Robert Wallace: The Dancing Doll Murders

The laboratory had been rented and outfitted many months ago by a stoop-shouldered old fellow with a scraggly, greyish beard and a pair of thick-lensed glasses which made him look like a gentle owl. The bearded ancient claimed that he was a research chemist, a Dr. Paul Bendix, and only Frank Havens knew that Dr. Paul Bendix and the Phantom were one.

Van took off his yachting clothes and made up quickly. Garments for a hundred impersonations were stowed away in closets in the place. Some of those clothes had been with him on desperate adventures. They held knife cuts and bullet holes – proof that the grey wings of death had often brushed close to the Phantom.

This evening Van needed only to change into another suit and use his flat auxiliary make-up kit. He greyed his hair at the temples, slipped an ingenious crescent-shaped celluloid plate under his upper lip against the gum. This single touch changed the lines of his keen-featured face. He added to it by darkening and thickening the eyebrows, and by widening his cheeks with spongy pads of rubber clamped inside them against his wisdom teeth.

His mirror reflected the face of a heavy-featured and pompous-looking stranger. A man trained to search out the hidden details of facial identity might still have recognized Richard Curtis Van Loan; but only after long study and in the most favorable lights. Van knew that this disguise would serve him when he contacted Frank Havens to see what the publisher had on his mind. In case a more elaborate disguise might be needed later he had his ever present make-up kit.

IN his right coat pocket he carried a small flat automatic. And, deep in his trousers pocket, was something that the police everywhere had learned to respect – a small plate of purest platinum set with diamonds in the form of a tiny mask, the Phantom’s badge of authenticity. The quick display of that in one cupped hand was enough to gain him entrance into the most official quarters.

The Phantom was ready now. He left his laboratory by a back exit, sliding a panel open, groping his way skillfully in the dark until he found himself in one of several garages where he kept specially designed, super-fast cars.

He did not care to be conspicuous this evening. The car he got into after he had pushed back the garage door was a small coupé of standard make, its weighted chassis and super-charged motor hidden by conventional lines.

He drove straight to the Clarion offices. His pulses quickened as he noted that there were a half dozen police cars strung along in front of the building. Bluecoats were keeping on the move the people who walked past.

Van recognized the big sedan of Inspector Farragut of the Homicide Bureau standing directly in front of the building’s main door. Fear gnawed suddenly at his mind. What if something had happened to his friend Frank Havens?

He breathed more easily when a scared-looking elevator operator assured him that Havens was all right, but that a stranger, a lawyer guy, had been bumped off in the publisher’s office.

Van handed a card marked “Alex Barry” to Havens’s bespectacled secretary, and said: “I’m the man he asked to see from Oceanic Insurance.”

The secretary looked doubtful. Havens appeared in the door of his inner office.

“I didn’t ask for any insurance. Tell him to get out. This is a hell of a time to come and try to sell -”

He stopped speaking suddenly, for the man, “Barry,” had reached up with one hand and was tugging speculatively at the lobe of his ear. That simple gesture was one agreed upon between Havens and the Phantom. Intense relief showed on Havens’s face.

“Come right in. I didn’t realize you were the Mr. Barry when I spoke as I did.”

Havens ushered him into his inner office, where the corpse of Jason Squires still lay. But before he introduced him as the Phantom he pulled him into a rear alcove and said in a low voice “I hated to call you, Van. I wouldn’t have if it hadn’t seemed absolutely imperative.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“That fellow out there, a man named Squires, was murdered right here in my office – shot by a gunman who sneaked up the emergency stairway, did his damnable work, and then got away. Squires was the second man killed tonight by the same bunch of murderers. But that wasn’t the only reason I called you. It was because Squires knew of your reputation and wanted to see you. He had a clue for you, and was killed when Steve Huston brought him here. You’re in this thing already, Van, up to your neck, whether you like it or not.” Van listened while Havens hurried on, giving him all the details.

Then Van said quickly: “This clue – have you seen it?”

“Yes,” answered Havens. “Inspector Farragut has it now. But I’m afraid it isn’t going to help any. It’s nothing but a little chunk of clay.”

“CLAY?” Van turned and strode out into the main office with Havens following him. But, after he left the alcove and before he reached the body of Jason Squires where the detectives stood, his hand flicked up from his vest pocket and he adjusted a small black mask over his eyes.

It wasn’t to hide his already disguised features. His quick impersonation had accomplished that adequately enough. The slipping on of the mask was a studied gesture done for deliberate effect. It was one of Van’s ways of announcing abruptly and startlingly to all present that the Phantom had arrived.

Inspector Farragut started when he saw Van’s tall masked figure. But his face showed neither amusement nor contempt. The Phantom’s record was so impressive that Farragut had no impulse to criticize his foibles. The other detectives in the room seemed to feel the same way.

Steve Huston’s eyes widened as he took in those strange features below Van’s mask. He had seen the mysterious, super-crime hunter in a hundred impersonations, but he had never quite got used to the Phantom’s uncanny ability at disguise.

“The Phantom,” said Frank Havens softly. “I believe you all know him, gentlemen.”

There was a brief silence, then, looking straight at Inspector Farragut, Dick Van Loan spoke.

“Havens has given me the details of the murders. I understand that the dead man here wanted to see me before he was shot down. Havens says he had a clue.”

Farragut nodded. “With Squires alive to tell us where he found that clue it might have been valuable. With him dead it isn’t worth a damn.”

“May I see it?”

Farragut nodded again and handed over the white envelope that Jason Squires had clutched as he fell to the floor dead. Van opened it, shook into his hand a small chunk of crumbling blue clay about half the size of a peanut. He stared at it intently while Farragut voiced his opinion.

“The significance of it is plain enough. Look at this German musical doll here with Squires’s face on it. It’s such a good likeness it gives a man the shivers. And the doll that Winstead got in the mail just before those killers came was a good likeness, too. The man who made those dolls’ faces is a clever sculptor. And what is it sculptors use, Phantom?”

Van said nothing for a moment. He picked up the doll and examined it closely. The face was made of some fine quality of modeling wax, painted over.

“Well,” said Farragut impatiently, “you must understand what I’m driving at. The killer used some of this clay to model with before he made those casts of the dead men’s features. Squires found that modeling clay in some place that made him suspect who the killer was.”

Dick Van Loan shook his head.

“A good theory, Inspector. Stands up well, and on the face of it seems logical. But it’s so darned good and simple that I, for one, suspect it. I’m sorry to say that I’m going to knock it into a cocked hat.”