The Emperor of Death (10 page)

Out in the night somewhere, a clock tolled eight chimes. Havens consulted his watch.

“Eleven-thirty,” he said. “Shall we start?”

Van nodded, and the trio of them rose. Bursage hastily scribbled something on a piece of paper.

“The combination,” he said. “You’ll need it to get me out.”

Van nodded and thrust the paper in his upper vest pocket. In the silence they walked through the gaunt marble and steel corridors of the bank. Finally, Bursage stopped before a tremendous impregnable portal of steel.

“This is it,” he said.

He bent down and proceeded to twist the first series of dials. So difficult was the door to open, that it took him all of fifteen minutes to accomplish his task.

At last he reached out for the handle and gave the door a tremendous tug. Slowly it swung open, revealing a dark, cadaverous interior. Van entered first with a flashlight. The yellow beam of the torch carefully scrutinized every square inch of the huge safe. There was no sign of anything untoward there.

“All right,” he said to Bursage. “Get in. Don’t be afraid. You’ll be out in twenty minutes or less. Good luck.”

Bursage took his hand, then after gripping the hand of Havens for a moment, he entered the safe.

“Are you armed?” asked Van.

Bursage nodded. His face was drawn and pale. His eyes glittered nervously. But he kept a grip on himself. He essayed a short forced laugh.

“Sure,” he said. “I’m armed. That ought to clinch it. Shouldn’t it?”

Van agreed that it should, then slowly they swung the enormous door closed behind him. With unhurried fingers, the pair of them shot the heavy bolts into their sockets. Then Van gave a quick twist to the dozen dials which effectively locked the metal portal. He glanced at the piece of paper in his hand, and his retentive mind immediately memorized the score of numbers written upon it.

Then he tore the paper into a hundred pieces, crumpled it into a tight ball and thrust it into his pocket. He turned to Havens.

“See that the watchmen are at their places,” he said. “Then come back here.”

Havens walked briskly across the high-ceilinged vault room, and Van, a thin smile of triumph flickering over his face, took up his position with his back to the steel prison which held the president of the Second National Bank within its invulnerable walls.

The Phantom’s hand was in his coat pocket, resting on the butt of a .38. For the first time since he had come to grips with Hesterberg, he felt thoroughly confident of the result. Think as he would, he could find no flaw in his protection of Bursage.

It was humanly impossible to gain access to that vault. It was difficult enough to enter the bank building itself. The watchmen had had their orders. But to pass the .38 in his pocket, then to pass that yard of steel which shut Bursage off from the rest of the world was utterly, absolutely, and apodictically impossible.

Havens returned.

“Everything okay,” he reported. “I guess this is one time we’ve beaten Hesterberg. It was a swell idea.”

Van nodded. High up on the wall a clock relentlessly ticked off the minutes. From without, midnight struck, and the chimes reverberated through the night over the city.

Instinctively, Van’s hand tightened on the butt of the weapon in his pocket. He felt his heart pick up a beat as the moment when Hesterberg had threatened to kill, arrived. His keen eyes swept the vault room. A shadow passed the door.

He started into complete alertness, then relaxed again, as he realized it was only one of the watchmen making his rounds. Havens stood at his side. His hand was also in his coat pocket and for a similar reason.

Both of them stared at the clock. The minute hand moved slowly, almost imperceptibly. Five minutes past twelve. Havens glanced inquiringly at Van.

“Shall we open up?”

Van shook his head. From the holes in his silk mask his eyes gleamed triumphantly.

“We’ll make sure of it,” he said. “We’ll give him five more minutes.”

Those five minutes took five hours to tick their way into the chasm of time which houses the past. Then when the minute hand stood directly over the numeral
2
, Van turned to Havens and nodded.

“Now,” he said. “Come on.”

He twisted the dials rapidly, and as soon as the combination was released, the publisher tugged back the heavy handles which drew the bolts. It took ten minutes more to accomplish their task of releasing Bursage.

Van pulled the heavy portal open slowly. A smile was on his lips. He was human enough to take a keen personal relish in outwitting the man who had escaped him so often. The door swung open all the way. Van said:

“Okay, Bursage. You’re safe. It’s twenty minutes past twelve. Come on out.”

