Death out of Thin Air (22 page)

C
HAPTER
VIII

The Problem of the Missing Combination

B
elmont's jaw dropped. “But— but how—?” Don turned and went back toward the door. He stood there looking down at the white covering of flour and the trampled path of footprints that led across it.

Inspector Church charged in at the door and left more footprints across the space. “Nobody saw a cursed thing!” he exploded angrily.

Then he saw Belmont, holding the empty jewel-case. His eyes popped. “Brophy!” he roared. “Get in here and close that door. He's here, in this room!”

Don said, “He moves fast, Inspector. I wouldn't be too sure.”

“But how—” Belmont growled, “how did he get across that—”

Sergeant Brophy pointed to the trail of footprints. “As soon as we ran out, he ducked through and walked in our footprints!”

Don Diavolo lit a cigarette and said with understandable exasperation, “I fix the room so nobody but a bird could get in unnoticed, and then three big flatfooted walruses barge across my telltale flour. I yelled at you to wait, but you were too busy chasing something you couldn't see. That was just what he wanted. Sometimes, Inspector, I wonder how you got the job. Of all the—”

Church blew up. “Brophy,” he commanded coldly. “Search that guy!” He pointed a broad forefinger at Diavolo. “There isn't any invisible man. I know it now. Diavolo slammed that door by pulling a string or some such hocus pocus, and he threw his voice to make it sound like it came from the door. He's a ventriloquist. When we ran to the door he grabbed the necklace!”

Don Diavolo shrugged and held up his arms. Brophy gave him a thorough once over. “Nothing, Inspector,” he reported.

Church turned on Pat then. “So!” he said, “You. Sergeant, one of the maids downstairs is a policewoman. I planted her here yesterday. Get her. She'll search Miss Collins.”

A half hour later, Inspector Church was on the point of giving up. The diamonds had not been found on Pat, nor anywhere else in the room. Church had gone over it with as fine-toothed a comb as had ever been made. He sat at the table before the empty jewel-case and listened to reports from the men that had been posted through the grounds and along the shore and the wall.

“Nothing, nothing, nothing,” he said. “I still don't believe it.”

J.D. Belmont swore. “All the cops in Manhattan
and
a magician. This — this criminal walks in and takes what he wants in spite of you. Bah! Wait until the D.A. hears about this mess!”

“Oh yeah,” Church glowered back at him. “You flatfooted it across that flour too, you know. So stop howling. I'll get your blasted diamonds back or know why!”

Meekly, Don Diavolo asked, “Inspector, now that Miss Collins and I are in the clear, may we go?”

“In the clear? What makes you think that?”

“We don't have the diamonds and you can't make an arrest unless—”

Suddenly Detective Sergeant Brophy exploded, “Inspector, I've got it. Diavolo's suitcase! After we ran out into the hall, he came out and took a gun from it. I'll bet he put the necklace inside!”

“
Suitcase!
” Church leaped to his feet. “Why the hell haven't I heard about—” He was across the room and through the door. When he came back with the case, he was grinning. “Feels as if he has the necklace
and
all the silverware in the house in it. I guess this settles your hash, Mr. Dia—”

He pulled the case open and stepped back in amazement as Larry Keeler stood up, stretched, looked up at the Inspector and said, “Thanks. I was beginning to think I'd been forgotten.”

Church, recovering, reached out, grasped the back of Larry's collar in a big fist and lifted the dwarf out of the suitcase. He dropped him outside and bent to examine the case.

“Nothing,” he said once more, and then turned on Diavolo. “What — what is the meaning of this?” he demanded, pointing at Larry.

It took Diavolo several minutes of fast talking to explain, but he finally managed to get his point across. Inspector Church was still not at all sure he believed a word Diavolo said. As long as he couldn't find the diamonds, however, there wasn't a lot he could do about it.

“Keeler,” he snapped. “You were watching that door every minute?”

Larry nodded.

“You heard the voice and saw the door slam?”

Larry nodded again.

“And what did you see?”

The little magician flipped a coin on the palm of his small hand, and made a pass above it with his other. The coin vanished.

“Nothing,” he said. “Nobody at all.”

