The Black Ball Of Death Page 8

  They weren’t overlooking any bets; and from the way the attack on Hugh Royal was slanted, Vicki was turning out to be important to them. If she did know anything she could pass on to the Phantom, the girl had to be dealt with quickly and definitely.

  That theory showed the Phantom how correct he had been in assuming Arthur Arden’s girl friend was of paramount value to him. He raised his brooding gaze to Royal.

  In a few words he mentioned his visit to Mrs. Wayne’s house. Royal listened.

  “That’s a gag – a wire from her father in Minnesota saying her mother is ill. Vicki hasn’t any parents. She told me that herself.”

  *****

  THE Phantom nodded. He had assumed that the girl had left Mrs. Wayne’s in a hurry for either one of two reasons. Either she didn’t want to be identified with the killing at the lodge, or she was frightened of those who had handled the death job – so frightened that she had gone into hiding somewhere.

  “You knew she was friendly with Arden?”

  “Sure. She was engaged to be married to him,” Royal answered.

  “I’ve been counting on you to tell me where she might be.” The Phantom laid his cards on the table. “You must know some of her friends. And her friends,” he added, “must know where she is now.”

  “I can tell you this much.” Royal took another drink. “Her best friend is a Maxine Hillary. She’s a Park Sunderland model. One of the best in New York.”

  “That’ll do.” The Phantom got up from his chair. “One thing more. Got a picture of Vicki Selden – I could use?”

  “I think so.”

  Royal went over to a littered desk and began to rummage around. He stopped and said, “Hello. The boy with the damaged ear has been looking over my stuff.” He pointed to an address book. “He left that open.”

  “He’s a bit too late,” the Phantom said laconically. “He’ll find that out when he goes up to Central Park West.”

  Royal finally unearthed a small, pastel sketch of a pretty girl. It was one of the early sketches he had made for the magazine cover the bank manager had referred to. He gave it to the Phantom; and, armed with that, the detective moved toward the door.

  “Just a word of advice. I don’t believe your twisted-eared pal will be back again. However, be a little careful answering your bell.”

  “I will. Thanks,” Royal said, “for the helping hand.”

  The Phantom’s next stop was the Avedon Building on lower Park Avenue. That skyscraper reared up above the round dome of the Grand Central Terminal. The Park Sunderland Model Agency was on the fifteenth floor. The Phantom, exchanging an express elevator for a small but suave reception office, found himself completely surrounded by feminine beauty.

  On the delicately tinted mauve walls, in colored photographs, were languorous young ladies, enchanting to the masculine gaze. The cream of the crop with their full, tempting lips, and slow, dreamy eyes.

  They were counterparts of the sleek, polished girl at the orange-glass desk who glanced up at him with a friendly smile. She wore a white blouse and a black skirt, two simple articles of attire, but with such chic charm that she gave them the distinction of a Paris original.

  “Mr. Sunderland, please,” the Phantom requested.

  “Appointment?”

  “Official call. Detective Bureau, Homicide Division.”

  She didn’t question him further. Shortly, the Phantom was talking with Park Sunderland. The proprietor of the agency, a man so fastidiously groomed as to give the impression he had stepped directly from the pages of a Fashions for Men magazine, heard what he had to say and looked slightly troubled. Evidently, the Phantom guessed, Sunderland wasn’t in the habit of having detectives call on him.

  “Miss Hillary is one of my girls. She may be here now – if she hasn’t gone out on an assignment.”

  “Find out. I want to talk to her,” the Phantom told him, briefly. Sunderland used the telephone. Almost immediately, the door opened and Maxine Hillary came in.

  She was a willowy, medium blonde with classical features and a radiance that lighted her violet eyes with an inner glow. Hair, skin, and figure were flawless. In the suit she wore, her youthful glamour was enhanced and accented.

  “This man wants to talk to you,” Sunderland said. “He’s a detective.”

  The girl seemed to freeze up. A fringe of lashes came down over the violet eyes. The Phantom’s keen glance showed him how her slender fingers curled inward so her nails dug into the palms of her slim hands.

