As he walked west, the Phantom knew and understood the riddle of the murder case was to be one of the most difficult to solve he had tackled in his long, successful career.
CHAPTER XIII
PROPPED up in the lobby of the Fifth Avenue building where the Waverley Studio did business, Steve Huston had little trouble picking up Maxine Hillary when she stepped out of an elevator, about an hour after he started his vigil.
Recognizing her immediately from the Phantom’s graphic description, the little reporter, who admired a good-looking girl the same as anyone else, drifted along behind her as she started north up the famous avenue of shops and stores.
She walked with free-limbed grace, swinging on at a good pace, apparently oblivious to the admiring glances cast in her direction. Steve had to hurry to keep up. But he stuck resolutely to dodging in and out of the crowd, until at 43rd Street Maxine Hillary turned east.
Several doors down the street she descended the steps of a bar-grill with the name “Fowler” over it.
To Steve, that made it a hundred percent. It was close to noon and the metropolitan lunch hour. If the girl he followed was catching herself a bite there, he could pull up a chair at a nearby table and get his own lunch. He wasn’t hungry. The seven o’clock breakfast always sharpened his appetite when high noon rolled around.
Steve entered Fowler’s leisurely, hung his hat on a peg with a half dozen others, and spotted his quarry at once. Maxine Hillary had taken a table in the rear of a stone-floored room where the pine tables were covered with turkey-red cloths.
A few other early diners were scattered about Steve Huston sat unobtrusively down at a table in an opposite corner.
Twenty minutes later he had the thrill of his life. A blonde girl entered Fowler’s. One glance was enough for Huston to see that she matched the pastel sketch in his pocket. She wore a green dress and short coat, but in any color she would have been gorgeous. Vicki Selden! Steve’s pulses drummed. The girl who had been at the lodge with Arden on the murder night!
The girl the Phantom Detective had to find.
Steve’s glance showed him Vicki siting down at Maxine Hillary’s table. It showed him something else – a strained, apprehensive uneasiness she displayed in her pretty face and posture.
Steve had noticed a public telephone booth in the front section of Fowler’s, back from the bar. He pushed its door shut after him, fumbled for a nickel, and called his boss.
Frank Havens listened to what he said and added, “The Phantom is waiting to hear from you. I’ll get in touch with him at once.”
“Fowler’s, Forty-third Street, just east of Fifth,” Steve repeated and rang off.
He had lost interest in his lunch. Now, Steve Huston realized, he had two girls to shadow. He hoped the Phantom would arrive promptly and take over. He wasn’t quite sure of what to do next.
No more than fifteen minutes elapsed before the little reporter caught a glimpse of the Phantom coming down the steps. Instead of bustling into the dining room, the Phantom stopped at the bar. There, with a lime-and-seltzer, he rested an elbow on the mahogany and glanced casually into the rear room.
He made no move, did nothing to indicate he saw Steve – or the two girls at their table. He was careful to keep out of Maxine Hillary’s eye range. She knew him, and the Phantom didn’t want her to give the Selden girl any warning of his presence.
While he stirred the ice in his innocuous drink, the Phantom waited.
Maxine Hillary, evidently with another posing appointment, got up suddenly, and said goodbye to her friend. The Phantom turned his back to her when she paid her check and went past him. He watched her symmetrical legs hurry up the steps before he turned and walked into the dining room.
He gave Steve a finger signal to stay put and, at the corner table, helped himself to the same chair the Park Sunderland model had just left.
VICKI Selden gave an involuntary start as the Phantom sat down. Red lips parted, gray-green eyes widened. The color under her makeup faded fast.
“Probably Miss Hillary warned you about me,” the Phantom said, quietly. “I want to help you, and I expect you to help me. That is, if you want Arthur Arden’s murderer found.”
For a long minute she sat apathetically silent. The Phantom saw the glint of tears in her eyes. Finally, she nodded.
“What do you want to know?”
“You were with Arthur at the lodge at the lake the night he was killed?”
“Yes. We had dinner in town and drove down to the lodge later.” Her voice was low and husky.
“What time did you leave the lodge?”
“About nine o’clock, maybe a few minutes after that.”
“Did Arden say anything about expecting a visitor?” the Phantom asked.
Vicki raised her water glass and took a slow sip. Over the rim of it, she eyed the Phantom intently. “I’m not sure if I trust you,” she said candidly. “Why did you insist upon meeting me here and asking me these questions in such a public place?”
The Phantom shrugged. “I’ve been hunting you for quite some time, Miss Selden, and now that I’ve found you, I want to settle this business as quickly as possible. There’s a chance you might – well, vanish again.”
“Vanish!” She gave a ladylike snort. “A fine chance I have of doing that with your detective following me.”
The Phantom raised his head and looked around quickly. He saw no one familiar to him. “What detective?” he asked, swinging his gaze back to Vicki.
She gasped and put the glass of water down. “Do you mean that the man who has been following me for the past two or three hours isn’t a detective?”
The Phantom studied her carefully for a moment. “Miss Selden,” he said, “I couldn’t possibly have had anyone trailing you because until a few moments ago I had no idea where you were. What sort of a man is he?”
“There is something wrong with his ear. The left one, I think,” Vicki said.
“Look about this room. Do you see him now?”
“No.” She searched all corners for him. “When I came in, he just parked against a building wall outside. Look, mister, if he isn’t a detective, who is he?”
“Perhaps the man who killed Arthur Arden,” the Phantom said. softly. “At any rate, he is involved in the murder. I’m certain of that; because I’ve met the gentleman. I don’t like him, which is an understatement. Miss Selden, I’m a fair judge of people. I think whatever your part in this case happens to be, it is an innocent one. Therefore, I’ll tell you who I really am.”
The Phantom dipped a hand under his coat, removed his jeweled badge from its hiding place and showed it to her, nestled in the palm of his hand.
“You’re the Phantom,” Vicki said softly. “Oh, I’m glad. I didn’t want to become involved with the police. Anything against my record would ruin my career as a model. That’s why I – I didn’t come forward. And yet, I wanted to tell what I knew.”
“Good.” The Phantom returned the badge to his hidden pocket. “You might start at once.”
“Arthur and I were to be married,” Vicki said with a tremulous note so genuine that no actress could have accomplished it. “As soon as he had money enough.”
“His finances were not good, then?”
She shook her head. “Before Arthur met me he was a playboy, with all that the word implies. He spent money like water, most of it on sponging friends. It was money his mother had left him. His father made no attempt to stop him from going through this small fortune, but once it was gone, his father also refused to give him any more money. Even Arthur didn’t blame him for that.”