The Emperor of Death (12 page)
The door had opened, closed. A masked figure stood on the threshold and despite the gun in Hesterberg’s hand, dominated the scene.
No one there in the room, least of all the Russian, needed an introduction.
“Lo! The Phantom discloses himself!” rapped out the masked figure. “But not at your command, Hesterberg. At his own bidding.”
The flames of triumph lit up the smouldering eyes of the Russian, but before he could give vocal expression to his victory, the Phantom was speaking again.
“Wipe the arrogant smile off your lips, madman. Two guns in your hands and you are utterly helpless, powerless. You are blowing no one’s brains out tonight, unless your own. In fact, you can’t lift the automatics in your hands an inch further.”
As if drawn by a magnet, all eyes in the room riveted themselves on Hesterberg. And the Phantom’s words proved true. Even as they watched, in speechless bewilderment, a filmy haze clouded the fire in the Russian’s eyes, he swayed slightly, tried with a supreme effort to raise the guns, only to see them slip from his nerveless fingers.
A second later, Hesterberg collapsed in a limp heap on the floor.
The downfall of the Russian threw the room into a ferment of excitement, but the next moment, the Phantom’s voice restored order again.
“We are not out of the woods yet, gentlemen. This is just the first step. We have Hesterberg momentarily in our power. But how are we to get him out of here to the police? How are we to get out of here ourselves? His men have the place surrounded. All exits are guarded by his men.”
This statement of the facts of the case threw the gathering into another alarmed silence.
“We will charge out,” declared Clairborne.
The Phantom held up his hand. “In a physical encounter with Hesterberg’s men we would be wiped out. No. Let me think. There must be some other way.”
For two full minutes the Phantom wrestled with the problem of escaping from the club with Hesterberg. There was only one possibility, a slim chance fraught with danger. Under no circumstance dared he remove the silken mask from his face. Therein lay the rub. But he had to risk it.
It was no time now for hesitation. He jumped into action, strode over to the fallen body of the Russian and began to disrobe.
“I’ll impersonate the Russian. Follow me out. Let me give the orders.”
“But your mask,” protested Havens.
“It is dark outside. I will try to conceal it. It is our only chance.”
The change of clothes and shoes was effected in a minute. With the hat of Inspector Demaree pulled low down over his face, partially concealing the mask that hid his features, the Phantom turned to the group of hesitant men that surrounded him.
“Wait here. Say nothing,” he ordered.
Swiftly he stepped to the door and flung it open. He blew sharply on the little whistle he had taken from Hesterberg. The knot of men gathered around the doors looked up at him.
Masking his voice, the Phantom spoke.
“Send the squad on duty inside the club up here,” he called down imperiously.
Six men detached themselves from the group around the door, one remaining behind on guard. They pounded hurriedly up the broad steps, barged into the dining room.
The Phantom met them at the door with leveled automatic. The men looked at him with puzzled frowns. Hesterberg in a mask? Then slowly it dawned on them. They were not looking at their chief; they were gazing into the eyes of the Phantom. Something had happened to Hesterberg.
The Phantom never gave them a chance to get over their surprise.
“One word from you and it will be your last,” he ordered. “Now march!” Prodding the last man with his gun, the Phantom forced the prisoners across the dining room to a small serving pantry. He forced them into the small cubby hole, closed and locked the door behind them, snapping the key off in the lock.
Then he turned back to Havens, Clairborne and the rest. He indicated the body of Hesterberg at his feet.
“We have to get Hesterberg out with us. We have to get him to the police.” He knelt down and felt the Russian’s pulse. “Pick him up, some of you. Throw his coat back over his face. Then form a tight circle about him, and follow me.”
Like a funeral cortege carrying the dead, the procession was formed and with the Phantom in the lead, they left the dining room.
Their progress was uninterrupted all the way down the broad stairway, till they reached the hall below. Here the one man who had remained on guard came up on the run. The Phantom knew that the moment for the big test was fast approaching. It was ten feet away; five.
Assuming an attitude of profound meditation, he bowed his head as if he were concentrating deeply, placed his left hand up to his eyes. By this simply expedient he hoped to cover the silken mask that still concealed his features.
