The Hidden Door E-Book

Frank L. Packard

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Two murders had been committed there in times gone by. There had been an interval of more than a few years between the two killings, and the one was in no way connected with the other except as to locale—for which reason, those who remembered and were superstitiously minded always claimed that some day sooner or later that same locale would inevitably be the scene of a third murder.
Its location—on a side street just off Washington Square—afforded a certain seclusion and, for New York, a comparatively quiet retreat. Colin Hewitt was not superstitious; nor, indeed, was the previous tenant from whom, as it were, he had inherited the place—a fellow writer who, some two years ago, had left New York to make his home in the south of France.

Leseprobe

FRANK L. PACKARD

The Hidden Door

© 2024 Librorium Editions

ISBN : 9782385748142

CHAPTER IIN EVENT OF DEATH

Two murders had been committed there in times gone by. There had been an interval of more than a few years between the two killings, and the one was in no way connected with the other except as to locale—for which reason, those who remembered and were superstitiously minded always claimed that some day sooner or later that same locale would inevitably be the scene of a third murder.

Its location—on a side street just off Washington Square—afforded a certain seclusion and, for New York, a comparatively quiet retreat. Colin Hewitt was not superstitious; nor, indeed, was the previous tenant from whom, as it were, he had inherited the place—a fellow writer who, some two years ago, had left New York to make his home in the south of France.

It had once been a small stable. It was reached by a narrow passageway from the street, and fronted on a diminutive yard which separated it from the dwelling to which in past years it had been a necessary adjunct.

Colin’s friend had metamorphosed it into a combination of literary workshop and cozy diggings. Colin had made no changes save, of course, to furnish it with his own effects.

Except for a bathroom and pantry-kitchen, it possessed but two rooms: the bedroom above; and the “shop,” as Colin called it, on the ground floor, that opened, just as in the days of the old stable door, directly on the yard.

It was perhaps a little bizarre if one took into account the surroundings and the original purpose for which it had been built, and, in the much misused sense of the word, it might even have been designated as Bohemian in its atmosphere; but Colin liked it. He worked well there. Also, he liked it for other and very pertinent reasons.

It was night, near to midnight, and Colin sat now with his elbows propped on the edge of his flat-topped desk, his chin cupped in his hands, his quiet light brown eyes fixed introspectively on the figure of a young man of about his own age who was ensconced in a lounging chair opposite the desk and who at the moment had just gulped down a stiff spot of neat whisky. Colin’s vis-à-vis had many aliases; but when, some thirty years ago, they had both been born in the same obscure little village in the western part of the state, the other had been christened John, and his surname had been Turner. He had flaming red hair. He had never been called John; he had always been known as Reddy.

They had been close chums through the village school days. The old swimming-hole stuff—and, particularly in connection therewith on one occasion, green apples and cramps. It had been touch and go that day. Reddy had nearly lost his own life in getting Colin out of the water. Later Colin had taken a university course followed by a postgraduate one abroad, specializing in modern languages; Reddy, on the other hand, had followed numerous courses of instruction under various wardens in various institutions that were quite as famous in their own way as were the seats of learning Colin had attended. At the age of fifteen Reddy had run away from home, and it was not until scarcely little more than a week ago that Colin, on one of his customary nightly prowls after “material,” had bumped into the other in a joint of excessively ill repute run by one Nigger Joey. Since then——

“That’s a laugh!” exclaimed Reddy Turner of many aliases. “You don’t owe me any thanks. I’ve introduced you to some of my mob offhand-like; and that’s as far as you know damned well it’ll ever go. But what I’m saying is that though the papers pat you on the back and say you know your onions when it comes to writing crook stuff better than any other guy that ever dished it out, I’m telling you you don’t even know what’s under the skin of those onions, and you’re only kidding the public that hands you a hatful of dough every time you bust into print.”

Colin laughed easily.

“You’re good tonight, Reddy! Nothing like honest criticism. Don’t spare my feelings. Go on.”

