Death out of Thin Air (24 page)

Don was working on the last combination wheel, when Dumont said, “You've got one more minute.”

His voice, Don noticed, was unsteady and it no longer sounded like Dumont's. The Invisible Man apparently noticed it too. “All right, Dumont,” he said. “Take your gun. Go outside and get ready to put on your act for that dick downstairs as soon as the others come out.”

Don looked over his shoulder and opened his mouth to speak. He said, “Glenn—” and then St. Louis Louie cut him off.

“Okay, big boy,” his words came flat and expressionless from between his teeth. “If you want what I got, go right on gabbing.”

The Invisible Man's voice came again. “Half that minute is gone.”

The second-hand on the micrometer moved the last time. Don Diavolo knew that once that safe was open, his usefulness would be ended. But he still wondered what was in it that they wanted so badly.

Hurriedly he took the watch from the safe face, set the big dial at zero and began. Four turns to the left, eighteen to the right, seven to the left, twenty-six to the right….

Don felt the intent eyes on his back. The dial stopped at the final number, and Don held his breath as he turned the knob to which the clamp was still fixed. He felt the bolt move over. He started to pull the safe door outward.

Perry's voice said, “Okay. Move over.”

Don moved and Louie's gun followed him as if it was a piece of steel seeking a magnet.

The butler, standing in the door, came forward as Perry opened the safe. He carried two suitcases which he laid open on the floor. Perry began taking out the contents of the safe and transferring them to the grips. Don's eyes widened.

He saw a rock crystal cross whose face bore religious emblems in wrought gold and translucent blue enamel. He saw a shell-shaped, green jade cup set upon the carved figure of centaur, and several cases containing miniatures. There were other objects too — paintings, books with ancient bindings, jeweled watches, several pieces of Sèvres porcelain, a small tapestry — but the cross and the cup Don thought he recognized. They answered the descriptions of the ones stolen from Ziegler's shop!

Diavolo couldn't understand why those things should be in Ziegler's safe but he had no time to puzzle that out just then. The cold voice of the Invisible Man hung again in the room, its tone triumphant now — and inflexible.

“The magician knows too much. Louie—”

Don's hand jerked as it began the swift move toward his gun. He wasn't going to stand there and take the blast from the gunman's gun without any back talk at all.

His hand never reached his gun.

The butler's hand, blackjack raised, had started its downward motion first. A thousand fiery points of light whirled before Don's eyes, scattered, and dropped swiftly into blackness.

The magician's body crumpled and dropped.

The disembodied voice gave one more command. “
Throw him into the safe. Lock it. And get going!
”

The butler hesitated a brief moment, then lifted the limp, scarlet-costumed figure and dumped it inside the dark interior of the safe. Perry was thorough. He changed the combination, slammed the heavy, foot-thick door, threw the bolt and whirled the dial. Then he smashed the micrometer.

Had Don Diavolo been conscious and able to use the controlled breathing methods that he used in some of his underwater feats, the air within the safe would be breathable for as much as two hours. But he was unconscious and breathing at a normal rate. Under these conditions the air would last a half hour at the most.

The best safe-blower in the country couldn't get that door open in under an hour. Even if he did, the blast would be fatal to the man inside. The only practical existing way to get into the safe now was through a knowledge of the new combination, something that was itself locked within the head of one man — Perry.

Then, in the lobby downstairs, a hitch occurred. Dumont was not successful in holding the attention of the waiting detective. St. Louis Louie had to use his heater. But the detective, as he fell, managed one shot in reply. He missed Louie. His bullet entered Perry's head just below the right eye, tunnelled upward through the mental filing system of nervous tissue and made its exit just behind and above the left ear.

A certain series of eight numbers in a certain sequence, the combination of Nathan Ziegler's safe was as utterly lost as if it had never been.

C
HAPTER
XI

Into Thin Air

C
OLONEL
Ernest Kaselmeyer, manager of the Manhattan Music Hall, was sputtering colored fire and throwing off streams of sparks like a two dollar Fourth of July pinwheel.