There was no answer!

Van Loan felt an icy hand clutch out from nowhere and touch his heart. For a moment he stood transfixed on the threshold of the vault. Had, then, all his elaborate precautions failed? Had Hesterberg achieved the utterly impossible? He heard Havens’s ejaculation of anxiety at his side.

“God, is he all right?”

Van whipped his flashlight from his pocket, and pressed the button. Then he fell back a step. Horror and amazement dilated his eyes. Havens swore a mighty oath. Van’s nails bit into the palms of his hands and he was aware of an eerie sensation of the supernatural as his gaze followed the yellow beam of the flashlight.

For there, revealed blatantly in the yellow halo of light, lay Bursage. Blood gushed from a hole in his chest, and the glittering jeweled hilt of a dagger protruded from the crimson flow. His was a crumpled, bloody body that needed no closer scrutiny. to make sure that he was dead.

The Mad Red had kept his word. He had struck as he had promised!

Van thrust the flashlight into Havens’s trembling hand. He stepped forward into the vault and bent over the body. Bursage’s coat lay open, and peeping from the inside pocket was the edge of an envelope, with a black serried border.

Without quite knowing why, the Phantom bent down and ex- –tracted the envelope from the dead man’s pocket. It bore no inscription. Hastily he ripped it open, and holding it so that the beams of the flash played upon it, he read the scrawled message on the dirty paper within.

He died at midnight!
                          Hesterberg.

Slowly Van backed out of the vault. His eyes flashed with baffled rage, and a tremendous desire for vengeance upon the murderer who had once again outwitted him. Havens clutched his arm with a shaking hand.

“What happened? Is he dead? How? How could anyone get in there?”

“He’s dead,” said Van grimly. “Hesterberg kept his word. How, I don’t know. But, by God, I’ll find out if it’s the last thing I ever do in this world. I swear it, so help me God.”

He raised his right hand and his eyes to Heaven as he swore an oath by the God he believed in, that he would eventually bring the Mad Red to justice.

Havens bent over and read the message Van still held in his hand.

“He died at midnight,” he said aloud.

Van turned to him. “Aye, he did,” he said. “He died at midnight, and so, I swear shall Hesterberg. By everything sacred I swear. Hesterberg shall die at midnight and by my hand.” Then with his eyes burning terrible holes through his mask, he turned and walked from the room. Havens followed him, trembling with the air of a man who had just met death face to face — as indeed he had.

CHAPTER X
HEARING BUT NOT SEEING

THOUGH a pale dawn had streaked the East before Van Loan had found a troubled slumber the night before, he awoke promptly at ten. He was immediately assailed by the events of the night before and the tragic end of Bursage. He was oppressed by a sense of failure. A man’s life had been entrusted into his hands and he had failed — miserably.

He picked up the few clues to the baffling mystery where he had left off a few short hours before. One question confronted him; one question to which he could arrive at no satisfactory answer.

Locked in a vault alone — how was Bursage murdered?

He could find no answer. At last he dressed and went out to telephone Havens. He dialed a number and a moment later the familiar voice of Havens trickled into his ear.

At the first words of his friend, his physical and mental lassitude swept from him. He kicked his feet out of bed and sat bolt upright, gripping the telephone with tense fingers.

“What,” he barked into the transmitter.

Havens’s voice came to him again; calmer this time, more distinct.

“Hesterberg has sent his second warning. Clairborne, this time!”

“When did Clairborne get it?” snapped Van. “Give me the details.”

“Ten minutes ago. I’m just through talking to him on the phone. He’s heard of Bursage’s death, and he’s terribly upset. Wants to know what he’s to do.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing, yet.”

“What was the message?”

“No ultimatum; no demands. Simply that at twelve midnight, Clairborne would be killed. Good God, Van, this — this is terrible. We’ve got to do something; got to do something at once!”

The tone of the voice told Van that Havens was a very frantic man. And with good cause, too. With each succeeding event, he, Van Loan, was realizing the terrific power he was pitted against. A power that could pronounce sentence on a man and then execute it within sealed, bank vaults.

He whipped his brain into feverish activity.