“That’s all right,” grunted Reddy. “Sure! Now that I’m at it, I’ll get it off my chest. You go out at night visiting a lot of dumps and hangouts; you know a lot of lags and cokies and a big shot or two; you’re pals with some of the dicks down at the Homicide Bureau; you’re in thick with the police reporters; and you go out and wrap your arms around the neck of any likely bum or dame you meet in the street or in the parks, bring them in here, where nobody’s to know and where it’s nobody’s business, give them a snort and a bite, and frisk the history of their lives out of them. Everybody knows you’re on the level and wouldn’t squawk, but all you’re getting out of it is what you call color, and the rest is your imagination. Maybe that’s enough. I don’t say it isn’t; I’m only saying that what you’re getting looks like nothing at all alongside of the real works.”

“Then, perhaps,” suggested Colin quizzically, “you can set me on the right track?”

“Sure!” Reddy shrugged his shoulders. “That’s easy! Get into the racket yourself.”

Again Colin laughed.

“What are you trying to do?” he inquired. “Proselyte me?”

“I used to know that word before we left school together,” retorted Reddy with a twisted grin, “and I guess I haven’t forgotten it. Didn’t I tell you I was a librarian for two stretches, and that I read a lot of your books while I was in stir? That’s what you’ve been trying to do to me, isn’t it—proselyte me—ever since the night we met up in Nigger Joey’s?”

Colin heaved himself suddenly up from his seat and, circling the corner of the desk, broad-shouldered, a good six feet in height, stood towering over the man in the chair. Then he laid his hand on the other’s shoulder.

The hint of banter was gone.

“Well, why don’t you cut it out, old man?” he asked.

Reddy’s only answer was to fix his eyes abruptly on the toe of his boot.

Colin surveyed the other now in a grave and troubled way. There was age in what should have been a young face. The cheeks were thin and of an unhealthy pallor; the jet-black eyes were deep-set and burned too brightly. Colin’s eyes roved over the trim, almost dapper little figure and rested speculatively for an instant on a significant, though almost imperceptible, bulge below the left shoulder of the other’s coat. Reddy and the Sullivan Law, except when he was in prison, were always at outs. He, Colin, did not know exactly what Reddy’s present racket was—Reddy had not been communicative on that point, in spite of casual introductions to some of his mob—but he knew that Reddy had served two terms for bank robberies, both hold-ups. Reddy was a gangster and in a way already even something of a big shot—but it wasn’t too late, was it? He owed this man his life. He owed him more than that. He owed him so many cherished memories of those boyhood days. This thief wasn’t the real Reddy—it was just a perverted streak that had got into the man. The Reddy he had known had been a generous, laughter-loving boy who had never stooped to a mean or underhand act. The old Reddy must still be there if that side of him could only be reawakened and brought again to the fore.

“Why don’t you cut it out, Reddy?” he prodded earnestly.

The twisted grin came back to Reddy’s lips as he raised his eyes.

“I’ve thought of it,” he said. “I suppose we all have—only most of us never get any farther than letting the idea buzz around in our beans a bit. It isn’t so easy. I couldn’t cut it out without ducking my nut and giving my mob the shake, and that means getting out of New York.”

“Which is a splendid idea!” declared Colin heartily, as he appropriated the arm of the other’s chair. “Look here, Reddy! Get away from all this. What you need, to begin with, is a good physical house-cleaning—the mental side of it will follow. You don’t look well—and you’re not. You need a good big dose of the out-of-doors. The mountains, the rivers, or anywhere you like—a camping trip, say. I’ll go with you—a month or two of it. You used to like fishing, and we’ll go after something more gamy than bullpouts this time. Afterwards—well, we’ll talk that out under the stars. A fresh start somewhere. Let’s go! You say yourself that the only way you can shake your mob is by leaving New York.”

“Yes,” said Reddy; “but you see, even if I wanted to, what puts a crimp in that at the present time is that I can’t leave New York.”

“Why?”

“A job.”

“Oh!” Colin smiled grimly. “Then, I think we’d better start tonight!”

Reddy shook his head.

“You soak up all this sort of stuff like a sponge,” he said after a moment’s silence, “so I suppose you remember a fellow called French Pete who was put on the spot up at Carmoni’s spaghetti joint about a year ago, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Colin crisply; “I do. And if that has any bearing on your present ‘job,’ all I can say is that you’re a proper fool, Reddy. What’s the good of that sort of thing? Lay off, laddy! The chances are an even fifty-fifty that it will only end up by you being put on the spot yourself.”

