The Emperor of Death (14 page)
With hard knuckles he rapped smartly on the oaken panels of the door. The portal was opened to him immediately.
Wooley stood on the threshold. He took an involuntary step backward while an inarticulate cry was strangled on his lips. The Phantom stepped hurriedly across the threshold, closed and locked the door behind him.
Stark fear writhed slowly across the pale face of Wooley. He retreated drunkenly backward into his apartment as the Phantom advanced upon him. His voice trembled shrilly when he spoke.
“You’re — you’re the —” He couldn’t find the courage to finish his words.
“Yes, Wooley, I’m the Phantom,” said Van grimly.
The verification of his suspicions robbed the newspaper man of all animation. His muscles became paralyzed and he sank helplessly into a chair. His first reaction on seeing the masked figure at the door had been fear; a compelling desire to escape.
Now even those two most driving emotions were dead. There was no fear in his voice when he spoke; no fear in his eyes as he gazed at the Phantom’s as they blazed out at him from the slits of his mask. He was broken; utterly broken.
“I knew it was just a matter of time,” he began in a dreary monotone.
Though all his actions reeked with guilt, the Phantom, as yet, had nothing definite on Wooley. He had to play his cards carefully; had to get Wooley to talk.
“Why,” he demanded, and his voice rasped like a file.
Wooley looked at him with dumb pleading eyes. Then a frenzied passion distorted his drawn features.
“Hesterberg — that’s why!” he screamed hysterically, “Hesterberg — the Mad Red. I tell you, if you —” He broke off suddenly; his voice became dead again. “But you know, you know.”
“I know that Hesterberg must die,” replied the Phantom calmly.
“And I die, too,” echoed Wooley.
“There is still a chance for you, Wooley.”
A frantic light of hope flamed up in Wooley’s eyes as he gazed at the Phantom’s face. Then it died down as swiftly as it had come.
“You mean?”
“Tell me all you know of Hesterberg. I want names, places, facts. Give me what I want and the Phantom does not strike.”
Wooley looked at him pleadingly with agonized eyes. Fear descended on him again, leaving him weak, convulsed, hysterical.
“But I know nothing — nothing. So help me God, I know nothing. If you don’t kill me — he will. Nothing escapes him; he knows all. Now that you have discovered me I am of no further use to him. It means — death.”
Despite himself, despite the fact that he knew that Wooley was a traitor to all civilization, the Phantom could not help but feel a pang of sorrow for the wreck of a man before him. But relentlessly he went back to the attack.
“You must talk,” he grated.
His eyes were gimlets of steel behind the blackness of his mask. His words carried a compelling threat. Wooley recoiled from him, backed up to the wall.
“I — I don’t dare to talk,” he whispered in a cracked voice. “It means —”
“Death from me if you don’t!” shot back the Phantom.
“No! No!” pleaded Wooley. “I tell you, I can’t talk. I know nothing.”
The Phantom’s voice came in hollow tones of accusation.
“You lie, Wooley. It was you who advised Hesterberg of my trip to Washington. It was you —”
But he never finished the second charge. With a wild gesture Wooley clawed frantically at his hip. An automatic flashed in his hand. The Phantom’s gun was out a second later; his finger constricted on the trigger. But only one shot reverberated hollowly in the room.
With an agonized scream Wooley had pressed the automatic to his temple and fired. The Phantom stood there, riveted to the floor and watched him with fascinated eyes. He saw the mask of fear slowly melt from Wooley’s face; saw the stark mad look fade slowly from his eyes.
Wooley swayed back and forth drunkenly for a moment, then pitched forward headlong on his face.
With a weary sigh, the Phantom pocketed his automatic. Once again on the verge of gaining real information, a real clue, he had been frustrated. And though this time it was by the hand of fear snuffing out a man’s life, Hesterberg was no whit less responsible for it.
The Phantom cursed himself bitterly. If he had only foreseen Wooley’s only out, as he should have; if he had only been a little faster he could have saved Wooley. Again he shrugged his shoulders wearily. The dead were dead and there was no bringing them back to life again.
With a bitter sigh he realized that he still had work to do in the apartment. He set about it swiftly. There was no telling when one of the Mad Red’s men would appear on the scene. Any moment now the police might come in to investigate the shot.
