Robert Wallace - The Black Ball Of Death

Watching, Chip felt a tingle. He had been disappointed in place after place. It was almost too good to believe that this girl would tell him anything.

“Vicki might mean Victoria, mightn’t it?” Her tone was as thoughtful as her eyes. “Mr. Arden was with a girl – a blonde – one night two weeks ago. She lost her cigarette case. She thought she might have left it here. She gave me her name and address so we could notify her if it turned up.”

Chip’s hands tightened along the edge of the counter. He had it!

“Fine. Victoria – Vicki – sure. Let me have the full name and the address she gave you.” He folded the bill in half and dropped it in her tip dish.

“Wait a minute. I don’t know what I did with it.” The girl began tapping again. “Let me think. I – she stood right where you are. Mr. Arden gave her his pen. One of those you fill with water so you can write under ink. I gave her a piece of the wine list. What did I do with it?”

Dorlan’s anticipation began to dwindle. He said nothing to disturb her thoughts. She leaned under the counter and rummaged around. She looked through a couple of magazines and a library book. Twice she shook her head, dusting off her fingers.

“Guess you’re out of luck. I don’t remember -”

“Can’t you recall her name? Victoria – what?” Chip leaned across the counter. “Give it all you’ve got. You must know. Victoria -”

He put impact into his pleading, and the girl turned away. From a steel locker she took a tan leather handbag. She opened that and held it to the light. The next instant she dipped into it and came up with a folded piece of paper.

“Here it is! In my other bag – the one I haven’t used lately.”

“Let’s have it.” Chip reached. The paper felt real enough to let him know he had actually obtained what the Phantom had to have. He glanced at the round, girlishly scrawled name and address, and shoved it in his pocket. “Thanks. You’ve been a big help. The cigarette case never was found?”

“Not here.”

Outside, Chip let the writing he had read form into words. The name on the torn piece of wine card was Victoria Selden and the address was Central Park West. A telephone number was included.

At the corner, Chip Dorlan debated. It was close to one o’clock in the morning. But that didn’t mean too much. He knew the Phantom would want to handle Arthur Arden’s blonde girl-friend alone. So Chip reluctantly dropped the idea of riding a cab to Central Park West and the address she had jotted down.

Instead, he continued on to the first drug store he found and a telephone booth in its rear.

There he called Frank Havens. The newspaper publisher was always available when the Phantom was on a case. Tonight was no exception. Havens’s familiar voice greeted Dorlan over the wire.

“I don’t know where the Phantom is,” Havens said. “He’s been at Headquarters up until a couple of hours ago. Let me have your message, and I’ll see that he gets it.”

EXACTLY at nine o’clock the next morning, the Phantom walked into the anteroom of Frank Havens’s office, high up in the Clarion Building.

Miss Marsh, the publisher’s secretary, gave the Phantom a distrustful glance as he moved over to her desk. She didn’t like his looks particularly. Somehow she had the impression he was a broken down newspaperman about to proposition her boss for a job.

The Phantom said, “The name is Gray. Mr. Havens expects me,” and Miss Marsh snapped to attention.

One of the most rigid rules of the office was that anyone giving the name of Gray was to be admitted instantly to Mr. Havens’s sanctum. For months, the Phantom in his various disguises had used that name. Miss Marsh had her own ideas concerning the identity of the ubiquitous “Mr. Gray”, but was careful never to voice them. She was fully aware that the man who paid her the generous salary she received every Friday was the one who pressed the button to bring the Phantom Detective out of the mists of obscurity.

The Phantom walked into Havens’s sumptuous office.

“One arrest.” The Phantom shrugged. “A small time character, working for a man higher up who gave me the slip yesterday afternoon. The small timer’s name is Daniel Fordyce. Neither his prints nor his picture has a listing.”

The Phantom dropped into a chair. Interested, Havens said, “That’s what kept you at Headquarters so late.”

“Gregg’s men worked Fordyce over for hours. He stuck to his story. He doesn’t know anything. A month ago someone who calls himself Pennell approached him and put him on his payroll. He was to open a mail-order business, selling novelties, on the third floor of a building in the West Thirties.”

The Phantom shrugged as he stopped speaking. Frank Havens leaned back in his swivel chair.

“Gregg’s holding him?”

“On a Sullivan violation, technically. I’ve had Fordyce locked up until I can pour some light into the case. He may be lying, I don’t know. Anyway the Inspector will keep him away from shyster lawyers until he hears from me.”

“What do you make of Arthur Arden’s murder?” Havens queried bluntly.

“I haven’t begun to uncover even the hint of a motive,” the Phantom said, frankly. “From what I’ve run into so far, I know that there’s a deep-laid, well-constructed plot back of his killing. Someone with brains and intelligence has been at work. Neither Fordyce, nor the others I’ve encountered can be called ‘underworld’ or the ‘gangster’ type of criminal. Which indicates there is a certain gloss to the case that takes it out of the usual, subterranean-crime category. Despite,” he added, “Arden’s penchant for Broadway.”

“Chip called early this morning.” Havens reached for a memo, handed it to the Phantom, and repeated Dorlan’s telephone message.

The effect was almost electrical. The Phantom was on his feet instantly.

“So Dorlan found her! Splendid.” He ran an eye over the name and address Havens gave him. “This is the girl Matthew Arden said was friendly with his son. The one I’m sure had a cocktail with Arthur shortly before he was shot. A girl who dropped her gardenia out on the driveway of the lodge.”

“Chip didn’t do anything about it,” Havens said. “He didn’t check the address or the telephone number.”

“Good. I’ll get after it at once. I have a feeling -” the Phantom smiled tautly – “that Miss Victoria Selden is going to turn on some of that light I mentioned a minute ago!”

THE address on Central Park West was in the upper Seventies. A four-story, bulge-front, aristocratic-looking private house was wedged in between tall apartment buildings on either side. The Phantom, stepping out of a taxi, had the impression of glimmering windows, expensive curtaining, and a well-polished bell close to double vestibule doors. His brief ring brought a neat, colored maid in a starched uniform.

“I’d like to see Miss Selden,” the Phantom said. “This is a personal matter.”

The maid ushered him across a rug-strewn length of parquet and into a well-furnished reception room. She left him there and went on. The Phantom was examining a painting on the wall when he heard footsteps coming in. He wheeled around, anxious for a glimpse of the blonde Miss Selden.

Instead, he found himself confronting a gray haired little woman dressed completely in black. Her hair was modishly arranged on her well-shaped head. Old-fashioned jewelry was at throat and wrist. The frothy white of a handkerchief showed from the edge of one black sleeve.

“My maid,” she said, her voice cultured and quiet, “tells me that you are calling on Miss Selden.”