“I know that damned well,” admitted Reddy laconically. “Better than you do.”

“Well, then?”

It was May, but the weather had turned chilly, and a coal fire was burning in the grate. Reddy leaned forward, poured himself another drink, downed it, and, getting up, walked over to the mantelpiece and stood with his back against it.

“That’s why I blew in here tonight,” he said. “I didn’t just come for a drink and a talk. I’ve been thinking it over. I may get mine all right any old time. I came to ask you to do something for me if I get croaked, but I was afraid I would be asking too much until what you said a minute ago about that camping trip for a month or two. If you could spare that time off with me, which was damned white of you, I have a hunch that after you’ve sent me a wreath and all that sort of thing, you’d oblige me by making that trip, or perhaps something like it—alone.”

Colin’s smile was without mirth.

“See here, Reddy,” he said bluntly, “you’ve had a drink too much, haven’t you?”

“Not yet,” returned Reddy tersely. “Shall I shoot?”

Colin slipped off the arm of the chair and seated himself comfortably in its leather-cushioned depths.

“Yes; go on,” he invited.

Reddy took a cigarette from his pocket and lighted it.

“Well, it’s like this,” he said slowly. “So long as I am alive it doesn’t matter so much; but if I got bumped off, say, within the next two or three months, or two or three days, there’s a letter I’ve written and hidden away that I want a friend of mine to get.”

“Under such distressing circumstances,” Colin offered jocularly, “I would be quite willing to supply a postage stamp.”

Reddy smiled queerly.

“I could do that myself—if I knew the address,” he said. “But I don’t.”

CHAPTER IION THE SPOT

Colin stared suspiciously from Reddy to the decanter and back again at Reddy.

“Is this a riddle?” he asked. “Or what? You want me to deliver a letter, but you don’t know where I am to deliver it.”

“In a way, yes—that’s right. I can only give you a starting point.”

Colin’s brows drew together.

“Oh, I see!” he observed. “I’m to pick up the trail and carry on.”

“Yes.” Reddy’s lips tightened. “I’m afraid it’s asking a lot; but the point is that it’s got to be someone I can trust—and I don’t know of anyone but you. It’ll mean roughing it a bit, I’d say, and it might take a month or two. Cost something, as well; but, as for that, I’ve got plenty of kale, and, if you agree, I’ll hand enough over before I leave tonight—just in case. See?”

Colin sat upright in his chair.

“See here, Reddy!” he ejaculated. “This sounds serious! Damn the kale! Where’s this starting point, and what’s the friend’s name? Man or woman?”

Reddy smiled thinly.

“I’m not dead yet,” he said. “All the dope I’ve got you’ll find with the letter. If I don’t kick off, it doesn’t count, that’s all; but if I do, as I said, I don’t know of anybody I could trust with this thing except you. And there’s a lot at stake in it for me. I am a crook, and you know it, and I’ve a hunch I can guess one thing that’s muddling around in your mind; but I can hand it to you straight right now that if I could tell you the whole story you wouldn’t have any qualms of conscience on the score of any crook stuff I was trying to put over. As for the rest, if you started looking for trouble, you might find it; but you will be in no danger whatever providing you merely deliver the letter as per instructions, and then fade out of the picture. Listen! I’ll put it another way. Let’s suppose I’ve told you where to find the letter if anything happens to me. There’s a large plain envelope with a sealed one inside without any name on it, ’cause it’s safer that way if it was pinched from you or you lost it; also enclosed in the big envelope there’s a couple of loose sheets of paper that haven’t got any ‘Dear Colin’ to start off with—which lets you out in case someone else but you finds ’em first—giving you all the dope I’ve got as to who the letter is for, and how it can be delivered. If for any reason at all you decide not to go any further with it when you’ve read the dope, you will give me your word to destroy the whole thing without opening the sealed envelope and that’ll be the end of it; except that you will also give me your word now, providing you are interested enough to have me really tell you where the envelope is, that you will never under any circumstances say anything about it to anyone.”

