Robert Wallace - The Black Ball Of Death

He wondered why Bernie Pennell had gone to all the trouble of leaving him dangling out there instead of killing him while he was unconscious. Then he remembered how anxious Pennell had been to establish an alibi for the murder of the Phantom that was supposed to have taken place at Dr. Winterly’s cottage. Doubtlessly Pennell had planned this with the same idea of an alibi in mind.

The Phantom glanced up as he felt the rope give a little. He saw that the metal frame of the lower part of the window had been shoved down on the rope. His weight, and the way he swayed back and forth was gradually sawing the rope against the sharp edge of the window frame. Eventually, the rope would part; and the Phantom would go hurtling down into space, unless he did something about it in a hurry.

The first feeling of horror had left him now, to be replaced by the cool courage that was always part of the nature of the man who had proved such a dangerous foe to the perpetrators of crime. He thought swiftly, seeking some means of escape.

A ledge running along the face of the building between the fifteenth and fourteenth floors caught his glance and held it. If he could just swing close enough he might manage to get his feet on that ledge, and since it was a little higher than where he was hanging now, it would take the pressure off the rope. He tried it, and the first time he came maddeningly close, and then swung away again. The second time he managed to get one foot on the ledge. He pulled himself up on the rope with his free hand, and a moment later he was perched precariously on the ledge. Above him the rope grew slack as it no longer supported his full weight.

The Phantom gave a good hard tug on the rope. It broke at the window and came tumbling down, nearly pulling him off the ledge.

“That was close!” he muttered. “Too close for comfort.”

SINCE the other end of the rope was still in his grasp, he clung to it, hoping to find some way of using it to get off the ledge. He edged along until he found a spot near the corner of the building where the ledge grew wider.

Here it jutted out nearly three feet, and he found that he could stand on it in comparative safety.

He managed to untie the rope from his wrist. The wrist was raw and bleeding a little, and his right arm felt like it was longer than it had ever been before. He coiled up the rope and then peered down over the lip of the ledge. Below him was a window on the fourteenth floor that had been carelessly left open about four inches at the top.

The Phantom estimated the distance from the ledge to the window below and decided it was more than five feet, though it was hard to judge accurately in the darkness of the night. He left the coil of rope lying on the ledge and then lowered himself over the edge until he was hanging there by his hands.

His feet reached the middle of the window below, and he stood on the top of the metal sash. Then he released his grip on the ledge and slowly lowered his body. After that it was comparatively simple to climb in through the upper part of the window.

The Phantom breathed a sigh of relief as he found himself in a deserted office. “If anyone should ask me, I’ve had enough of the great open spaces for one evening,” he decided.

When he had fully recovered his breath, he wandered through the office. Then he used a telephone switchboard he found to call Frank Havens. After the Phantom told Havens what had happened, it was agreed that he would go to the publisher’s office at once and wait there until Chip Dorlan or Steve Huston had located the Texas millionaire they had been sent out to find.

“Fine,” said the Phantom. “After what I have been through so far tonight I’d like nothing better than that. It sounds so peaceful!”

FRANK HAVENS leaned back in his chair as he sat at his desk in his huge private office in the Clarion building. The publisher made a steeple with his fingertips pressed together as he listened intently to the words of the man who lounged comfortably in a chair near the desk.

“So you see the whole thing is a confidence game,” the Phantom said. “Built upon bigger stakes than usual, and the men involved don’t mind bloodshed to gain their ends. Bernie Pennell runs the gyp end of the deal. He gets into contact with the suckers, lines them up.”

“But what are they using for bait?” Havens asked with a puzzled frown. “This is a rather modern world we live in these days, Van. People, especially wealthy people, don’t fall for a confidence game very easily.”

“Of course not, but this one is done up brown. Toasted on both sides and served hot. The victims are carefully selected. They are told about a type of metal. I don’t know the full details of its nature yet, but it will be sensational.” The Phantom smiled. “That is, according to the sales talk.”

“You mean they actually have something good?” demanded Havens in surprise.

“Certainly not! It’s a newly invented alloy that would be laughed at even by those who know nothing about metals. But the victims didn’t realize that – not after they have been taken to see Dr. Winterly, whom everyone knew as a respected and eminent scientist, and he had convinced them he had invented something great.”

“He convinced them,” repeated Havens. “You don’t mean that Winterly actually went crooked?”

“No, only senile. He was convinced that he’d actually created such an alloy, and when the victims were brought to him, he assured them it was on the level. The new product was called Formula Eight. I found sample ingots and some documentary evidence referring to it. That isn’t all – the victims were next taken out to a huge factory which the gang had actually leased. There, big furnaces were ready to operate, castings made, the whole works set up to begin manufacture of the alloy.”

Havens whistled softly. “A genuine confidence man never did mind spending a dollar to make ten. That’s what has always distinguished him from other kinds of thieves. But – the expenses for all this must have been very large.”

“So were the donations made by the suckers,” the Phantom declared dryly. “Arthur Arden was one of them to the tune of twenty thousand. But the crooks made a big mistake there. They didn’t know that Arden’s father maintained a home at Lake Candle where Dr. Winterly also lived. They didn’t realize that Arthur Arden would be in a position to observe Dr. Winterly and eventually see that he was a weak-brained, worn-out old man totally incapable of inventing anything, let alone metal which science has been seeking for years.”

Havens nodded. “Then Arthur must have demanded his money back, and they had to kill him before he could broadcast what he knew and tip off all the other victims the gang had lined up. There’s your motive, of course.”

“Yes, and Arthur did his best to issue a warning anyway. He knew he was going to be knifed. He managed to spill a little of the bronze powder on the floor for someone to find. He arranged it so that an eight ball would be found at his feet. He hoped someone would connect it with Formula Eight. That is what he was trying to tell us.”

“And we were too stupid to recognize what Arthur meant!” Havens wagged his white head.

“Not stupid, sir,” the Phantom said. “We didn’t have enough to go on, and even now Sheriff McCabe doesn’t recognize the significance of the eight ball. Arthur Arden hoped that we’d find samples of the metal in his New York apartment, but the murderer got there before me. Arthur Arden even talked in boastful riddles to Vicki Selden about the figure eight, and used an eight ball to demonstrate. Perhaps that is what made him leave an eight ball for a clue when he knew he was going to be killed.”