But Phineas Spear was not looking for something definite. He was almost convinced that there was nothing of that nature here. He had come — almost superstitiously — with a deliberately emptied mind, just to look. On a hunch! And abruptly he left the study. Southard’s body had been found there. It was assumed that he had been killed there. Had he?
His bedroom adjoined the study. Spear entered, using his flash sparingly until he saw that this room also was closed and shuttered. In the somber light of wall brackets he searched it. A four-poster bed, massive, carved, canopied in some rich tapestry. A mahogany high-boy contained nothing of interest — not even personal effects. All of those, he knew, had been impounded pending the finish of the trial of Abel Parkes, the settlement of Southard’s estate. A clothes closet offered...
A cane — standing alone in one corner!
Instantly Spear recognized it.
A heavy cane, carved from some dark wood into the semblance of three smaller canes twisted together. The head was of antique gold, its lavish encrustation of ornament worn smooth by years of use. It was the cane old Senator Southard carried habitually — not for support, but with a courtly flourish... Southard’s favorite cane — of many that had been found and taken away with his other personal belongings. Why had this one been overlooked?
He didn’t touch it. His nostrils flaring with quickened breath, Spear knelt over it. Full-force, brilliant in that dark corner, his flash started at the gold knob, moved slowly down to the worn metal ferrule — and found nothing. Gingerly he turned the cane around, repeated his scrutiny. But this time the beam stopped halfway down. Stopped, and Phineas Spear swore aloud in staccato, sharp tones. He grasped the cane at the top. Flashlight and wall brackets went dark and he strode back into the study. He stopped there — hand on lamp, he turned rigidly.
“I said reach!” the masked man repeated, hoarsely soft, and Phineas Spear’s hands rose shoulder high. His right still grasped the cane.
The man in the doorway was average size — medium height, thickish. The hair on the hand that held the gun was light, sandy — and Spear’s eyes gleamed. So was the hair that adhered to the cane he held, stuck there by a small, dark, scab-like particle that looked like dried blood! The masked man came closer. His eyes behind the slit handkerchief were restless, uneasy. He rasped:
“You can drop the cane, wise-guy!”
Spear did — but he never let go of it. It fell lightning fast. The iron ferrule hit the gunman’s wrist and the silence of the vast, old house was blasted with a roaring shot that shattered the lamp on the desk — banished light.
They fought silently in utter darkness. Deliberately Spear dropped the cane. A formidable weapon — but also a clue to murder. And as he swung — and stopped — desperately flung fists, he wondered if the blow he had already struck had dislodged the hair — ruined the one bit of evidence he had found at long last.
Panting, the masked man fought with the fury of a trapped animal. Fought to escape, to reach the door, the stairs. The terror of darkness, of uncertainty, was in him. Spear sensed it. His first mad lunge had put him at the door. He stood there, letting the other come to him, beating back rush after rush, hoping for the lucky punch that would put the man out. But it worked the other way! It was he who stopped the hardest punch of the fight!
He went backward — broke nails, ripped skin from finger-tips, in an unavailing grab at the doorjamb. Then he tripped, smashed into the opposite wall with sickening force. He hung there fighting for consciousness, aware that the other was groping in the dark, feeling for his gun. Then suddenly the wave of paralysis broke. Spear remembered his flash. The beam caught the other full in the face, limned the half raised gun and Phineas Spear flung himself forward in a desperate dive.
His hand on the telephone was bloody. For an endless second he waited, not breathing — until the operator’s impersonal voice told him that the phone had not yet been disconnected. There was another moment before Jake Wolcott snapped:
“Blade. City desk.”
The irony of it brought a quick grin that hurt his bashed lips. He said thickly, “Jake — Phineas. I want another extra.”
“Right, Socker!” came back. “Are you at—?”
“Never mind where I am! Take this: Headline: Further evidence unearthed in Southard murder! Blade investigator assaulted in senator’s home.”
“Are you,” he lashed back suddenly, “at the Southard place now?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Then listen — get hold of yourself! Five minutes ago a guy who said he was Randall Pierson phoned here. He said—”
Spear tensed fiercely. “Go on. Go on!”
“Said you were in his office and wanted the girl to come over.”
“You — didn’t let her go!” he ripped. “Damn you, Jake, if you let her go I’ll—”
“Wait a minute, Socker!” Wolcott pleaded. “I know it looks bad, but you didn’t say to keep her here. You didn’t tell us—”
“I told you that Lefty was to look out for her! He went too, didn’t he?”
The hesitancy in Jake Wolcott’s voice answered him before Wolcott responded, “She — wouldn’t let him go! Socker, I’m — sorry. But she said it was just a block away. She said—”
Phineas Spear’s voice cracked over the wire, “Get to Pierson’s office, Jake! Take the boys and tell ’em to take their guns. If Cara isn’t there, wait for me.”
He spun away from the desk, and the sandy-haired man cringed under the searing whip of his eyes. Slowly Phineas Spear dropped the gun he held into the one pocket of his coat that remained intact. When he spoke, his tone was metallic.
“Want to talk, fella? Want to tell me where they’ve taken the girl? Because if you don’t—”
He hovered over him, knees flexed, hands like blood-stained talons. The man in the chair half sobbed:
“I dunno — what you’re talking about! I dunno—”
The talons struck. Jerked erect, the man went down heavily under the impact of a cutting right hook. Not crushing! None of the blows that followed was a knockout punch. Phineas Spear was grimly careful to avoid that. The already bruised face of the man with the sandy hair went sickeningly to pulp. He wallowed on the floor, refused to get up and each time Spear lifted him sapped his remaining strength. Nauseated, his own head spinning, he tore the telephone from its wires, ripped the wires from the box. Holding them doubled in a four-lashed whip, he grated between set teeth:
“Talk! Or so help me God I’ll cut you to ribbons — with this! Talk — killer!”
He raved, “I... I tell ya I dunno... but wait! I... I’ll talk! There’s a huntin’ lodge — Barrow’s Point. That’s where — they always meet. Ah-h-h...” He fainted from sheer terror. Spear used the wire to tie him up.
Randall Pierson sat at his desk. The men of the Blade filled his office. They were silent, grim. Jake Wolcott said, “He wanted it like that, Socker. We tried to get him out — to a doc, a hospital — but he wouldn’t have it. He says he’s done for, and I think he is. I think he just doesn’t want to live.”