Colin stared. A bit strange! A bit curious! Fired the imagination a bit too. In case the man died! A sweetheart somewhere. A ten-to-one chance on that. Long out of touch with her through long years in the penitentiaries. Or something else. Of course—or something else! In any case, a message from the dead. Not a nice thought, that! He did not like to think of Reddy—dead. He much preferred to think of Reddy reëstablished in society as an honest and respectable citizen. Reddy with his brains and ability could be successfully honest if he could be separated from his criminal associations. And he meant to take Reddy on along that line—bring the man back to mental health. But this request that Reddy had made was in case of Reddy’s death. He couldn’t refuse, could he? He didn’t want to refuse. Why should he? On Reddy’s own terms he was not asked to deliver the letter if, when the time came, if it ever did, he, Colin, for any reason whatsoever decided to go no further with it. Fair enough in view of Reddy’s own reticence. Reddy wasn’t asking for a blind promise.

“You’re on, Reddy,” he said quietly. “I subscribe to all the conditions. I hope to God I shall never be called upon to fulfill any of them, and I don’t for a moment believe I ever shall—but where am I to look for the envelope in case I have to?”

Reddy drew hard on his cigarette, as he came slowly back across the room and held out his hand.

“Thanks,” he said simply. “I’m no good on this speech stuff. It means a lot to me, that’s all.”

“Which is enough,” returned Colin heartily as their hands clasped. “Well, where’s the letter to be found?”

“In my room in the hangout where I introduced you to some of the boys the other night,” Reddy answered. “All you’ve got to do is to unscrew the right-hand knob of the curtain pole when nobody is looking. The pole’s hollow, of course, and you’ll find what you are after inside.”

“I don’t think I should have thought of looking there,” observed Colin dryly. “Too bad! I might have used that in a yarn.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Reddy. “It’s not so hot. But it was the best I could do.”

“Why not have put it in a safe-deposit box?” suggested Colin.

Reddy shrugged his shoulders.

“The answer to that is easy. Counting on you to see me through, I would have had to arrange for you to have access to it. That I had a box at all would have been reported to the police the minute I got bumped off, and the police would have been inquisitive—and you would have had to hand over. I asked you to destroy the whole works, didn’t I, if you didn’t see your way clear to carry on? I only wrote the letter a few hours ago in the hope that you would see it through for me if I got up against it.”

“Well, then,” demanded Colin, “why not hand it over to me now and let me take care of it?”

“Because,” said Reddy bluntly, “you’re safer without it—while I’m alive.”

Colin grinned.

“Do you know,” he said facetiously, “I’m beginning to hope that I die before you do.” And then, suddenly serious: “Look here, Reddy, what I said about your chances of being put on the spot yourself if you didn’t cut loose from this sort of life you’ve been living, I said in a purely general way, but I seem to have rung the bell. You’re not the kind of chap to get the wind up, and you’re not morbid; but you have certainly given me the impression that you know you are skating at the moment on particularly perilous ice which might go out from under you at any instant. What about coming across on that score? Or is that taboo too? Or, if I am right, aren’t you perhaps exaggerating the danger of such a possibility a little?”

Reddy walked back to the mantelpiece, tossed the end of his cigarette into the fire, and lighted another.

“I’ll leave you to judge,” he said with a mirthless smile. “It’s not taboo to you except within certain limits—a name or two. I intended to tell you the story—as much of it as I could. You remember I said a little while ago that, good as you are, the stuff you’re writing looks like nothing at all alongside of the real works. Well, I’m going to give you some of the real works—only you can’t print it.”

“The devil!” ejaculated Colin. “That helps a lot!”

“I don’t think you’d want to.” Reddy’s voice was suddenly flat. “She was still only a kid of course when you must have left the old town, because she was nearly six years younger than I am, but I guess you remember my sister Annie, don’t you?”

Colin nodded uneasily. He did not like the note that had crept into Reddy’s voice.

“Annie!” he said. “Rather! I’ve toted her around a hundred times on the handles of my bicycle, and all the while she’d sing like a little lark. She was a great youngster. I suppose she was about eleven or twelve when I finally left the town. I remember I used to think then that she was one of the cheeriest and prettiest kids I had ever seen. She was a good little pal of mine—after you went away, Reddy. We both missed you a lot. What has made you mention her tonight?”

