The Emperor of Death (8 page)

Swiftly Van sprang through the open window and held the room at bay with his automatic.

At the moment that Sligo had lost consciousness and fallen to the floor, Havens had started up in his chair. Now, no longer under the baleful influence of the cripple, he blinked his eyes bewilderingly and stared blankly through the room.

One of Hesterberg’s men shouted:

“The Phantom! It must be the Phantom!”

“Shut up,” said Hesterberg. “That little coke-fiend is not the Phantom. ”Now” — addressing himself to Van — “what does this mean? How dare you intrude here?”

Van knew that there would be little chance of winning a battle here with Hesterberg. He had too many allies in the building for that. If the crazy Red had not recognized him so much the better.

Cokey would know him only as a stool of O’Neal’s. If he could get out of this room with Havens before the alarm was given, they could chance a run for it.

Still keeping everyone in the room within range of his automatic, Van backed slowly toward the door. Havens was staring at each person in the room blankly and in turn. Van smiled faintly as his best friend ran his eyes over the face of the Dope without recognizing him.

“What’s this mean?” said Havens suddenly. “Who are you men? Where am I?”

Thus far Van had not spoken a word. Now he answered the other’s question.

“You’re in a den of cutthroats,” he said quietly. “So am I. Let’s try to get out.”

Hesterberg laughed unpleasantly. “Listen,” he said. “No stranger can get out of here without trouble. Now, what the hell do you want?”

The Dope grinned, and for a moment an intelligence that was alien to a snow addict gleamed in his eyes.

“I want to get out principally,” he said. “And I’m taking him with me.”

He indicated Havens, who still sat with a blank expression on his face, not quite oriented to his environment yet.

“Put that gun away,” said Hesterberg," or you’ll never get out of here alive."

He walked slowly toward Van, holding him with his eyes. Slowly his hand crept toward his hip pocket.

“Don’t do it,” said Van. “Stand back. All of you stand away from that door.”

His voice rang with purposeful command. They obeyed. Van jerked his head toward Havens.

“Come on, you. Stand up. Get over by the door. When I tell you, open that door and run like hell.”

Havens did as he was told. Though he by no means understood how he had come here, who these people were, he realized that he could not go far wrong with a man who wanted to get him out of this room which seemed to hold him captive. He stood with his back to the door, his hand on the knob.

“Now,” said Van coldly, “we’re leaving. I’d advise you not to follow too quickly, or else I shoot from the stairway on the way down. Give us a full minute. It’ll be much safer for you if you do.”

He turned to the still slightly bewildered Havens.

“All right,” he shouted. “Now!”

The door swung open. Two flying figures raced through it. It slammed behind them. As they gained the stair head, Van heard Hesterberg’s voice roar through the panel of the door.

“Go on, you fools! After them, quick!”

Apparently the Mad Red had little compunction about risking the lives of his men. He had no intention of giving the Dope the full minute that he had demanded to make his getaway. And so great was Hesterberg’s power, so great was their fear of their master, that his henchmen did not hesitate to choose between his wrath and possible death outside that door.

For a second time the portal swung open. Two more figures raced through it.

As they turned the landing at the top of the second flight two staccato reverberations boomed above them. Steel ate into the crumbling plaster of the walls. Van pushed Havens ahead of him down the stairs and, taking hasty aim, pressed the trigger of his automatic.

One of the men staggered, but recovered and came on. Now there was an enraged shout from the top floor, and Hesterberg joined the chase in person.

Four revolvers roared. Three from the pursuers and a single automatic took up the defense. The hallway echoed grim crashes, and the air was acrid with the stench of powder.

Van and Havens leaped like cats down the last flight, with such speed that they gained the ground floor some thirty feet ahead of their pursuers. Once there, Havens ran toward the front door of the dive. But Van’s hand caught his flying coattails and pulled him back. He had a better plan than that.

To run through the room, to enter the street was to court disaster. Gripping the publisher’s wrist, Van rushed along the wall toward Cokey Day’s office.