The guard pulled up shortly.
“What’s wrong? Chief? Where’re the men? What’s the idea of changing the plans?”
Still assuming deep abstraction, the Phantom kept his left hand to his head and waved his right one irritably.
“I’ve made a mistake,” he mumbled. “Send the men back to their stations. Permit these gentlemen to go unmolested. Pass along the word.”
It was a magnificent bluff, but would it work?
The Phantom felt rather than saw the suspicion that sprang to the man’s face. He waited tensely for a moment, prepared for instant action.
“There’s something screwy here,” snarled the lieutenant. “That ring! Hesterberg never wore a ring. You’re not —”
He never finished the sentence. With a warning bellow to his men, he sprang to the limp figure carried by Havens and the others, and threw back the coat that concealed the features of Hesterberg.
The Phantom knew that he had made one slip — and he cursed himself bitterly. In changing clothes with Hesterberg, he had neglected to take off the Masonic ring on his finger. And that small detail overlooked, had again thrown him and the men he was pledged to protect — into the power of the enemy.
But he was not the one to accept defeat without a struggle. Quick as Hesterberg’s lieutenant had been, he had acted more quickly. Even as the coat fell from the Russian’s features, the Phantom jammed the nozzle of his automatic against Hesterberg’s skull.
The wolves closed in from the street, guns drawn. The Phantom’s finger tightened on the trigger of his automatic.
“Call off your dogs,” he ordered, “or Hesterberg is the first to go.” No further need for the vain attempt to hide his mask, the Phantom confronted the Russian’s lieutenant. Their eyes clashed.
“Back,” ordered the lieutenant to his men. “But keep your guns ready for action.”
“An interesting situation, but I think I hold high cards,” purred the Phantom.
“Like hell you do. Not with fifty men surrounding you.”
“My gun is against Hesterberg’s head. It would give me great pleasure to shoot.”
“Shoot — and not a man of you gets out of here alive.”
“Exactly. I shoot Hesterberg — you shoot me and my friends. One overt act from you, and I dispatch Hesterberg to Hell. It’s a stalemate. I shall keep my guns against Hesterberg’s skull until we are safely on the outside. Then —”
“To Hell you say,” swore the gangster. “I’m no fool. It’s no difference to us whether you kill Hesterberg here or in the police station. If you kill him on the outside, we’ve gained nothing. If you force my hand and kill Hesterberg here — you and your friends get wiped out. That evens the score.”
The Phantom realized that they had reached an impasse.
“What is it you want?” he demanded.
“Hesterberg — and you.”
“On what terms?”
“The only terms. If you don’t agree you’re all wiped out. You — Hesterberg — and all this crowd.”
The Phantom was in the most difficult situation of his career. Gladly would he have laid down his life if in doing so he could have wiped out the menace of the Mad Red. But to lay down the life of his friends, the men he had sworn to protect — that was something else again. No matter what else happened; no matter what happened to him, they must escape.
“I agree,” he said at last. “I will agree to turn over myself and Hesterberg to you — on one condition.”
“And that is?”
“These men here go free. I was the only man Hesterberg wanted tonight. Is it a bargain?”
“Agreed,” replied the lieutenant grimly. “You stay with Hesterberg. The others can go.”
Havens started to protest but the Phantom cut him short with a word.
Though on the surface his bargain appeared to turn him completely over, into the power of Hesterberg, he still had a last trick to play. He had to get Havens, Clairborne, and the rest free before the lieutenant discovered it. He turned to the gangster:
“I am ready. I shall leave with you and Hesterberg. But to insure that there be no treachery, my gun stays at Hesterberg’s head. If you betray our bargain, I shoot. If anyone attempts to lift my mask, I shoot. This problem shall be resolved between myself and Hesterberg when he comes to.”
This was an angle to the matter that the lieutenant had not foreseen. He had to save Hesterberg’s life at any cost; failing this, their entire plot crumbled. He realized bitterly that the Phantom had not gained his reputation for naught.
As long as he held the gun to Hesterberg’s head, even though he was a prisoner, the Phantom was master of the situation. But just how long could one man hold a gun to another man’s head, surrounded by a score of hungry wolves? Yes — the Phantom was asking himself that self-same question!