“She’s part of the story I’m going to tell you,” Reddy answered with a crooked smile. “Her body was fished out of the river here six months after French Pete, that we were talking about, was put on the spot. That’s why French Pete was bumped off—Annie had been married to him about a week before.”

Colin, with a sharp intake of his breath, got up from his chair to cross the room and lay his hand on Reddy’s shoulder.

“I don’t think I quite understand,” he said heavily.

“Somebody else wanted her.” Reddy laughed unpleasantly. “French Pete was in the way, that’s all.”

Colin’s hand dropped to his side and clenched.

“My God!” he exclaimed hoarsely. “Go on!”

“French Pete was a pal of mine.” Reddy’s voice was flat again. “That’s how Annie came to know him. He was a French Canadian, and his name was Mireau—Pierre Mireau. He was in the beer racket, and he wasn’t any church-goer, but he was as straight as a string with Annie. You see, after the mother and father died I kept Annie going in a little flat here, and, between stretches, I used to live with her. As I say, that’s how she got to know Pete. She wasn’t for Pete’s racket, and a whole lot less for mine, but she stuck to me through the years like a brick, and what any good woman could do to shove us both back on the straight and narrow, she did. She loved Pete and Pete loved her, understand that. She loved him well enough to marry him in spite of the racket he was in, always hoping, I know, because she said so, that sooner or later she’d get him out of it.”

Reddy paused abruptly, strode over to the decanter, hesitated an instant, and then came back.

“No,” he said, “I’ll wait till I’m through. I was in stir when Annie got married. She wanted to wait for me, but I had still almost a year to go, and I wouldn’t stand for it. I figured she’d be a lot better off and a lot happier that year with Pete. But even the walls where I was don’t keep out the news. You know that. The night that Pete was bumped off, Annie disappeared. I got the low-down on it. She was kidnaped. And I couldn’t get out. Six months later she was found in the river and identified as Mrs. Pierre Mireau, the wife of French Pete, who had been put on the spot.”

“I remember reading about that,” said Colin hoarsely. “It was front-page stuff, but the name, of course, meant nothing to me.”

The pallor in Reddy’s face seemed to have deepened, as, for an instant, he covered his eyes with his hand.

“No,” he said; “of course it wouldn’t.”

“And then?” Colin prompted through tight lips.

“You said something about Annie being pretty when she was a child.” Reddy’s lips were working now. “Some of them don’t grow up that way. Annie did. When she married Pete there wasn’t anything in town that could touch her. God! And she was straight! There was only one way that swine could get her. And I still couldn’t get out. I got out two months ago, and Annie’s been dead nearly five now. I don’t know whether that’s the way he got rid of her when he got tired of her, or perhaps found out that she’d got to know too much, or whether she managed to escape and, crazy with it all, did it herself; but it was murder either way.” Reddy laughed again—it was a jangling, discordant sound. “That’s why I can’t leave New York. That’s the ‘job’ I was talking about. I’ll get the man who did it—or he’ll get me. That’s why I’ve got my fingers crossed on what may happen at any time to me, because I know what I’m up against.”

Reddy paused and circled his lips with the tip of his tongue.

Colin, hard-faced, remained silent, waiting for the other to continue.

“The police didn’t get anywhere,” said Reddy. “Anyway, it isn’t a police job—it’s mine.”

“The code, of course,” Colin nodded in understanding. “I’m afraid, though, that I’m far from agreeing with you there, Reddy.”

“Coming from you,” said Reddy curtly, “that’s good! You know damned well!”

“Yes; I know,” returned Colin a little sharply. “You’d all tell them on your death beds that it was Santa Claus who did it. We won’t argue the point. Well?”

“I know who drove the car the night Pete was bumped off, and I know who the two guys were that made a sieve of him with sawed-off shotguns, but there’s no hurry about them. Their turn will come—but they’re still useful. It’s the big noise they work for that I’m after. I’m thinking just of a slab in the morgue and the man who put Annie there.”

A cigar that Colin had lighted broke in his fingers, and he tossed it into the grate.

“You know who he is?” Colin’s voice was husky.

