Robert Wallace: The Black Ball Of Death

“Dollar and a half an hour gets you a dry boat, mister. Pick out any one you like.”

The Phantom made his selection, gave Ruddy a five dollar bill, and paused as he headed off to the boat.

“Mr. Ruddy, have you seen Dr. Winterly or his man around lately?”

“Both of ’em touring the lake this afternoon in that speed boat of his,” Ruddy declared. “He didn’t come over. Never was a sociable sort; and, anyway, I don’t like that man of his. Can’t trust him. Looks like seven kinds of a thug rolled into one.”

“Nobody been near the Arden place since the murder?”

“Not that I know of. Though it seemed to me that when Dr. Winterly and his man were riding the lake this afternoon, they spent an awful lot of time in that cove near Arden’s place. Time enough for ’em to have gone ashore.”

“Thanks,” the Phantom said. “We’ll see what Winterly has to say about that.”

The Phantom put one oar against the side of the dock, pushed off hard, and dipped both oars. He stopped, after five minutes of rowing, to turn and study his bearings. In the darkness, he had only the lights which came from Dr. Winterly’s place as a guide. He seemed to be in a direct line with his destination.

It was about a twenty minute row across the lake, and when the Phantom estimated that he was about half-way there he heard the faint roar of a motor. It was a fast craft of some kind; and he recalled that Dr. Winterly had a sleek, high speed job, which Sam Ruddy said the doctor had been using only this afternoon.

It was roaring closer and traveling without lights, which fact didn’t give the Phantom much consolation. That fast moving boat could split this muscle-propelled, flat-bottom craft in half. The roar of the engine grew louder; and then, suddenly, a powerful searchlight slashed through the darkness.

It swept in a wide arc, flashed across the Phantom’s boat, and dodged back to center its full flare on the small craft and the man who leaned hard on the oars now.

The oncoming boat seemed to be picking up speed, and it was undoubtedly heading toward the Phantom. He watched it for a few seconds and then reached under his coat for a gun. He plied oars hastily, shot out of the searchlight beam, but the bright finger shifted and enveloped him again. Then he knew they were going to try and run him down.

He couldn’t see who was in the boat. The searchlight blinded him for one thing; but if the craft carried no lights at all, the black night would have been ample protection for its occupants. But that searchlight did help them to spot their target.

The Phantom crooked one arm, quickly rested his gun hand against it, and drew a bead. The speed boat swerved as its pilot realized what the Phantom was doing. The gun cracked, but the searchlight stayed lit. Now the launch was getting dangerously close. The Phantom fired two more shots. This time the searchlight winked out to the tune of breaking glass.

The Phantom knew that launch was aimed straight at the rowboat, and by holding its course was bound to smash into it. There wasn’t time to use the oars. He holstered his gun, stood erect, and dived over the side.

The lake water was cold at this time of year. It knocked the breath out of him, for he dived deep. He was conscious of swirling water above as the motor launch slashed a path through the surface. The Phantom’s head bobbed to the surface.

SOMETHING drifted against his shoulder; and he automatically started to dive, but checked himself. It was a piece of wood from the rowboat. The speed boat seemed to have struck it squarely amidships. And that craft was coming back. Someone aboard her had a flashlight, by no means as powerful as that searchlight the Phantom had shot out, but strong enough to illuminate the water and catch him in its beam if he didn’t act fast enough.

The Phantom kicked up his heels and plunged down. But the pilot of that boat suspected the Phantom’s trick and was already turning by the time the Phantom’s head broke water again. The flashlight captured him. A gun cracked, and the Phantom saw the water geyser close by his head. The launch was bearing down too. He took a quick breath and dived again.

They played hide-and-seek with him for another five minutes; but the Phantom was a strong swimmer; he knew how to conserve his wind; and even while under water, he was moving quite rapidly toward the further shore. He’d shed his shoes already, but his coat clung to him with all the tenacity of glued paper. The gun in his shoulder rig weighed a ton. He reached the surface, and this time he wasn’t greeted by a flashlight, bullets, or the onrushing prow of a fast moving launch. He rolled over to rest and get back his breath and his strength. The launch motor was fading out somewhere to the north.

Finally, the Phantom crawled up on Dr. Winterly’s dock. He lay there, prone and exhausted, for five minutes. His mind worked smoothly, and he wondered how those killers had known he was at the lake. Of course, they might have preceded him there, or even been there all the time. Sam Ruddy might have signaled them somehow, or someone back in the city could have phoned that the Phantom was on his way to see Dr. Winterly.

The Phantom got up, wrung water out of his trouser legs and his coat, and splashed along the dock in his stocking feet headed for the house which was still illuminated. He paused again, within yards of the place, and drew his gun. He shook water out of it; hoped the weapon would still work despite the soaking it had received; and with the gun in fist, he moved up to the door of Dr. Winterly’s place.

He didn’t knock, just pressed down the black iron latch, pushed the door open a foot, and stood there listening. He could hear raucous breathing, like that of a man in a deep sleep. He opened the door wide, stepped through, and crossed the room. He found the snoring man. It was Luke, a brutal looking figure even in sleep. He lay on a couch, his left hand gripping an empty whisky bottle which had spilled over onto his chest. His right hand dangled off the side of the couch, fingers resting against the floor and more than two inches from that ugly knife he’d carried in his belt. There was something different about that knife now. It was well-stained with blood.

The Phantom moved into the next room. He closed his eyes and winced at what he saw. If Dr. Winterly had known anything, he’d never tell it.

Not with his throat slit from ear to ear.

HIS body was still warm. Dr. Winterly had been murdered not more than thirty or forty minutes ago. The Phantom went back to where Luke was sleeping off what seemed to be a drunken stupor. He checked the man’s pulse. It was very low, not the pulse of a drunken man, but of a heavily drugged one. There was some blood on the tips of the fingers near that knife.

The Phantom began a methodical search of the premises. In a small laboratory where Dr. Winterly had worked, he found some weird looking apparatus setup. There were notebooks well filled with notes, but none of them seemed to make any sense. It was almost as if Dr. Winterly wrote everything down in some clever code.

The Phantom examined the apparatus; and, while he knew a great deal about the science of chemistry, he’d never seen such a unique conglomeration of retorts, flasks, beakers, and distillation tubes. This apparatus couldn’t possibly serve any useful purpose, for one item contradicted another. The Phantom stepped back and studied the lab bench for a moment while a new idea filtered into his brain – an idea which required confirmation, but he would have bet on the fact that he was right.

This was work for the sheriff, and after the Phantom was satisfied that a further search would gain him nothing, he left the place and headed north toward another house where he knew there was the only telephone on this shore. He’d noticed the wires there upon his first visit to the lake. He found a pair of shoes in Dr. Winterly’s closet which fit him reasonably, and he appropriated them. Then he started for the neighboring dwelling.