Church snorted. “Brophy,” he ordered, “Get these magicians out of here! They give me a pain.”

Diavolo jerked a thumb at his two companions. “Come on. Before he changes his mind. Mr. Belmont, I'll return your check since I don't seem to have been successful in preventing the theft.”

Belmont waved his hand. “Forget it,” he said. “It wasn't your fault. If the Inspector hadn't trampled up that—”

Church said, “And you clear out too, Belmont! I'm sick of the sight of you. Brophy, I'll start on the servants now.”

Don grinned. “I'll send the check to the Police Benefit Fund for Retired Inspectors,” he said as he went out.

To Pat and Larry as they drove away from the Belmont estate, he said, “I feel sorry for the Inspector. He's really up against something this time.”

Larry answered “Any theories, Don? I'll admit I'm buffaloed.”

Don nodded. His face in the moonlight was hard and tight. “I'm beginning to get one, Larry. And I don't like it.”

Pat stared straight ahead, saying nothing. She was wondering where her brother had been during the last hour. Don Diavolo wanted very much to know that also. He pressed heavily on the gas and the powerful red car roared through the night, streaking back toward Manhattan.

When they hurried into the house on Fox Street, Don called, “Chan! Any word from Horseshoe?”

From the living room, the Horseshoe Kid's voice answered them. “Yes. Cuss words, all of them.”

Horseshoe was lying on the divan, an icebag on his head and a tall glass of straight Scotch in his hand. “I'm a lousy dick,” he said. “I was casing the 106th Street joint when some fink sneaked up behind and conked me one. I don't know just how long I was out, but it was long enough. I got a locksmith down the street. Told him I'd been knocked out and rolled for my dough. Took him back to the house I'd been watching and he got the door open for me. I went through the house. Nobody home. I'm sorry.”

“What time was this?” Don snapped.

“About fifteen minutes after I phoned you the last time, just before you headed for Belmont's. I tried to phone out there and get you, but some copper had taken over the switchboard and he wanted my name, address, occupation, and a dozen references, so I hung up on him.”

“This,” Don said heavily, “is too much.” He turned to Pat. “Try not to worry, Pat. Maybe it isn't as bad—” He broke off and swore. “I'm going to town on this case starting now. You get to bed, Pat. Tomorrow's going to be a darned lively day. And I'll need your help. That's an order. Go on, Chan! Put something in a cocktail shaker and bring it in here. We need it.”

But the cocktail didn't help a lot. Don was still scowling thoughtfully when Horseshoe and Larry left a short while later.

He still wore the same scowl the next morning when he went to the theater. And he saw another scowl just like his own on the face of the man who waited for him there. The man was pacing nervously back and forth at the stage door. His face brightened as he caught sight of Don.

“Mr. Diavolo,” he said quickly. “May I see you a moment, please? It is extremely urgent.”

He shoved a white square of cardboard at Diavolo. It bore the name
Julian Dumont
and across it was written, “
This will introduce my secretary Victor Perry.
”

There was one detail about the card that Diavolo didn't care for. The ink that formed the printed name, Julian Dumont, was not quite dry. When Don rubbed a surreptitious finger across it, the name smeared.

He took a closer look at the man before him. Mr. Perry was a slender, open-faced individual with a disarming smile and quick, sharp gray eyes. He was smartly dressed and he talked with a confident, business-like air. The only other thing aside from the card that bothered Diavolo was the faintly feminine intonation and gesture which Mr. Victor Perry used. It wasn't quite what he would have expected from a secretary employed by a man like Dumont.

“My employer needs your assistance,” Perry said. “A matter of the utmost importance. We have had a most distressing morning. Mr. Dumont finally thought of you.”

“Dumont,” Diavolo asked. “The president of the Dumont Chemical company?”

“Yes,” Mr. Perry said. “And he needs your assistance, very badly. A matter of the utmost importance. Perhaps if we could talk privately?” Perry looked around at the elderly stage doorman who eyed them across the top of a morning paper. Its headlines in enormous type read:

INVISIBLE MAN SCORES AGAIN
BAFFLES MAGICIAN AND POLICE
Historic $320,000 Necklace
Stolen in Impossible Theft

Diavolo nodded. “My dressing room,” he said.