IT WAS a grim, bizarre and altogether insane procession that marched out of the lobby of the Union Club a few minutes later. First went the mock police, the rank and file of Hesterberg’s forces. Bringing up the rear, two men supported the limp body of the Russian, with the Phantom still masked, holding a gun to his head. And he, in his turn, was menaced by the gun of Hesterberg’s lieutenant.
Cars were waiting at the curb; the men dispersed. A minute later the Phantom found himself in a speeding limousine, alone with Hesterberg and the lieutenant.
The car pursued a zigzag course through the city. The curtains were down and the Phantom lost all sense of direction. Once by the rhythmic flashes of blurred light, he realized that they were crossing a bridge. Which one, he knew not. Corners were turned in rapid succession; long stretches, continuous driving along straight roads were traversed.
Then at last, with a sudden jerk, the car came to a halt. The door swung open. Hesterberg was stirring, breathing heavily at the Phantom’s side, whose grip on the automatic tightened as he pressed it against the Russian’s head.
Hesterberg groaned, opened his eyes, winced under the drilling pressure of the automatic.
“It’s a gun, Hesterberg — my gun — the Phantom’s gun,” grated Van.
The Russian’s lieutenant went into a hurried explanation. “It was my only out, sir,” he concluded. “I had to save you at all costs. ”But it is just a matter of time until this fool here is unmasked.”
The Phantom commented grimly to himself that it was undoubtedly the truth, but his only chance was in continuing his bluff. Though he hadn’t the vaguest idea how he was to get out of this desperate situation, he had a tremendous advantage so long as his gun was at Hesterberg’s head.
He kept it there, relentlessly. The Russian before him, a man at his own side, they entered the shadowy portal of a darkened building.
The scene was set in a large room on the ground floor. As long as his trigger-finger was steady, the Phantom was in a position to make demands. He made them. A chair was placed for him — his back to the wall. Directly in front of him sat the Russian, lolling in confident ease in a large cushioned chair. Before them stood a group of six — tense, watchful, waiting — each man armed with a vicious sub-machine-gun.
The vigil began.
*****
One moment off guard, one sleepy nod of the head and the Phantom knew that
finis
would be written to his career. At the very most, he had twenty hours in which to extricate himself from an impossible situation.
He had had little sleep the night before; he had been cramped for the greater part of the day in a stuffy locker. How long would it be before outraged nature exacted her toll; before sleep overcame his already shattered nerves?
He dared not think of it; he had to keep awake. He had to find some way out of that room, despite the six sub-machine-guns trained on him.
Hesterberg removed the plump panatella from his lips and exhaled a pungent cloud of blue smoke. He settled himself more comfortably in his chair, heaved a sigh of contentment and satisfaction.
“Comfortable, my dear Phantom?” he inquired ironically.
“Quite,” purred Van.
“Excellent. I only hope that your vigil will not be too long.”
“You’re keeping it with me.”
“But you forget that I can doze off. Sleep, my dear Phantom — sleep. A gun gets very heavy after an hour or so. Muscles creak and strain. Sleep is a sweet thing — but the sleep of Death is sweeter.”
The Phantom realized that Hesterberg was baiting him. Already the gun in his hand was getting heavier. Fine beads of sweat stood out on his forehead; he clamped his teeth together until he was aware of a physical pain.
He said nothing. Hesterberg would soon tire of his little game if he did not rise to the bait. And anyway, he had to think, think! He had to concentrate on those six men before him! He had to concentrate on those four walls surrounding him!
Where was his escape? How was his escape?
An hour dragged by on never ending minutes and the Phantom was no nearer the solution of his problem than when he had entered the room.
The six guards opposite him were changed. Food was eaten in his presence; wine drunk. Men went to sleep in chairs, on cots before him. Snores filled the room. With every faculty at his command, the Phantom fought off the sleep that was slowly numbing his senses.
The automatic in his hand was a leaden thing of almost incredible weight. A thousand flashes of light danced before his eyes. It seemed to him that irresistible forces were slowly pulling down on the lids of his eyes.