That ten thousand has got him crazy!”
Reluctantly, as if their joints were afflicted with a stiffness, Oklahoma’s master outlaw and his two satellites followed Nace’s example in flattening to the floor. They let Jaxon bind them.
When the job was done, Jaxon stepped back. His face was flushed, his eyes gleeful.
“Now to call a flock of cops!” he gloated.
He went to the telephone, picked up the receiver and listened. Making one of his faces, he flung away from the instrument. “Line’s dead! Wires must be cut!”
He seized upon Nace’s bag, stripped back the zipper, and peered inside.
“Regular bag of magic!” He leered at Nace. “I’ll just take this along. I don’t want you gettin’ away and turnin’ your buddies loose!”
He walked outdoors. The rear door slammed.
Nace sat up. Twisting, he managed to reach his left trouser leg with both hands. He grasped it at the cuff, one hand on either side of the seam, and made a tearing gesture. The seam pulled apart.
Six inches of thin hacksaw blade came out.
Jaxon had used wire clothesline for the binding. The hacksaw blade quickly cut through the bonds on Nace’s ankles. He ran to the Robin Hood.
“Hold the blade!” he commanded. “I’ll saw my wrists free!”
Eagerly, the bandit complied. It required perhaps a minute for Nace to loosen his hands. Twice, he gashed himself. Then he sprang erect.
“Now untie me!” growled the Robin Hood.
Nace laughed harshly. “Who said anything about untying you?”
The bandit snarled like a wolf in a trap. “Damn you! If I ever catch you with a gun, it’ll be your finish!”
Ignoring the ominous promise, Nace glided to a window and looked out. There was no Jaxon. But the man had time to depart.