Robert Wallace: The Dancing Doll Murders

Squires’s face was ashen, seen in the dim glow of the corner light.

“I don’t know that I’m acting wisely,” he mumbled. “This is the first time I’ve been mixed up in a murder. What I’m doing may be wrong.”

“Get in,” said Steve.

He sent the battered little car leaping away into the darkness when Squires had climbed into the seat beside him. Squires was silent, staring ahead, twisting his long fingers nervously, biting his nails. Some of the man’s agitation conveyed itself to Huston. Mysterious, menacing forces seemed to be at work in the night.

Squires pivoted his head and looked back as they turned into a long avenue. Words tumbled from his white lips in a stifled shriek.

“Great God, I think – I know – we’re being followed!”

“What?” Steve Huston twisted his neck and could see twin auto lights far behind. But they appeared to be on a cab. They turned off into a side street presently.

Squires slumped trembling in his seat, breathing laboredly in his nervous terror. He didn’t speak again till they drew up to the tall Clarion Building downtown.

Squires got out of Steve’s car, looked about him tensely for a moment, then ducked into the entrance of the building with the jerky movements of a frightened rabbit. He seemed to breathe more easily with the bright lights overhead and the solid walls around him.

Men and women called out to Steve, questioning him about the killing, rumors of which had percolated already to all parts of the building. The city room hummed with activity. The night editor, a green eyeshade askew across his forehead, made a lunge at Steve, and nipped viselike fingers on his arm. But Steve broke away.

“Can’t talk to you now. I’m headed for the Old Man’s den.”

He caught hold of Squires’s thin shoulder, pulled the lawyer along with him.

Frank Havens, owner of the Clarion, met them in the half open door of his office, where he’d been waiting for his star reporter to come back with the hot details of the killing. He was grey-haired, thickset. Once he had been a type-setter’s apprentice in a little Illinois town. Now he owned a chain of liberal newspapers which made a speciality of attacking criminals and uncovering graft. He had an almost fatherly feeling for wiry hardboiled little Steve Huston. But he hid his sentiments behind a gruff exterior.

“What the hell took you so long, Huston? How many murders were there that you had to cover tonight?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute,” said Steve. “It was one of the screwiest killings I ever ran into. A dancing doll with the face of the guy that’s killed on it. Tie that if you can! But first let me introduce Mr. Squires, one of the witnesses. He saw the three guys come in the window and one of ‘em throw a toadsticker at Winstead. He could give us a first-hand story. But that’s not what be’s here for. He thinks there’s going to be more murders. He wants to get in touch with the Phantom.”

“The Phantom?” A look of cautious appraisal came into Frank Havens’s eyes.

“Yeah. He says this murder won’t be the only one, and that an organized bunch of men may not be able to tackle it. If we’ll locate the Phantom for him he promises to turn over a clue.”

“So?” Havens drew in his breath. Then he carefully closed the door of the office, and led the men to his inner sanctum beyond, through the windows of which the lights of the city showed, shining up like a thousand stars in an inverted heaven. He turned and faced Squires.

“Being a witness to a murder like this must have been tough. I know how it upset you. But I don’t think I can help. I’m not at liberty right now – even admitting I could – to call the Phantom. If you know anything about this murder go to the police.”

“I can’t,” said Squires flatly. “I refuse to make any general statement. It might mean that I would be called into court to testify later. I -”

He stopped speaking as the buzzer on Havens’s desk sounded. Havens took a receiver off a hook, listened for a moment, then turned back to Squires.

“There’s a boy outside with a package for you. I’ll have him bring it in.”

Jason Squires’s face went white again. “A package for me! I just got here. Nobody knows -”

An office boy came in bearing an oblong package which he dropped on the publisher’s desk. “A guy just left this downstairs, Mr. Havens.”

The label on the package read:

Mr. Jason Squires

c/o Mr. Frank Havens

The Clarion

City

Squires screamed when he saw it, a thick scream as though a clot of blood had formed in his throat. “My God! How did they know I was here? They must have followed -”

Steve Huston was quivering with excitement. “What is it, Squires? Aren’t you gonna open it?”

“No, no – I want police protection!”

“But it’s only a small box,” persisted Huston, adding, as he felt it:

“It’s too light for a bomb.”

“You open it if you want to. But call the police. Get detectives here immediately.”

Steve Huston untied the string of the box and slipped the paper off. He raised the lid, gasped, and fingers of dread clutched at his stomach when he saw what it, was. The waxen, corpselike face of a small doll stared up at him.

That face bore a striking resemblance to Jason Squires. His thin lips were there; his high forehead. There was no dagger this time. But holes had been jabbed in the doll’s shirt front. The whole of it had been smeared hideously with crimson.

“It’s one of them – one of the dancing dolls!” croaked Squires. “Don’t let anyone in! I’m going to be murdered!”

Frank Havens’s face had gone grim now. “Take it easy!” he said. “You’re all right here. I’ll get in touch with the police. You’d better tell them the facts – straight – and give them this clue you mentioned.”

“The clue!” Squires’s palsied hand reached into his pocket and brought something out – a small white envelope. “I have it here! But the police will only laugh at me – and the killer will deny it. That’s why I want – the Phantom.”

He licked his lips, started to say something more. But at that instant a side door of Havens’s sanctum, leading to an emergency stair way opened with a slithering whisper. A ghost from Hell seemed to be standing there; a crouching figure with inhumanly bright eyes and with a featureless, white-masked face. But the ugly, sawed-off weapon in his hands was as real as death.

Havens and Steve Huston stared dumbfounded. Squires gave a quavering cry of terror, high-pitched, horrible, which held in it a certain presentiment of doom. He tried to fling himself sideward behind Havens’s heavy oak desk. But the sawed-off gun in the hands of the stranger chattered wickedly. Flame spewed from its muzzle.

Bullets lashed against Squires’s chest with insane fury, whipping his flesh to a bloody froth. He fell squalling, sobbing, flopping grotesquely. And the gun continued its evil rat-tat even after he lay still, stitching slugs along the length of his body till the bones themselves were shattered in a dozen places.

Then in an instant, as quickly as he had come, the door slammed and the white-masked man was gone. They could hear his feet clattering on the steel stairs as he plunged downward. Huston leaped with a hoarse cry for the telephone. He almost fell over the broken, crimson-smeared body of Squires. The lawyer lay face down, stone dead, still clutching the clue that he had planned to hand over to the Phantom.

HELL’S BEACON

OUT on the wintry harbor, near the Staten Island shore, a trim Diesel yacht swung in the tide. She was fueled and provisioned for a cruise in Southern waters. Her skipper was under orders to weigh anchor within the hour. The boat belonged to the scion of a wealthy family, son of one of the country’s best known chain store merchants.