He dragged the breathless Havens through the door, slammed and locked it. Then, even before he turned around he heard a vaguely familiar voice say:

“Oh, Cokey, I’ve wanted —”

What she wanted he never knew. Ruby stood at Cokey’s desk slowly turning her head. Then surprise showed in her brilliant eyes.

“Oh, it’s you. I thought it was Cokey. What —”

“Listen,” said Van swiftly. “Get us out of here. Hesterberg’s behind us. He’ll kill us if he finds us. There must be an exit from this office. Cokey’s not the kind to let himself get trapped in an office like this. Get us out.”

Already the patter of running feet could be heard without. Hesterberg’s voice demanding information as to where the quarry had fled boomed through the panel.

“Hesterberg —” Ruby repeated the name and her voice was pregnant with hatred and loathing. “Quick! Here!”

She turned, walked to the south wall. Her slim hand lifted a lithograph from its place. Her finger touched a small button imbedded in the wall. Slowly a huge bookcase moved outward. Then with a jerk it stopped, revealing an aperture some five feet square in the center of the wall behind it.

Van shoved Havens into the black opening. Then he stopped a second and took the girl’s hand in his.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll repay you for this some day.”

Her shapely lips were distorted by an evil smile.

“If I’ve crossed Hesterberg.” she said bitterly, “that’s payment enough.”

Van squeezed her hand quickly, and a moment later joined Havens in the pitch black of the secret exit. The bookcase swung into place behind, just as Hesterberg’s imperious knock crashed against the locked door.

CHAPTER VIII
THE MAD RED STRIKES

VAN LOAN’S flashlight picked out a yellow path through the labyrinth of underground passages beneath Cokey Day’s dive. Of course, Van realized that if Hesterberg knew of this exit, he would post his men at all its adits, and the pair of them were no better off than they had been in that top-floor room.

Yet, he reasoned, it was unlikely that Cokey Day had told anyone of the passage. In fact, he was a little surprised that Ruby knew of it. In Cokey’s precarious position — that of playing fast and loose with both the underworld and the police — he had to be prepared for any emergency.

The flashlight revealed six wooden steps leading to a trap-door. Van preceded Havens up the stairs and cautiously pushed the trap open. A gust of clean night air swept into his face. His eyes strained into the street beyond. They saw nothing.

“Come on,” he said to Havens.

The publisher followed him into the dingy, deserted street of tenements. The trap-door slammed shut behind them. They walked in silence down the street. A vagrant taxi passed, and Havens hailed it. He gave the driver an address, then turned to his savior.

“I’m still by no means sure what happened to me tonight,” he said, “but I
do
know that I’ve you to thank for getting me out of it. You must come home with me and tell me who you are. Perhaps I can do something for you.”

Van laughed, then for the first time that evening spoke in his natural voice.

“You can give me a drink and a bath, Frank,” he said with a smile. “I can’t think of anything else I want just now.”

Havens gasped. His jaw fell, his eyes gleaming mirrors of utter amazement.

“Van!” he exclaimed. “You! But how? What —?”

“I’ll tell you all about it over the drink,” said Van, grinning at his friend’s stupefaction. “I can talk better with this wax out of my handsome features.”

Van peered carefully through the rear window of the cab to make sure that they were not being followed, then gave the driver the address of the secret apartment which he and Havens kept for just such exigent occasions as these.

In fact, even now, they had the cab stop a block or so away. In their position they could afford to take no chances. Once inside the apartment, Van removed his disguise, bathed, and donned one of the suits that were always waiting there for the day when their owner, pursued by danger, should need them.

As he dressed, Havens related as much as he knew of the circumstances which had brought him to the dive of Cokey Day as he remembered. Then with the story almost finished, he broke off and exclaimed excitedly: “Oh, Van, I forgot to tell you. I haven’t seen you for a few days. Isaac Block’s been killed.”

Van’s fingers stopped in the adjustment of his collar pin, and he turned his head ever so slightly.

“Block?” he said. “Killed? Why?”

“As a warning. He was found shot in his library yesterday. The news was suppressed because of the panic his death would cause in the Street. But it’ll break in the papers tomorrow. Probably the bulldog editions have it now.”

“But why? Why was he killed?”

Havens shrugged, and his voice was bitter.