“Diavolo!” he thundered. “I've got his name in lights clear across the front of this theater! Letters six feet high! Last night he does not give his last show. I had to return four hundred admissions! He should go on in five minutes — and none of you have the slightest idea where he is! Maybe I should go back to managing a flea circus! Magicians! Bah!”

Pat, Mickey, and Karl listened to his fulminations without paying attention to the words. They all turned expectantly each time there were footsteps in the corridor outside. Their faces all fell together each time as the steps went on past.

Karl was at the window, his eyes, behind their thick lensed glasses, fixed on the flow of traffic before the stage door in the street below. “I knew something like this would happen sooner or later,” he frowned. “That driver should have been back ages ago. I'll wait another ten minutes, then I'm going to get Church after Belmont.”

“Belmont?” Mickey asked. “Why him?”

“Because Don had me examine that check Belmont gave him. I found his fingerprints. His right thumb matches the thumbprints on the note the Invisible Man left at Ziegler's!”

“I'm going to phone the Inspector now,” Pat said. “He might be able to pick up a clue at the house on 106th Street. If Glenn—” Her voice broke on his name, but her chin was firm as she went toward the phone.

Chan Chandar Manchu who had just replaced the receiver after vainly trying to locate Horseshoe, Larry and Woody, said, “I'll get him for you, Miss Pat.”

But he failed there too. Inspector Church was, at that moment, roaring up Riverside Drive in a police car whose screaming siren was loud and angry. The report of a gun battle in the lobby of the hotel at 848 West End Avenue had just come in.

Chan had not been able to reach Woody Haines because that gentleman was talking to the detective stationed outside the hotel on Riverside Drive. He had gone there to get an interview with Nathan Ziegler, seen the dick and stopped to question him. The detective was telling him that the art dealer had asked for police protection after the robbery, afraid that the Invisible Man might not be satisfied with the haul at his shop, but would attempt also to steal certain valuable art objects from Ziegler's own private collection.

Woody was listening to this when they heard the shots from inside. As the detective drew his gun and sped toward the lobby, Woody noticed something that the dick missed. He saw a taxi come around the nearest corner on two wheels and slide to a grinding stop before the building. “A getaway car,” Woody murmured. “Maybe, just in case—” He turned quickly and signaled a cruising taxi down the street.

A moment later, St. Louis Louie, the butler and Dumont, the latter white-faced and shaken, ran out and piled into the cab.

Woody leaned forward in his seat. “Follow that cab, Mac,” he commanded. “If you lose it, I'll have your scalp.”

“Lissen, buddy,” the driver said. “Why should I stick my neck out? Those mobsters mean business. If they see us tailin' 'em …”

“What they'll do won't be half as bad as what I'll do if you don't,” Woody cut in. “Keep your lip buttoned, your chin up, and step on that gas!”

The driver looked back over his shoulder straight into the nose of the .32 Colt that Woody held in one big paw. He carefully noted Woody's bulky shoulders and All-American arms.

“Okay, boss,” he said, his eyes round, “Play like I didn't mention it.” The taxi leaped forward with a grinding clash of gears.

The two detectives were being loaded into an ambulance when Church's car skidded to a stop before the hotel. The Inspector and Sergeant Brophy hit the pavement, running. They collected a frightened hotel desk clerk as they sailed through the lobby and an elevator shot upward, carrying them toward the Ziegler apartment.

The clerk opened the door with a master key and the two detectives rushed in. Their search at first was fruitless. The hall, living room and study were quite empty. Church, in passing, gave the big safe a suspicious glance, noticed that it seemed undisturbed and securely locked, dismissed it from his mind and went on.

It was Sergeant Brophy who found the body.

“Bathroom door's locked,” he called. “Get that clerk in here.”

When the clerk's key had thrown the bolt and Brophy, gun ready, had pushed back the door, they saw Nathan Ziegler's body, stiff with rigor, lying on the cold tiles. There were three bullet holes in his chest.

“Sergeant,” Church started, “Get headquarters and—”

It was then that he heard the muffled thumping sound. He turned toward the two bedroom doors. One was locked.

