Robert Wallace: The Black Ball Of Death

“Come on out, Phantom,” Len said. “All you have to do is bust the door down. Or the wall, if you like. Any wall. Just come out and see how it feels to get a knife buried in your chest. I don’t miss with a knife, Phantom. And I’m no dope like Vogel must have been. You got him, but you won’t get me.”

The Phantom walked unsteadily to the door and watched Len intently. The killer’s hand moved down toward the knife, fingers grasped the tip of it. The Phantom merely put his hands on the slats of the door and stood there, peering between them.

Len. reissued his invitation. “Step out, Phantom. Sure, it’s easy. Give the door a shove. It’ll fall right down – and so will you.”

He laughed, relishing his own idea of a joke. The Phantom merely watched without comment. There was a way out of this, somehow. There had to be. Barker was, to all appearances, much smarter than an average pug, but he could bested in a battle of wits. No man who lived by crime could possibly possess a superlative amount of cleverness or mental brilliance. Len’s mind was wily, shrewd, fast to react perhaps, but somewhere in his makeup was a weak point. Phantom had to learn it.

“Why did you use a gun on Arthur Arden if you’re so handy with a knife?” he asked blandly.

Len laughed. “I’d have used a knife if I’d been there. But what’s the difference? He’s just as dead.”

“Very true,” the Phantom replied.

Len hadn’t tried to evade that question. He possessed a very direct way of thinking. Why not take advantage of it?

“You’d better have a good alibi for that night, Len,” the Phantom said. “Bernie has one, but have you?”

“Try and bust it,” Len grinned. “I’m a whiz at alibis.”

“They can be broken,” the Phantom said slowly. “A false one, at least.”

“Ours ain’t faked for that night,” Len assured him, and indirectly told the Phantom that Arthur Arden’s murder had been committed by the man who engineered this whole series of crimes.

What was just as interesting, to the Phantom’s present way of thinking, was the fact that Len had no idea he’d given so much away in that brief statement.

THE Phantom’s right hand closed around one of the four inch wide boards forming the wall. He slowly applied pressure. Nails squealed. The board began parting from its moorings, and Len’s hand darted toward the knife again.

The Phantom let go of the board. One half hearted yank could free it. He glanced at his watch. In fifteen minutes, Bernie would have fashioned the alibi for himself and for Len, who was to be the actual murderer. When the time came, Len would force the Phantom at gun point, out of the bin, upstairs to the room where Luke was sleeping off his drug-induced coma. Then the knife would make its last flight. When the Phantom was found, Luke’s prints would be smeared all over the knife blade and handle.

No one else’s would be there, and Luke would have no story at all.

Whatever was to be, the Phantom realized he must force Len to use the knife first. There was no dodging a bullet, but a knife might be parried or ducked. Len only had one arm. He might be reached before he could seize the gun. The Phantom had to make the first move. He approached the door, leaned against it, and let his hand rest upon the board he’d already worked half loose.

“I don’t think you’re so hot with a knife,” the Phantom said. “I think I can take you, Len. I think I will.”

Len smiled complacently. “Any time, Phantom. Any time at all. Just push that door down.”

The Phantom braced himself, set his shoulder tight against the door and shoved. At the same time he ripped the loose board free. The door caved in. Len was on his feet, holding the knife by its tip and drawn back over his shoulder. His arm snapped forward. The blade came hurtling straight at the Phantom in as accurate a throw as the Phantom had ever seen.

He was on the move too. There was no chance of evading the blade, but he was bringing up the width of board and thrusting it into the path of the knife. The blade hit the board, sliced through it, ripped a gash in the Phantom’s wrist, but stopped there.

With a wild yell Len reached for the gun. He had been too certain that the blade was going to slice its way home. He’d never missed. He couldn’t at this incredibly short distance. Len’s mind was set on that score. It required a split second or two to change it, and during that second or two, the Phantom was coming at him.

The Phantom hurled the board with its knife sticking through it. Len, hand on his gun, had to duck or be struck by the missile. When he straightened, a fist was whizzing toward his face. It struck, full on the bridge of Len’s nose. He screamed. He started to bring up the gun, but blood blinded him.

A hand came down on his wrist, almost breaking it. The fist smashed him again, in the same spot. He felt the gun torn out of his grasp. Again he was struck, this time just below the chest. It doubled him up. He took a few waddling steps backward, encountered the wall, and then his whole body was snapped erect as a punch landed against his chin.

Len slowly sank to the floor, back still against the wall, so that he sat there, glassy eyed and moaning. The Phantom, breathing hard, nearly exhausted, straddled the chair which Len had abandoned. He trained the gun on the half conscious thug.

The gun shook badly.

The Phantom managed a grin. If Len had succeeded in putting up much of a fight, he’d have won. The Phantom’s experience in the lake, evading the speed boat which Bernie and Len had been using as a murder weapon, had robbed him of much of his strength. Then the blows he’d been given, practically finished the job.

Gradually the gun steadied though, and as Len came out of it he found himself staring down the length of its barrel. Len shuddered and tried to push himself through solid masonry wall.

VERGING on hysteria, Len gazed at the gun in the Phantom’s steady hand with eyes that were filled with terror. His knife was gone now, and he was no longer the ruthless killer he had been just a few moments ago.

“Don’t shoot,” he pleaded, his voice shaking. “Don’t – I’ll tell you all you want to know. Don’t kill me!”

“I don’t intend to unless you force me to shoot,” the Phantom said slowly, and he could not keep the contempt he felt for this groveling creature in front of him out of his tone. “As for what information you know, I don’t need it. I know this is a con game. I know the suckers are fed a line about some new kind of metal.”

“That’s right,” Len said. “You’re smart, Phantom. You know all the answers.”

“A new kind of metal that will revolutionize industry,” the Phantom went on as though Len had not spoken. “Confidence game metals are like that – the greatest thing ever discovered but they never actually turn out that way at all. I know that factory is a front for your operations, and that Bernie Pennell is outwardly head man. But someone else is behind him.” The Phantom’s voice hardened, and his eyes were fixed intently upon the face of the man who stood in front of him. “Who is he? Who is the boss of the whole thing?”

“I don’t know.” Len groaned, the terror still with him. For a man so eager to kill he was terribly afraid of death. “You must believe me – you’ve just got to believe that I don’t know.”

The Phantom knew many ways of forcing criminals to talk, and he had found there were times when silence was a more potent factor than words. He did not speak, but just stood there watching and waiting.

Beyond the range of the electric light that gleamed into the bin the cellar was dark and shadowy. In the stillness Len moved one foot and seemed startled by the slight sound it made.