He risked these two possibilities, dropped to one knee beside the body and rolled it over. Stark eyes stared unseeingly at the bright light overhead. But the Phantom had stared at death face to face before unblinkingly. Swiftly he made a thorough search of Wooley’s clothes. Nothing.
With another curse at his luck he began a thorough search of the apartment. But the Fates were fickle that night. He unearthed absolutely nothing that would give him a lead to Hesterberg. The Russian’s men were too well trained to be found with incriminating evidence on them.
In two tries the Phantom had drawn blanks.
His final ace was Ruby!
He turned out the light, walked swiftly to the door of the apartment and let himself out into the narrow hallway beyond. One swift survey of the street told him that it was deserted. Whipping off his mask, he strolled casually to the nearest corner, hailed a cruising taxi and climbed aboard.
Deep lines of concentration furrowed his brow as he was carried towards his apartment. Wooley explained much; but unfortunately not enough. If only he had been able to make him talk! Bitterly the Phantom pondered the awful tragedy behind the suicide of the
Clarion
’s editor. But pondering that question got him nowhere.
It was obvious now, that it had been the dead editor who had warned Hesterberg of his secret trip to Washington. At least that much of the mystery was cleared up. Little enough, but it was a beginning.
Now he had to concentrate on the girl. He had to get to Ruby — talk to her — make her talk. The girl might be able to give him the information he had failed to get from Wooley.
By the time his cab deposited him at the door of his apartment, his line of action was mapped out.
A HALF hour later the Dope, with shambling gait and palsied hand, slithered into the Fourth Precinct Station House. Ignoring the profanity hurled at his head, he caught the eye of Detective O’Neal and nodded his head significantly towards the rear of the room.
O’Neal understood and with the Dope shambling after him, led the way to an empty squad room.
“Well?” demanded O’Neal. “Where the hell you been? You’re a hell of a stool. I got a good idea to smack you one in the nose.”
The Dope held up an emaciated arm protestingly.
“Don’t hit me,” he whined. “I got something good for you — honest.”
“Yeah?” sneered O’Neal doubtingly. “It better be good. What is it?”
The dope cast a frightened glance around the room. He took a step closer to the detective and lowered his voice.
“You know that dame, Ruby — the hop-head that hangs around Day’s joint?”
“Yeah — I know her. So what?”
“Pick her up.”
“What for?”
The Dope again cast a frightened glance over his shoulder as if apprehensive of the dark corners of the room. He wet his dry thin lips with the point of a red tongue.
“Listen, O’Neal, ”he pleaded in a trembling voice. “I’m giving you an okay tip, see? You pick up the dame and then things will happen. Get it?”
“I’ll be damned if I do,” growled O’Neal. He grabbed the Dope’s emaciated arm in a vice-like grip and twisted. The Dope winced with pain. “Come clean, rat, or I’ll bust your arm. Spill it!”
The Dope’s lips drooled with anguish as he struggled weakly against the detective’s torture.
“So help me, Sarge. That’s all I know. You got to pick up the dame, see? I got it from Clancy. She’s hopped up to pull a job — a big job.”
O’Neal released his grip on the hop-head’s arm and shoved him from him. “Okay, Dope. I’m a damn fool, but I’ll play your tip blind. But if you’ve crossed me — if you make a monkey out of me, God help you.”
“I wouldn’t cross you Sergeant,” whined the Dope. “Say, how about a little snow. Just one shot. I’m all a tremble for a little coke. My nerves are all shot to hell. Just one shot, Sergeant.”
“Nix to you,” growled O’Neal. “If this dumb tip of yours means anything, I’ll see that you get your sugar. If it don’t, you won’t need any more sugar to back up your lies.”
O’Neal, despite his brutality, was a good man. He knew his underworld and within an hour he had located Ruby and made his pinch. True, he didn’t know on what ground he was pulling her in but he felt sure that the Dope wouldn’t have dared give him a bum tip.
He had just locked Ruby in a cell and was on the point of going out again to pick up the Dope when he was attracted by a commotion at the desk. He hurried up on the run, ran full tilt into a tall man with a silken mask across his eyes.
O’Neal knew without being told that he was confronting the Phantom. Furthermore he knew that the Phantom’s visit to the Fourth Precinct was to do with the prisoner he had just locked up. By God, the Dope had given him a straight tip at that.