  “Detective?”

  The Phantom was annoyed by the brusque way Park Sunderland had made the introduction. Quickly, he said, “The department, acting with the New Jersey police in connection with the Arden case, wants to supply protection for your friend, Miss Selden. I’ve been unable to locate her. It will be to her advantage if you’ll tell me where she is.”

  Maxine Hillary shook her head. “Why should I know?”

  “You’re a friend of Vicki’s.”

  “Yes, but – but I haven’t seen much of her lately. And,” she stated clearly, “I haven’t the faintest idea where she is.”

  The Phantom prided himself on his ability to know when a person was telling the truth or deliberately falsifying a statement. Maxine Hillary’s tone told him she was lying. He studied her meditatively.

  “It’s to Vicki’s advantage,” he repeated.

  The girl shook her head. “Sorry, I can’t help you. As I said before, I haven’t seen Vicki for a couple of weeks. She might be in China, for all I know.”

  “That’s all.” The Phantom dismissed her with a gesture. After she went out, he turned back to Sunderland. “Let me have the particulars of the assignment she’s going out on.”

  Fifteen minutes later, a telephone call to the Clarion brought Steve Huston to the Grand Central Terminal where the Phantom was staked out near the entrance to the railroad station’s huge waiting room.

  “No tail?” The Phantom asked the question as he looked over Steve’s shoulder. “You’ll have to be extra careful from now on. Our friends know you, and it’s easy for them to pick you up when you leave the Clarion Building.”

  “I’ve been using one of the rear exits,” Steve said.

  The Phantom explained what he wanted. Steve was to go down to the Waverly Studio on Fifth Avenue. That was a place where fashion photos were taken and made. He gave the reporter a pinpoint description of Maxine Hillary while Steve memorized it all with growing interest.

  “Sounds good. The gal has an hour’s appointment. You want me to follow her away from the bulb-and-shutter joint. What then?”

  The Phantom gave him the sketch Hugh Royal had supplied. “There’s a chance that Miss Hillary might get in touch with this girl. She’s the Vicki Selden I’m trying to find. Now that Maxine knows a detective is hunting for Vicki, there’s a possibility she’ll contact her. It’s a long shot, but I can’t overlook it. Do the best you can, and the minute you have any news rush it through to me.”

  Steve Huston put the sketch in his pocket. After a word or two further he was out of the waiting room and on his way. The Phantom lingered a few more minutes, searching the passengers and loungers who circulated around the Terminal. He had a feeling that Pennell – or Len – might have picked up Steve’s trail and followed him to Grand Central.

  But he didn’t see a sign of the twisted-ear character or the thin-faced man in the pearl-gray hat.

  Satisfied, the Phantom walked out to 42nd Street. He had plans to make, a diagram to draw up and follow – a crime pattern into which he still had to fit the frail, emaciated figure of Dr. Hugo Winterly, the doctor’s giant servant, and a drift of bronze colored powder, as well as the number eight pool ball which Arden’s fingerprints had marked.

  As he walked west, the Phantom knew and understood the riddle of the murder case was to be one of the most difficult to solve he had tackled in his long, successful career.

  CHAPTER XIII

  THE NUMBER EIGHT

  PR
OPPED up in the lobby of the Fifth Avenue building where the Waverley Studio did business, Steve Huston had little trouble picking up Maxine Hillary when she stepped out of an elevator, about an hour after he started his vigil.

  Recognizing her immediately from the Phantom’s graphic description, the little reporter, who admired a good-looking girl the same as anyone else, drifted along behind her as she started north up the famous avenue of shops and stores.

  She walked with free-limbed grace, swinging on at a good pace, apparently oblivious to the admiring glances cast in her direction. Steve had to hurry to keep up. But he stuck resolutely to dodging in and out of the crowd, until at 43rd Street Maxine Hillary turned east.

  Several doors down the street she descended the steps of a bar-grill with the name “Fowler” over it.

