When he had finally satisfied himself that there was not a thing on the new man that might be suspicious, he said, “Okay. Put your shoes on. The Skull will see you now. Here’s where you get a chance to make some real dough. I guess you can use it?”
Fannon nodded bitterly. “They made me work for almost nothing in the prison shop for five years. Now I want to make them pay me for it.”
“You’ll get your chance, boy. The Skull will show you how.” He was watching closely while Fannon laced his shoes, fascinated by the swift movement of the long, dexterous fingers. “Boy,” he admired, “no wonder you’re the best safe man in the country — with them fingers. Can you open any kind of safe at all?”
“I’ve never hit one I couldn’t,” Fannon told him. He finished lacing his shoes and stood up, “What now?”
“You go inside. I guess you’re okay. Be careful how you talk to the Skull. Act respectful. He don’t take any lip, and he don’t stand for jokes.”
Fannon nodded, said, “See you later.” He walked across the anteroom with a firm step, shoulders back, as if going in to face an unavoidable ordeal. He stepped from the lighted anteroom into the pitch blackness of the next room, and heard the door slam behind him. In the darkness he put his hand out behind him, felt for the knob which should be on the inside. There was none. This door had no knob on either side. It was evidently operated from another room. He was locked in there in the darkness — with the Skull.
Chapter II
HE stood still, waiting. Soon he heard a rumbling noise from the floor directly in front of him. A trap door of some sort had opened, and from the aperture thus formed a platform was rising. On the platform was the weirdest figure that the eyes of man had yet beheld.
A faint glow of light came up through the trapdoor, and it illuminated the form that was rising. Clad from head to foot in a bright vermilion cloak, it wore a hood of the same material and color. The face was exposed, but it was not the face of a human being. No flesh showed. There was only the grinning outline of a skull — the skull of a skeleton. There was a strange sort of glow about it that seemed to emphasize the bony structure of the fleshless head.
Fannon stood quietly in the darkness, not a muscle of his face moving, as he watched the ghostly rise of the vermilion figure. Suddenly the platform stopped moving, and a spotlight alongside the figure burst into light, flaring directly into Fannon’s face. Fannon blinked once or twice, then lowered his lids.
The figure spoke, but Fannon could not see it now, because of the spotlight. “You have no doubt now, Mr. Fannon, as to whether you are talking to the Skull?”
Fannon shook his head. “No.”
The Skull chuckled. “No doubt you are anxious to learn why you are being admitted to the ranks of the Servants of the Skull?”
“Because you need me,” said Fannon.
The Skull grunted impatiently. “I need no one. I could get along without you very well. But your particular knowledge will help me to expand my operations. The man who preceded you was only an amateur compared to yourself in the business of opening safes. He thought himself indispensable, however, and acted disrespectfully to me. He even entertained notions of supplanting me in command here. Binks showed you how far he succeeded. Take warning from his fate.”
Fannon remained silent, and after a moment the Skull continued, “Before you were released from prison you were approached with an offer of employment. You were ignorant of the nature of that employment, but you knew that its nature was criminal. Am I right?”
Fannon answered tonelessly, “You are right.”
“Now that you know that it is the Skull who is employing you, are you still eager to go on?”
“I am,” Fannon said. “In jail we managed to get news of every one of your exploits. We knew that you were recruiting, for we heard of several disappearances from the underworld, which were followed by crimes that only the missing men could have accomplished. These crimes were attributed to the genius of the Skull, so we knew those men had been drafted to serve you.”
“That is true,” said the Skull in a pleased tone. “What particular crimes did you hear of?”
“Well, the last I heard of, was the kidnaping of Ainsworth Clegg, the oil man. There had been several kidnapings before that. Then I heard that Clegg, like the others, had been found on the streets of the city, with their mentality destroyed, their bodies wrecked in some horrible manner, so that the doctors gave them only a few days longer to live. We wondered what terrible thing could have done that to them.”
The Skull chuckled. “You shall have a chance to see how it is done. Now, I wish to tell you this — every man who is selected by me to become a servant of the Skull will be able to retire a wealthy man when his term of service is over. But—” the Skull’s voice became hard, brittle—“in return he must give me blind obedience. He must carry out every order I give, or suffer the consequences. If you are ordered to kill your brother or your sister, you must obey!” The Skull was silent for a long minute, then asked slowly, “Are you ready to take service with me?”
And Fannon answered tersely, “Yes!”
“That is good,” the Skull said, “You will now go back to the main room. For one week you will be on probation. During that week you will be assigned one task. If you carry it out successfully, you will be admitted as an equal to the ranks of the Servants of the Skull. You will be just in time to participate in the greatest coup in the history of crime which I am now planning. It will be something to astound the world, something which will net us a huge profit.
“One thing more—” as Fannon turned to the door—“no one is allowed to leave this place while in my service. You will be conducted in and out on expeditions, blindfolded, by Binks, who is the only one besides myself that knows the way out. At night, do not try to leave the main room. It is dangerous.”
FANNON nodded, his eyes still veiled from the spotlight. Suddenly the spotlight clicked off, and as his eyes became accustomed once more to the gloom, he saw the hideous vermilion-cloaked Skull descending slowly on his movable platform. Then the trapdoor closed, and he was left in pitch darkness.
There was a click behind him, and the door swung open. He stepped into the lighted anteroom, and the door swung shut once more.
The anteroom was empty. He was kept waiting for almost ten minutes, which seemed an hour, before the door at the left opened and Binks reappeared. Binks said little now, seemed to be sulky. He led Fannon back through the maze of passages along which they had come. This time Fannon’s keen eyes darted here and there on the return trip, noting angles of corridors, little points about the passages that would enable him to find his way through them alone.
At one spot Fannon suddenly stopped and ripped loose leather from the sole of his shoe where Rufe had cut it. Binks glowered at him suspiciously, but Fannon explained. “Rufe cut my shoes up, and the leather bunches. Makes it hard to walk.”
Binks grunted, and went on; he did not notice that Fannon, instead of throwing the leather away, rolled it in the palm of his hand until it was a soft ball. At another time, just as they were passing through one of the sliding panels, Fannon tripped, and nested heavily on the halfwit. In that instant Fannon’s long, dexterous fingers darted into Binks’ pocket, and came out with the special key he had used to get from one corridor to another.
Binks said, “Can’t you keep your feet? What’s the trouble, tired?”