Robert Wallace: The Black Ball Of Death

As the electricity glowed, Steve grew familiar with the fact that, after all, while no one had come to answer the bell, the lodge wasn’t deserted. It had the smell of occupancy. The faint aroma of tobacco hung on the listless air. A warmth that Steve traced to the embers of logs in a fireplace, was pleasant after the cool of the outside night.

He noticed a silver cocktail shaker with two glasses beside it on an end-table, while the luxury of the room began to impress itself upon him. Fine paintings were on the walls; the antique furniture, time-mellowed, was worth a fortune.

But he didn’t have full opportunity to appraise the furnishings. Havens, impatient, had gone out of the room and into the main hall. Steve followed, while his employer snapped on lights en route.

“Must be a telephone around somewhere,” he heard the publisher saying as he flicked on the electricity in the various rooms along the hallway.

Following, Huston tagged along until they reached a door at the end of the hall. Havens opened it, fumbled around for the switch, and Steve – coming up beside him – blinked in the sudden cold shine of lights in fixtures designed to throw their rays upon the green felt of two pool-tables, one on either side of the large, square, wainscoted room they peered into.

Havens’s glance went around it in search of a telephone. He saw it at the same moment Huston did. A black, plastic instrument in a wall niche on the opposite side of the room. The publisher started toward it. He took several forward steps, froze to a stop, and gave a startled, strangled exclamation.

Steve Huston understood the next second. Following Havens’s horrified stare, the little reporter saw what had stopped his boss.

A MAN lay on his back in the shadow of one of the pool tables. It was a tall, slimly built young man, wearing a tan linen coat and blue slacks. His posture was one of repose, as if he had slipped down to the floor and dozed off. But Steve, as his strained eyes moved over the recumbent figure, realized that the aspect of slumber was false.

It was sleep, but one from which the man would never awaken.

Proof of that was visible where the linen coat gaped at the chest. The white, open-throated sports shirt was splashed vividly with the same ominous, red stain that puddled the rugless floor beside the body. Huston needed only another quick glance to notice two things.

One, the fact the man they peered at had been shot through the chest and apparently had been dead for some time. Coming in on him as they had, brought a fantastic recollection of a hospital term to Steve’s taut mind. That was the abbreviation for the expression ‘Dead On Arrival’ used in emergency ambulance calls. DOA, as they called it.

The other thing that held Huston’s attention was a pool ball from one of the tables – a black ball with a number in a white circle. That, grotesquely, was placed beside the dead man’s feet.

It took Steve a split second to realize the sardonic significance of the pool ball’s position. The corpse was directly behind the eight ball!

“Arthur Arden, Matt’s son!” – Frank Havens’s smothered words came out of a silence that seemed to shriek in Steve’s ears. “The telephone – get the police, Steve! This is – murder!”

TWENTY-FIVE miles north of Lake Candle, a late session of bridge was winding up at Tall Tree, the home of Clayton Marsh, a retired railroad executive whose aim in life, Richard Curtis Van Loan had come to believe, was the snaring of week-end guests for the sole purpose of playing cards with them.

Marsh, an inveterate bridge fiend, had written several pamphlets on the subject. He fancied himself an authority on the game. The stakes meant nothing just so long as he could put some of his theories into practice and, between hands, deliver post mortems on how the cards should have been played or how expertly they had been played – by him.

Van, a New York socialite, wealthy in his own right, had never been a guest at Tall Tree before. As he glanced at his watch he decided he would see that it never happened again. Bridge was all right in small quantities. But to be forced down at a table and made to play for more than four solid hours was a chore that had little appeal.

Marsh, with a gold pencil, began to total the score. Van Loan, helping himself to a surreptitious stretch while he smothered a yawn, glanced at the others around the table to see how they were taking it. His recent partner, the elderly Matthew Arden, seemed numb. The former US. Attorney General, who played a shrewd, mathematical game, rubbed his eyes as if to get the fog out of them, while a horse-faced Englishman who had been Marsh’s last partner, poured himself a stiff brandy and soda.

Through the quiet of the pine-paneled card room, Van heard the far off tinkle of a telephone. Then the sleepy voice of a servant answering it.

Clayton Marsh completed his addition. He stared at the score pad, frowning. As if in disbelief, he checked back over the figures. Finally he looked across at his partner.

“What do you make it, Hackett?”

“Van Loan’s top man. Wins everything.” Hackett took a long drink and rattled the ice in his glass. To Van, he said, “I don’t mind telling you, old chap, you’re a bit of a wizard at the game. I’ve played plenty of bridge, but I’ve never seen anyone get top score out of a lot of bad hands. Marvelous!”

Marsh’s frown deepened. He was a man in his middle fifties, slightly heavy from lack of exercise. He had pale, shrewd eyes. They focused on the handsome profile of Dick Van Loan, speculatively.

“I had no idea you were such a worthy opponent, Dick. I don’t recall ever having played with you before.”

“I play occasionally.” Van moved his wide shoulders. “I don’t profess to be an expert. I was just lucky tonight.”

“Yes, of course. Luck. I’ve often said that luck is at least sixty percent of every played hand. The technique of bidding, as well as of a stubborn and scientific defense -”

About to launch into another lecture, Marsh stopped when his butler entered the room and coughed apologetically.

“Begging your pardon, Mr. Arden is wanted on the telephone.”

Arden got up. He was about six feet, a partially bald, loosely built man with an aristocratic face and a certain amount of dynamic impact despite his years.

“Who would be calling me at this hour? It’s almost one o’clock.”

“In the lounge, sir,” the butler said.

Arden left the room, and Van Loan shot some seltzer into a convenient glass. He added a pair of ice cubes as Clayton Marsh began talking again, and Hackett hastily replenished his own glass.

Marsh was still droning away when Van saw Matthew Arden return to the room. A glance was enough to straighten Van Loan in his chair. The former Attorney General’s face was ashen. His big hands seemed to tremble as he came in quickly.

Marsh broke of! as he caught a glimpse of Arden’s expression.

“Matt! What’s happened? Are you ill?”

“That call -” The big man seemed to have difficulty getting it out “It was from my place at Lake Candle. The – Sheriff McCabe – he wants me to come down immediately. My son’s there – dead!”

He reached for a chair for support. Marsh and Hackett, as if stupefied by the news, peered at him speechlessly. Van, on his feet instantly, said:

“Let me drive you down, Mr. Arden. My car’s outside.”

“Would you? I’d be grateful.” Arden drew a deep, gasping breath.

In less than ten minutes Van had his sleek black sedan on the main cement highway that ran south through the New Jersey hills. On the front seat beside him, Matthew Arden sat in an apathetic huddle. There was no conversation as the fleet car sped along through the night.