  To Steve, that made it a hundred percent. It was close to noon and the metropolitan lunch hour. If the girl he followed was catching herself a bite there, he could pull up a chair at a nearby table and get his own lunch. He wasn’t hungry. The seven o’clock breakfast always sharpened his appetite when high noon rolled around.

  Steve entered Fowler’s leisurely, hung his hat on a peg with a half dozen others, and spotted his quarry at once. Maxine Hillary had taken a table in the rear of a stone-floored room where the pine tables were covered with turkey-red cloths.

  A few other early diners were scattered about Steve Huston sat unobtrusively down at a table in an opposite corner.

  Twenty minutes later he had the thrill of his life. A blonde girl entered Fowler’s. One glance was enough for Huston to see that she matched the pastel sketch in his pocket. She wore a green dress and short coat, but in any color she would have been gorgeous. Vicki Selden! Steve’s pulses drummed. The girl who had been at the lodge with Arden on the murder night!

  The girl the Phantom Detective had to find.

  Steve’s glance showed him Vicki siting down at Maxine Hillary’s table. It showed him something else – a strained, apprehensive uneasiness she displayed in her pretty face and posture.

  Steve had noticed a public telephone booth in the front section of Fowler’s, back from the bar. He pushed its door shut after him, fumbled for a nickel, and called his boss.

  Frank Havens listened to what he said and added, “The Phantom is waiting to hear from you. I’ll get in touch with him at once.”

  “Fowler’s, Forty-third Street, just east of Fifth,” Steve repeated and rang off.

  He had lost interest in his lunch. Now, Steve Huston realized, he had two girls to shadow. He hoped the Phantom would arrive promptly and take over. He wasn’t quite sure of what to do next.

  No more than fifteen minutes elapsed before the little reporter caught a glimpse of the Phantom coming down the steps. Instead of bustling into the dining room, the Phantom stopped at the bar. There, with a lime-and-seltzer, he rested an elbow on the mahogany and glanced casually into the rear room.

  He made no move, did nothing to indicate he saw Steve – or the two girls at their table. He was careful to keep out of Maxine Hillary’s eye range. She knew him, and the Phantom didn’t want her to give the Selden girl any warning of his presence.

  While he stirred the ice in his innocuous drink, the Phantom waited.

  Maxine Hillary, evidently with another posing appointment, got up suddenly, and said goodbye to her friend. The Phantom turned his back to her when she paid her check and went past him. He watched her symmetrical legs hurry up the steps before he turned and walked into the dining room.

  He gave Steve a finger signal to stay put and, at the corner table, helped himself to the same chair the Park Sunderland model had just left.

  *****

  VICKI Selden gave an involuntary start as the Phantom sat down. Red lips parted, gray-green eyes widened. The color under her makeup faded fast.

  “Probably Miss Hillary warned you about me,” the Phantom said, quietly. “I want to help you, and I expect you to help me. That is, if you want Arthur Arden’s murderer found.”

  For a long minute she sat apathetically silent. The Phantom saw the glint of tears in her eyes. Finally, she nodded.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “You were with Arthur at the lodge at the lake the night he was killed?”

  “Yes. We had dinner in town and drove down to the lodge later.” Her voice was low and husky.

  “What time did you leave the lodge?”

  “About nine o’clock, maybe a few minutes after that.”

  “Did Arden say anything about expecting a visitor?” the Phantom asked.

  Vicki raised her water glass and took a slow sip. Over the rim of it, she eyed the Phantom intently. “I’m not sure if I trust you,” she said candidly. “Why did you insist upon meeting me here and asking me these questions in such a public place?”

  The Phantom shrugged. “I’ve been hunting you for quite some time, Miss Selden, and now that I’ve found you, I want to settle this business as quickly as possible. There’s a chance you might – well, vanish again.”

  “Vanish!” She gave a ladylike snort. “A fine chance I have of doing that with your detective following me.”

  The Phantom raised his head and looked around quickly. He saw no one familiar to him. “What detective?” he asked, swinging his gaze back to Vicki.