“I want to see the woman, Ruby,” said the Phantom.
Hard-boiled as he was, O’Neal was somewhat awed before this almost legendary figure. By reputation the Phantom was the most hard-boiled of them all.
“I just picked her up,” he said. “She isn’t booked yet.”
“Never mind that. I just want to speak to her. Alone.”
O’Neal nodded, chewed violently on the stub of his cigar for a moment, then led the way to cell 21. He fitted a key into the lock, flung open the door. The Phantom stepped across the threshold, heard the door slam behind him.
“Holler when you want me,” called the detective and stamped noisily down the corridor.
The Phantom’s back was to the dark interior of the cell. He sensed more than saw or heard the living person behind him. He turned abruptly, took two swift strides across the cell and stood confronting Ruby.
Her eyes dilated with horror as she took in his grim visage covered by the mask.
“The Phantom!” she breathed in a whisper.
“Yes — the Phantom!”
“What do you want with me?”
“Plenty.”
“I know nothing. I’m only an addict.”
“An addict in the power of Hesterberg!” shot back the Phantom.
His accusation brought a sharp, stifled gasp from the girl.
“Then you know?”
“Some — not all. Listen, Ruby. I am here as your friend. You must believe that. Do as I say and I promise you protection. Fail me and —” He left the threat unfinished.
The girl’s head came up; her eyes bored into the Phantom’s.
“How do i know you’re not a phoney, a fake? How do I know you’re a friend of mine? How do I know you’re not one —” her voice fell to a whisper — “how do I know you’re not one of Hesterberg’s men? Hesterberg himself?”
The Phantom took a step closer to her; lean fingers reached out and gripped her by the wrist.
“Look into my eyes,” he commanded. “Are they the eyes of Hesterberg? No! For your own sake, Ruby, you’ve got to believe me. I am your friend. If you don’t — if you fail me — so help me God, I shall forget that you are a woman!”
She shrank back from the menace in his voice. No man had ever spoken to her before like that. She feared the man before her but greater than her fear of the Phantom was her fear of Hesterberg. In vain she tried to extricate her wrist from the steel fingers that held her. The Phantom’s breath was hot on her face; his eyes dominated her.
“Speak, woman, and I give you the protection of the Phantom. Hold your tongue and all Hesterberg’s power can’t save you. Look at me. I am the Dope you first saw at Cokey Day’s. I am the Dope who shot Sligo. I am the Dope you helped escape from the cellar that night. Remember? Ruby, you must believe me.”
“I — I do believe you. But I am afraid.”
“Of Hesterberg?”
“Yes. He knows all, sees all, hears all. If I talk he will — will kill me.”
“But you want to talk?”
“God knows, I do. I don’t dare.”
The Phantom took a step closer to her again. His voice fell to a dramatic whisper. “There is Wooley,” he began.
Her sharp indrawn breath and the trembling hand that gripped him by the throat told the Phantom that he had struck home.
“What — what about Wooley?” she breathed hoarsely, her voice a mixture of love, anguish and fear.
Though the Phantom had hoped to be able to keep the information from her he saw that it would be the only way to get her to talk.
“Wooley is dead,” he said in a soft voice.
Ruby received the information in appalling silence.
“He killed himself an hour ago.” Then the torrent broke. An inhuman, piteous sob broke from the girl’s throat, wracked her body. Hardened as he was to suffering, torture and despair the Phantom was moved. He averted his head while the low, inarticulate animal cry of anguish continued. Then it was stilled. The Phantom felt the terrific struggle that was taking place in the girl; saw her fight for mastery over her shattered emotions.
A mask fell over her face — a mask of hate. There were no tears, no cries. Her eyes were dry and hard — harder that the Phantom’s. Her lips were firm and purposeful, matching those of the man before her. When she spoke her voice was an emotional monotone.
“I’ll talk. Now that he is gone, nothing else matters. Me, Hesterberg — nothing. Only this: That Hesterberg should suffer the way I have suffered; that he should live a living death that I am now living since Carl is gone!”
Her voice and words were terrible in their consuming hate. Despite his iron nerves, the Phantom felt an icy chill course down his spine. He was suddenly aware of a mighty respect for this woman before him for he knew that Ruby was ready to lay down her life to avenge the death of Wooley.
“I tried to save him but I was too late,” he said humbly.