“If I knew who he was,” Reddy stated evenly, “he wouldn’t be alive tonight. No; I’m not sure yet. But I’ve gone a long way. Listen! I said that what you wrote was nothing alongside of the real works. Your ‘master minds’ and ‘super crooks’ are jokes compared with the one I’m talking about. He swings a mob in every racket there is, from dope and beer and booze to white-slave stuff, with a little murder organization kept on tap to round everything out. He’s got your imagination out for the count at the sound of the gong. Each mob is separate, and no one in any of them knows who the big shot is that they get their orders from. They call him the Mask—that’s all they know about him.”

“You mean he always wears a mask?”

Reddy smiled with grim tolerance.

“Oh, no!” he said. “He leaves that sort of thing to you writers. And yet he is always masked—from the soles of his shoes to the hat he wears, if you get what I mean. He can assume a dozen different characters—and does. Hence the name. No one yet has ever identified him in his real person.”

“But how, then, does he make contact with his gangs? How does he issue his orders?”

“He’s got lieutenants who only know him under one or other of his assumed characters.”

“Do you know who any of them are?—the lieutenants, I mean.”

“Yes.”

Colin waited.

“I told you—no names.”

“All right! The code again, I see. Well?”

“I’ve been working now for two months, but it was only a few days ago that I began to pick up his trail. I’m not kidding myself. If he gets wise to me before I’ve spotted him, you’ll find me where Annie was—in the morgue. Tonight I’m lying low, waiting for a little something I’m counting on to break my way—and, if it does, it won’t be many hours before I’ll have run him down. That’s all.”

“I don’t like it,” pronounced Colin gravely. “It’s all right in a story; but, Reddy, if you get the goods on him there’s the law and——”

“The law be damned!” Reddy broke in fiercely. “With a hundred perjured witnesses and a million dollars to spend, he’d get off. This is between him and me. He killed my pal, and what he did to Annie I’ve told you. Never mind the code; you can’t stand there and talk to me like that, Colin, and make me believe you mean it. He won’t be murdered, shot down when he’s not looking, the way he’s done to others. He’ll get a chance to fight—but he’ll die.”

Colin paced the room and back again. In his heart he had no word to say. It would be useless anyway. He halted again before Reddy.

“Look here, Reddy,” he said, “about that letter you want me to deliver if—well, if things go wrong with you. If it’s a fair question, I’d like to know if it has anything to do with this inhuman cur you call the Mask. I know you said that you——” He broke off suddenly.

Someone was knocking at the door.

Colin looked at Reddy.

“Expecting anyone?” Reddy asked.

“I’m always expecting someone,” Colin answered with a faint smile. “You said it a little while ago.”

“The park-benchers?” inquired Reddy. “Your leg-pullers?”

Colin nodded.

“Probably. Do you mind?”

The knock upon the door was repeated—but, it seemed, a little timorously this time.

Reddy shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s nothing in my young life,” he said. “There’s always the chance, of course, that I might be recognized, but if your reputation will stand for me being here, it’s okay by me. Go to it.”

Colin stepped to the door and threw it open. A curious figure confronted him across the threshold; the figure of an old, gray-haired, gray-bearded man in a shabby, black, broad-brimmed soft hat and a shabby black Inverness cloak that was drawn tightly around a pair of stooped shoulders.

“I hope I do not intrude.” There was polish in the man’s voice, but also the quaver of age, and the trace of a Southern drawl. “I will not detain you but a moment if I may come in. A friend of mine to whom you were once very kind suggested that I might have something of interest to impart to you, sir, by way of a story. That you were in the habit of——”

“That’s all right,” said Colin heartily. He shot a glance over his shoulder, and caught Reddy’s grin. Reddy’s grin was eloquent. “Another one!” it twitted. Colin waved his visitor forward. “Come in,” he invited.

The man stepped forward, and with a sort of old-world elegance, with a bit of a flourish, removed his hat. And then halted in his tracks.

“Oh!” he exclaimed apologetically. “I am afraid I do intrude. You are already engaged.”

“Quite all right!” smiled Colin, as he closed the door. “My friend, Mr. Williamson. Mr.——?”

“Hargreaves, sir,” supplied the stranger. “Served as a boy in the Confederate Army. ’Sixty-four to ’sixty-five, sir. Long gone by. Later, a colonel by courtesy. I’m a very old man now, sir.” He bowed deeply to Reddy. “The honor of your acquaintance, Mr. Williamson!”