  She gasped and put the glass of water down. “Do you mean that the man who has been following me for the past two or three hours isn’t a detective?”

  The Phantom studied her carefully for a moment. “Miss Selden,” he said, “I couldn’t possibly have had anyone trailing you because until a few moments ago I had no idea where you were. What sort of a man is he?”

  “There is something wrong with his ear. The left one, I think,” Vicki said.

  “Look about this room. Do you see him now?”

  “No.” She searched all corners for him. “When I came in, he just parked against a building wall outside. Look, mister, if he isn’t a detective, who is he?”

  “Perhaps the man who killed Arthur Arden,” the Phantom said. softly. “At any rate, he is involved in the murder. I’m certain of that; because I’ve met the gentleman. I don’t like him, which is an understatement. Miss Selden, I’m a fair judge of people. I think whatever your part in this case happens to be, it is an innocent one. Therefore, I’ll tell you who I really am.”

  The Phantom dipped a hand under his coat, removed his jeweled badge from its hiding place and showed it to her, nestled in the palm of his hand.

  “You’re the Phantom,” Vicki said softly. “Oh, I’m glad. I didn’t want to become involved with the police. Anything against my record would ruin my career as a model. That’s why I – I didn’t come forward. And yet, I wanted to tell what I knew.”

  “Good.” The Phantom returned the badge to his hidden pocket. “You might start at once.”

  “Arthur and I were to be married,” Vicki said with a tremulous note so genuine that no actress could have accomplished it. “As soon as he had money enough.”

  “His finances were not good, then?”

  She shook her head. “Before Arthur met me he was a playboy, with all that the word implies. He spent money like water, most of it on sponging friends. It was money his mother had left him. His father made no attempt to stop him from going through this small fortune, but once it was gone, his father also refused to give him any more money. Even Arthur didn’t blame him for that.”

  “Why did you and Arthur go to the lodge at Lake Candle that night?” the Phantom asked.

  “He wanted me to drive him there. He had an appointment. Let me go on, Phantom. When I’ve told all I think I know, you can ask your questions.”

  “We’ll get along,” the Phantom told her with a smile. “I’ll be quiet.”

  “Arthur maintained a small apartment here in town. I have a key to it, but I haven’t dared go there. I don’t know whom Arthur expected to meet at the lodge, but it was an important meeting because from it he believed he would add to what mone
y he had left in amounts that would soon make him a wealthy man. That was why we were both excited about it. Once Arthur got this money we were to have been married.”

  “I understand, Miss Selden. Go on.”

  “Arthur said the meeting was to be private. We had a drink – a martini – to toast the success of the meeting. Then I left the lodge and drove back to town.”

  “Were you wearing a gardenia, Miss Selden?”

  “Why – yes. I lost it somewhere.”

  “It was picked up outside of the lodge after Arthur was murdered. In my opinion, the murderer also discovered signs of your presence and possibly got Arthur to talk about you. Now the killer isn’t certain how much Arthur told you. Therefore, you may be in considerable danger.”

  She nodded. “That’s why I tried to leave no trail behind me. I was frightened when I heard of Arthur’s death. How can I help find the man who killed him – the man who robbed Arthur of life and me of my happiness?”

  “There was a billiard ball at Arthur’s feet. The number eight ball,” the Phantom said. “Do you attach any significance to that?”

  “Why, no. I hadn’t heard about an eight ball being found at his feet.”

  “The matter was not considered important enough to be publicized,” the Phantom explained. “But I think it was important. Very important, and I was hoping you might have some idea what it was about.”

  She said, slowly and thoughtfully, “I wonder if it was the eight ball – is that a black billiard ball, Phantom?”

  “Yes,” he said eagerly.

  “Arthur was always mad about billiards. In his New York apartment, he insisted upon installing a billiard table. Only the night before he was killed, he and I were at the apartment. He showed me the table, and he picked up the eight ball and told me to take a good look because it meant a way out of all our financial troubles. Phantom, there must some significance.”