“What are we to do?” came Havens’s voice again, strained and halting.

A half-formed plan began to mature in Van Loan’s brain.

“Get in touch with Clairborne at once. Tell him to go to his Club tonight. The Union. Have a party of friends there. Have him get in touch with the Commissioner and have him throw a cordon of police around the building. I’ll be there. Tell Clairborne that. I’ll be there — and I won’t fail!”

“You’re coming as —?”

“No — I’ll be there, but you won’t know me. I’ll be there as the Phantom!”

Van heard Havens’s short gasp over the wire, but before waiting for more questions, he snapped his last order.

“Get in touch with Clairborne at once. And tell him if he wants to live he must be at the Union.”

A cab crawled slowly down Fifth Avenue toward the Union Club. Leaning against the cushions in the rear, with a forgotten cigarette between his fingers, Van pondered this second warning of Hesterberg.

That he should threaten Clairborne, he could understand. But to threaten him without making some demand was altogether unintelligible. It seemed incredible that Hesterberg was killing again, merely for a show. Hesterberg’s insanity didn’t run to murder for murder’s sake. No; there was something more behind it than that. Find the motive behind that second warning and he would have the key to its frustration.

But the motive was as elusive as Hesterberg himself.

His taxi pulled up to the canopied entrance to the Union Club. Richard Van Loan assumed his most debonair, nonchalant air and strolled into the luxurious smoking room of the establishment. He waved a cheery greeting to a few fellow members; sank into a deep leather-cushioned chair by an open window and rang for a drink.

Sipping the highball, he studied the interior of the room. He found himself scrutinizing the pictures as if he half expected to see the fanatical eyes of Hesterberg stare out at him from the portrait of old Peter Schyville, the founder of the club. He caught himself searching the oak panels of the room for some indication of a secret door.

Van swore softly to himself and downed the rest of his drink. He was acting ridiculous — like a cub detective on his first case.

But what
was
the answer to Hesterberg’s threat of death?

The perplexed state of his mind made him restless. He rose from his chair only to sink into another on the opposite side of the room. It evolved down to this. Hesterberg wasn’t one to threaten idly. At twelve o’clock precisely, an attempt would be made on Clairborne’s life. And unless he outwitted the Russian, the attempt would succeed. It was a grim responsibility to carry around for twelve hours, especially since he had no plan of attack or defense.

If Clairborne came to the club — and he would — the attempt on his life must of necessity take place there. How — or through what devious cunning, Van did not know. Of only one thing he was certain. He, too, must be there prepared for any emergency.

The Phantom, too, must keep that rendezvous at twelve.

Van ordered another drink. For the next hour he kept the steward busy. Then with the fifth drink came the glimmering of an idea. He heaved a grateful sigh of relief, puffed out a blue cloud of smoke with vast contentment.

A moment later he repaired to the restaurant on the second floor and with the lightest of hearts, ordered himself a substantial lunch. He dawdled through the meal; topped it off with an excellent bottle of wine.

One o’clock found him in a drug store at Sixth Avenue and 42nd Street. After making several purchases, he returned again to the Union, but this time he avoided, with extreme caution, the main entrance to the club. Instead, he made his way to the rear of the building and with the greatest circumspection slipped quietly and unobtrusively into the trade entrance.

He spent an interesting half hour examining the labyrinth of narrow hallways and back stairs that made a catacomb of the cellars of the Union Club. He found, that if need be, he had fourteen different ways of reaching the main floor of the club. What was more, he discovered a small locker for cleaning supplies that gave directly on to the lobby of the club, beneath the broad stairs leading to the second floor.

It was small, musty, smelling of damp rags and soap suds. But it would have to do. Van closed the door behind him, locked it and dropped the key in his pocket. Stuffing the crack beneath the door with old rags, he snapped on a fly-specked light bulb, settled himself as comfortably as possible on a soap box, drew out a deck of cards from his pocket and began a game of solitaire.

Van had a ten hour vigil before him, but with the philosophy of a stoic, he waited for developments.

He slept through the major part of the afternoon and the early hours of the evening. At seven he awoke, stretched his weary limbs and risked three swift inhales on a cigarette.