“A spot of Scotch, Colonel?” suggested Colin, with a genial smile. “I’m sorry I have no Bourbon.”

“Sir, indeed, you overwhelm me.”

“Splendid!” applauded Colin. He stepped forward around the desk, lifted the decanter from its stand, and poured out a generous portion. “Neat, or with a splash of soda?” he asked as he looked up—and the glass in his hand crashed and splintered on the floor.

In his left hand, dangling debonairly, “Colonel Hargreaves” held his shabby felt hat; in his right hand, his cloak flung back over his shoulder, an automatic held a bead on Reddy.

“Mr. Williamson, eh?” There was no age in the voice now, no soft Southern drawl; it was curt, decisive, deadly cold. “I suggest that he is far better known as Reddy Turner, alias—oh, well, there are so many aliases.”

Reddy’s hand, arrested on its way to the bulge beneath the left shoulder of his coat, hung across his heart. His face had set.

“Who the hell are you?” he flung out. “What do you want?”

“Two questions!” purred the stranger with a faint smile. “I promised our host that I would not detain him long. I will try to answer them both at once. I am the Mask, as I understand you call me—the man that you believed you had so nearly unearthed. Well, so you had. I will be frank. Much more nearly than even you yourself believed. It is not often that I honor anyone with my personal intervention in matters of this kind; but as a tribute to your pertinacity I so honor you tonight. And, besides, this place in its discreet retirement lends itself so admirably to an interview that I could not resist it. What I want, or rather, who I want is—you!”

Colin’s eyes swept swiftly from one to the other of the two men. His throat was suddenly sticky dry. He saw Reddy’s hand shoot swiftly upward beneath the left-hand shoulder of his coat—but it never reached its objective. There was a flash, the roar of a report. Another flash—another roar. He saw Reddy crumple up and pitch headlong to the floor.

And then a madness seized upon Colin. He flung himself forward around the corner of the desk. He heard a voice:

“You are impatient. It is only that your friend had precedence!”

And then a flash—and then utter darkness.

It might have been a minute, or ten—or an hour. Colin never knew. He opened his eyes. All was misty at first. Then, though in a blurred way, his vision cleared. The lights in the room were still ablaze. The fire was still burning in the grate, and in its fitful glow he saw Reddy’s crumpled and motionless figure on the floor. And he remembered.

He crawled across the floor, clutched at the edge of the desk, pulled himself desperately to his feet, and snatched the telephone receiver from its base.

He stood there swaying. Ages later a voice spoke.

“Give me police headquarters,” Colin gasped. “For God’s sake—quick!”

The room was swirling around him. Around and around—he bit at his lips. And then another voice spoke faintly as though through some vast space. He did not know what it said, but he answered it.

“Colin Hewitt speaking,” he babbled. “A murder here. I——”

And then his knees gave way beneath him, and he toppled backward—and was conscious of nothing more.

CHAPTER IIITHE POLICE ANGLE

The superstitiously minded had been vindicated. But if there were any significance to be attached to the fact that the third murder had now been committed on the premises, such significance had left Detective Sergeant Tim Mulvey of the Homicide Bureau unmoved and cold.

Detective Sergeant Mulvey, who was one of those police “pals” of Colin to whom Reddy had referred, was in charge of the case. He sat now where Reddy Turner had sat nearly a month ago in the deep leather-upholstered lounging chair, facing Colin across the latter’s desk. And again it was near to midnight.

Colin’s face, thin and drawn, showed the marks of a long illness. As a matter of fact he had hovered between life and death with the odds heavily against him for a matter of ten days. Then the turn in his favor had come, but convalescence had been slow. It was only that morning he had been discharged from the hospital—with very definite instructions to go slow and take the utmost care of himself until he was back to normal again.

They were discussing the case. From the night of the murder the police had got nowhere.