The clerk's shaking hand fumbled with his key. Church shoved him aside to unlock the door himself.

A girl lay on the bed, her feet kicking desperately against the footboard. Her ankles and wrists were tied with adhesive; a towel was pulled tight across her mouth and knotted behind her head. Her wide black eyes were filled with horror until Church drew a knife and began to cut the towel. Then they flooded with tears of relief and her taut body relaxed.

Sergeant Brophy turned to the clerk, “Get the house doctor!” The clerk left at a run and Brophy dashed for the phone in the study.

Inspector Church removed the gag from the girl's mouth, cut the tape that held her wrists and then stiffened. He dropped his knife and ran.

Brophy's voice had come back to him from the study, saying, “Fancy meeting you here! Put your hands up Diavolo!”

As Church galloped into the study, Brophy said, “He must have been hiding in here, Inspector. And he opened the safe while we were in the bedroom. Another minute and he'd have been gone.”

The safe door was wide and Don Diavolo was supporting himself with difficulty, leaning heavily on his hands on the desk. He was drawing fresh air into his lungs in great draughts.

“Handcuffs, Brophy!” Church ordered, “And watch him. If he tries to go invisible on us, shoot!”

Diavolo shook his head and gave them half a smile. He inhaled another long breath of oxygen and said, “I wasn't trying to get
into
the safe, Inspector. I just got out. Look at the door.”

Church looked. “What the hell!” he exclaimed.

The plate on the inner side of the safe door that covers the locking mechanism had been removed exposing the combination wheels inside. The plate, its screws, and a knife with a broken point lay on the safe floor.

Don Diavolo rubbed the bump on the back of his head gingerly. “They knocked me out, Inspector, and locked me in. I pulled out of it just in time, broke off the point of my knife and used it as a screwdriver. Once the plate was off I could manipulate the wheels with my hands. It's much easier to get out of a safe than into one — provided you aren't unconscious. The air in that place nearly put me under again before I got the bolt to slide over.”

Church looked at Don and then back at the safe. He scowled undecidedly. Then he shook his head. “Clever as usual. But I'm not so sure. This could be some more of your blasted misdirection.”

“Inspector,” Diavolo said wearily. “Please! You think of the damnedest — Who is that?”

Don motioned toward the doorway where the girl stood, the cut adhesive still dangling from her wrists and ankles.

The girl, staring at Don Diavolo, said, “And he murdered my father.
I saw him!
”

Don gasped at her. “I—I murdered your father? When did that happen?”

“Last night,” the girl said, trembling with emotion. “Dad had just changed the combination of the safe and he was locking it. You came in with two other men. One of them grabbed me; you and the other went into the study. You were wearing those red clothes and a red mask. I—I heard you tell my father to put his hands up, and then I heard him slam the door of the safe. You swore, and then—”

The girl could go no further. She sank into a chair and covered her face with her hands, sobbing.

“Church,” Diavolo said, “Ask her what time last night.”

But the girl was hysterical now, and beyond questioning. The desk clerk hurried in with a doctor and they led Rose Ziegler to a bedroom.

Church said, “Yeah, I know. You're ready with some phony alibi, but it won't go down. I've got too much now. An eyewitness. You can't get around that.”

Don looked at him for a moment and then said slowly, “You think that I'm the Invisible Man?”

“I know you are,” Church shot back. “And the chair up at Sing Sing is one little gadget that you won't be able to squirm out of. Brophy—”

Don moved slightly away from the desk.

“Stay where you are!” Brophy ordered, coming toward him.

Don shook his head. “But I'm not the Invisi—”

The voice that cut him off affected both Church and Brophy like a powerful electric charge. They jerked, stood stock still, and stared at the automatic that floated slowly up in midair from behind the desk.

The cold familiar voice rang in their ears. “
No, he's not the Invisible Man, Inspector. And he did not kill
—”

Church's and Brophy's guns spit fire together. The gun that pointed at them from midair dropped suddenly.

The Inspector and the Sergeant rounded the desk from opposite sides and pounced — on nothing. The gun lay there on the rug, but they could not feel the prone body they had hoped to find beneath their hands.