Mr. Perry said nothing further until they were behind Don's closed door. Then he talked rapidly.

“I have here a blank check payable to you,” he stated, taking a blue slip from his billfold. “I am authorized to fill it out for any reasonable amount that you name if you can come to Mr. Dumont's assistance immediately.”

Diavolo raised an eyebrow. Two financiers waving checks at him in as many days! Perhaps he was wasting his time in the theater after all.

“Sounds interesting,” he said. “Just how can I help your employer?”

“By opening his safe,” Perry said. “Mr. Dumont is, as you may have heard, a rather eccentric man. Last night he changed the combination on his private safe. He unfortunately did so without informing me. He also neglected to make a note of the new combination. He prides himself on his memory, which I am sorry to say is not nearly as good as he likes to think. And this morning, finally, he is having to admit as much himself.”

“He forgot the combination, Mr. Perry?” Don asked, his glance sharpening.

“Exactly.” Mr. Perry smiled slightly. “I am almost pleased. Perhaps it will teach the old gentleman a lesson and so make my own job less irksome. His eccentricities are a bit annoying at times.”

“Yes, I can see they might be if this sort of thing happens very often. But why me? Tell him to get Courtney. If anybody can open your employer's safe, he's the man.”

“We thought of that, Mr. Diavolo. But we found that Mr. Courtney is out of town and will not be back until tomorrow. The safe contains some very important business contracts which must be signed and delivered without fail before noon. Mr. Dumont knows of your remarkable escape work and it occurred to him that opening the safe would be a small matter for The Great Diavolo.”

Don thought, “Oh oh. Flattery too.” Aloud he asked, “What make of safe?”

“A Holmes & Watson. Their No. 1 Double Dial Bank Lock.”

Don did a few rapid mental calculations. He liked the story even less than he liked Mr. Perry and Mr. Dumont's freshly inked card. Don had come to the theater early to make some adjustments in a piece of apparatus that had not worked too smoothly during the last show the day before. Chan and Pat weren't due for another hour.

“Yes,” he said after a moment, “I'll come. If you'll wait one moment.” Quickly Don went into his dressing room and closed the door. He hurriedly threw off his business suit and slid into the scarlet evening clothes he wore in his act. He also took a quick look at a phone book. Then he returned to Mr. Perry.

Don grinned inside as he noticed Perry's face fall perceptibly on seeing the costume.

“I thought I had better change now,” Don explained. “My first show is at one twenty and opening a safe of the type you mention is no cinch. I might be pressed for time on my return.” This story was as thin as Perry's but Don knew the man couldn't very well contradict him.

“What is Mr. Dumont's address?” Don asked then, taking a sheet of notepaper from the desk. “I'll leave a note for my assistants in case they should need to reach me.”

“Eight-eighty-four Riverside Drive,” Mr. Perry replied, smiling once more.

But Diavolo didn't bother to mention that address in the note that he addressed to Chan. “Get Woody, Horseshoe, Larry and Karl. Stand by for further orders. I'll send the cabdriver back for you. I'm wearing the red evening clothes so the trail from there on should be easy. Ask Horseshoe if he ever met a bird whose name is probably not Victor Perry. He uses Cirou's
Rose d'Amour
perfume.”

Don didn't include the Riverside address because the phone book had told him that Julian Dumont lived on East 62nd Street!

He sealed the envelope, wrote Chan's name across its face and left it on the desk. Then he stood up, picked a glowing cigarette from midair with an expert gesture, opened the door to the corridor and said, “After you, Mr. Perry.”

C
HAPTER
IX

The Synthetic Millionaire

W
HEN
the taxi drew up before an apartment house on Riverside Drive, Don Diavolo looked at the address and the corners of his mouth curled in a faint smile. It was not only not Dumont's address; it wasn't even the address to which Perry had told him they were going.

Don smiled because, palmed in his right hand with a folded five dollar bill was a note which he had written, unknown to Mr. Perry, at the same time he wrote the message for Chan. This second note read, “
Driver: Return at once to Music Hall. Ask for Miss Collins or my assistant Chan. Tell them to what address you took me. They'll give you another five spot. It's a matter of life or death. Thanks.
”