“If you ask me”—Detective Sergeant Mulvey swung the stub of a thick cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other—“Reddy handed you a fairy tale. He just out-bunked you on your own stuff that you write about the super-crime guy that sits back in his web and pushes a button and has the nation paralyzed. This bird ain’t anything like that. Sure, he’s masquerading around and pulling a front, but when we get him you’ll see he’s nothing more than a dirty rat in a small way of business that keeps under cover from his own gang in order to save his own hide; and the gang falls for the mysterious unknown who yanks the strings, and eats it all up alive—the way your readers do.”

“I don’t agree with you,” Colin replied bluntly. “I’ve told you a dozen times what Reddy said about him that night, and I believe Reddy knew what he was talking about. Good God, Tim, he was so hot on the Mask’s track that night that it cost him his life. Can’t you let that sink in?”

“Sure, I can!” returned Detective Sergeant Mulvey gruffly. “It’s the old, old story! To hell with the police! Reddy, on a lone hunt, was after the guy that bumped off his pal and killed his sister. He finds out that his man goes around in disguise, leads a double life, and runs a mob off-stage. Finally, just when he thinks that in another twenty-four hours or so he’ll be pumping the man full of holes, the other gets him first. That’s all right! That’s easy! It’s open and shut! But it doesn’t mean that this Mask gazebo is the one and only! Reddy got excited when he stumbled on that Mask stuff, that’s all.”

“And again I disagree,” returned Colin calmly. “Reddy wasn’t the kind to get excited that way.”

“Oh, well”—Detective Sergeant Mulvey shrugged his big shoulders—“let that go! You’ll see!”

“When?” inquired Colin blandly.

The thrust went home.

“Damn it!” snapped Detective Sergeant Mulvey. “I don’t know, do I? We’re doing all we can. I ain’t writing a book. I can’t fake up clues and evidence, and then set the scenes so’s everything will end up with me pinning a medal on my breast. I’m not making any bones about it to you. So far the case is a total loss.”

“Which rather goes to prove, doesn’t it,” Colin suggested quietly, “that there is at least some basis of fact in Reddy’s assertion, and that you are dealing with an unusual situation? You’ve had dozens of gangsters up for questioning, and in spite of the fact that—I refrain from using the term ‘third degree’—your questioning was both persuasive and persistent, you have told me yourself that they were all deaf in both ears when any mention of the Mask was made. And yet the Mask exists, and was certainly known by that name to some of those men, and in one guise or another they have probably been in actual contact with him. It is true that through his criminal associations Reddy possibly had sources of information that the police did not have, and you have therefore been at a disadvantage in that respect; but it is equally true that Reddy must have come pretty close to unearthing his quarry, otherwise no attention would have been paid to him. He obviously must have been in possession of a lot of inside knowledge that no one else had, and I am thoroughly convinced that all he said was literally true.”

“It’s too bad he hadn’t spilled a little of it, then!” grunted Detective Sergeant Mulvey. “Not to the police, of course! No fear! The ‘Reddys’ are all alike. But to you.”

“Granted,” agreed Colin. “But he didn’t. Except for the fact that I was here and saw the man when he announced himself as the Mask just before he shot Reddy down and then turned his attention to me, I have no more idea of his identity than you have. I wish I had. I’ve told you everything Reddy said about him, and so far you——”

The telephone was ringing. Colin reached across the desk and picked up the receiver.

“Yes? Hello?” he said—and then his jaws clamped suddenly together. Over the wire came that unforgettable voice with its quaver and Southern drawl.

“Mr. Colin Hewitt?”

“Yes!” Colin bit off the word.

“Hargreaves speaking. Colonel by courtesy, sir. But perhaps you had already recognized my voice?”

“I had!” said Colin grimly. “Alias the Mask, I believe. Any name will do.” He glanced at Detective Sergeant Mulvey. At the mention of the Mask, the Homicide Bureau man had started up abruptly from his chair and had stepped to the edge of the desk. There was an interrogative scowl on Sergeant Mulvey’s face. Colin nodded an affirmative reply to the unspoken question; then, grittily, into the transmitter: “Sorry you haven’t come around in person, but it’s a pleasure to hear your voice once more.”

“I doubted at one time, sir,” drawled the voice, “if you ever would again. I am considered an excellent marksman and I rarely miss. I had no intention of merely wounding you that night, but nevertheless I have called you up now to congratulate you on your return to health, sir.”

“It is really too good of you,” said Colin evenly.