“No reason. Simply as a warning.”

“A warning? From whom?”

But Van knew the answer to that even before the publisher had said that one word which the Phantom had learned to know meant death.

“Hesterberg.”

Van’s own eyes stared at him grimly from the mirror as he brushed his hair. His mouth was set and hard. He turned to Havens.

“So,” he said. “He’s killing merely to terrorize the community now. He must feel damned sure of himself.”

The two men looked at each other, worry and apprehension in their gaze; each thoroughly conscious that the thought in his own head was also in the other’s. Thus far, despite all their efforts, Hesterberg had covered his trail. More than that, his hand had stretched forth from his inaccessible concealment to strike down his enemies.

“Let’s go up to your place,” said Van. “I need that drink more than ever now.”

Silently Havens rose and the pair of them cautiously made their way to the street. Though now, as they hailed a passing cab, no habitué of Cokey Day’s would ever have recognized the well-dressed young clubman who climbed into the taxi, as the abject dope fiend who had fled the East Side dive a scant hour before.

Despite the lateness of the hour, Muriel Havens was still up when they arrived at the publisher’s home. She greeted her father affectionately, then turned to Van.

“Hello, stranger. I haven’t seen you for a long time, and now you come visiting at this late hour. Well, I’ll forgive you. Sit down and talk to me while Daddy mixes one of those cocktails for which he’s more famous than for his newspapers.”

Havens smiled, and entered the butler’s pantry to mix the drinks, while Van sat down and gave his undivided attention to the girl opposite. Animatedly she indulged in small talk, while he silently feasted his eyes upon her.

He was aware of a vague regret as he sat there — a regret that he had sacrificed his right to make love to this bright young creature that sat before him.

Little did she realize as she sat there in the security of her own home talking to the most eligible bachelor in the city, that only a short while ago, he had been engaged in fighting for his life in a section of the city that she could not have known existed.

Then suddenly he heard her mention two words which abruptly took his attention from her beauty and riveted it to her phrases.

“Yes,” she said, “of course, the Phantom’s a hero and all that, but I certainly wouldn’t want my husband rushing around fighting those crooks. It’s romantic and all that, but I think I’d prefer security.”

Van Loan smiled a smile that did not come from his heart. He felt dull and heavy within. Yet when he spoke his voice was as bantering as her own.

“A husband as good as they say the Phantom is,” he said with a laugh, “would have no trouble sneaking into the house at night when you were waiting for him with a rolling pin.”

She joined his laugh.

Havens entered with a tray of cocktails. Muriel drained her glass and waved her hand to Van.

“Well,” she said, “if you insist upon calling at this hour, you won’t see very much of me. I must get along to bed.”

She kissed her father, and ran lightly up the stairs. Van shook his head and sighed.

Havens nodded proudly, then suddenly realized that they had things to talk about.

“How do you figure tonight’s episode?” he asked anxiously.

“Well,” said Van, “your part of it is easy to explain. Hesterberg evidently needs those papers I have. He needs them badly. Having no idea where to get hold of me, or even who I am, he sent his cripple out again to hypnotize you, to bring you to him. They were just asking you to reveal my identity to them when I shot. The moment the cripple became unconscious, of course, you come out of the trance.”

Havens nodded slowly. “God!” he said. “It was a close squeeze, Van. If you hadn’t been there in time, I would have told him. That would have been the end of us.”

Van nodded. “It surely would,” he said. “He’d have sent us to the same place that he sent Block.”

In the next room the phone jangled harshly. Havens excused himself and went to answer it. Van remained seated in silence, two images struggling for dominance in his brain. First, the figure of the swarthy Russian, and, second, the seductive picture of a charming young girl to whom he could never declare himself.

A moment later Havens burst excitedly in upon his reverie.

“That was Bursage,” he said breathlessly. “He’s just received a death threat from Hesterberg.”

Van glanced at him keenly. “What sort of a death threat?”

“He got a phone message tonight. He was told at once to float a Russian loan to the extent of ten billion dollars. He was ordered to have arranged the credits by midnight tomorrow. If he failed he was to be killed at exactly midnight.”