“Why did you and Arthur go to the lodge at Lake Candle that night?” the Phantom asked.
“He wanted me to drive him there. He had an appointment. Let me go on, Phantom. When I’ve told all I think I know, you can ask your questions.”
“We’ll get along,” the Phantom told her with a smile. “I’ll be quiet.”
“Arthur maintained a small apartment here in town. I have a key to it, but I haven’t dared go there. I don’t know whom Arthur expected to meet at the lodge, but it was an important meeting because from it he believed he would add to what money he had left in amounts that would soon make him a wealthy man. That was why we were both excited about it. Once Arthur got this money we were to have been married.”
“I understand, Miss Selden. Go on.”
“Arthur said the meeting was to be private. We had a drink – a martini – to toast the success of the meeting. Then I left the lodge and drove back to town.”
“Were you wearing a gardenia, Miss Selden?”
“Why – yes. I lost it somewhere.”
“It was picked up outside of the lodge after Arthur was murdered. In my opinion, the murderer also discovered signs of your presence and possibly got Arthur to talk about you. Now the killer isn’t certain how much Arthur told you. Therefore, you may be in considerable danger.”
She nodded. “That’s why I tried to leave no trail behind me. I was frightened when I heard of Arthur’s death. How can I help find the man who killed him – the man who robbed Arthur of life and me of my happiness?”
“There was a billiard ball at Arthur’s feet. The number eight ball,” the Phantom said. “Do you attach any significance to that?”
“Why, no. I hadn’t heard about an eight ball being found at his feet.”
“The matter was not considered important enough to be publicized,” the Phantom explained. “But I think it was important. Very important, and I was hoping you might have some idea what it was about.”
She said, slowly and thoughtfully, “I wonder if it was the eight ball – is that a black billiard ball, Phantom?”
“Yes,” he said eagerly.
“Arthur was always mad about billiards. In his New York apartment, he insisted upon installing a billiard table. Only the night before he was killed, he and I were at the apartment. He showed me the table, and he picked up the eight ball and told me to take a good look because it meant a way out of all our financial troubles. Phantom, there must some significance.”
The Phantom looked in the direction of the exit. “We’ll soon find out,” he told her. “I want you to leave here just as if you never saw me. I doubt our twisted-ear friend knows we met. Go about your affairs, and let him follow you. I’ll be trailing him.”
“I shouldn’t go directly to Arthur’s apartment?”
“No. And while I think of it, what about that apartment? Was it some sort of a secret nest? Arthur’s father never mentioned it.”
She colored slightly. “He never knew about it, Phantom. Arthur and I fixed up the apartment, and we were to use it after we were married. Meantime, he lived there. It was cheaper than a hotel.”
“What’s the address of this place?”
“It’s apartment Eleven B at Nine hundred and ninety-seven Eastern Boulevard. Uptown a bit, but quiet and clean. Just what we wanted.”
“Be there,” the Phantom said, “at exactly nine o’clock tonight. If the man with the malformed ear follows you, don’t let on you are aware of it.”
“I’ll do exactly as you say, Phantom. I’ve prayed I might find some way of helping avenge Arthur’s murder. Thanks to you, the opportunity is here. And I’m not afraid anymore.”
“Good girl. Run along now, and possibly by morning we’ll know what this is all about.”
RISING when the Phantom pulled back her chair, and with a confident smile at him, Vicki Selden walked out of the place. The Phantom followed, after a moment or two spent in paying the check. He quickly picked out the green outfit she wore; and, sure enough, Len of the twisted ear, was shadowing her.
She walked across town, turned north and entered a building which the Phantom had left not long before. It was the building where Park Sunderland maintained his small but swank model’s bureau. The Phantom wondered if she worked for Sunderland’s agency. She was certainly the type.
Twisted Ear hurried in too, and both of them disappeared in the busy lobby. The Phantom didn’t follow, but turned to the curb and flagged a taxi. He had himself driven to the address Vicki Selden had given him.
It was quite far uptown, as she had stated, and probably out of the fantastically high rent areas. Just the sort of a place for a man whose finances had slipped. The building was provided with a self-service elevator. The Phantom pressed the button for the eleventh floor. He listened outside the apartment door, heard no sound, and tried the knob. The door was locked, but this was a thirty-year-old building, and the locks were not too modern. One of the Phantom’s assets was a thorough knowledge of locks and lock picking. He used a thin bit of metal, wedging it between the door and its frame, manipulating the highly ductile instrument until it slid behind the ancient bolt. Then, with a quick twist of his wrist, he forced the bolt back just far enough so that the door opened under the pressure of his other hand.
He stepped into a modestly but nicely furnished living room. Everything was sparkling and new. In the bedroom closet, the Phantom discovered clothing that belonged to Arthur Arden. He opened bureau drawers, ransacking them. He went through the cabinets in the tiny kitchen, returned to the living room, and investigated the contents of a small desk. All he discovered was evidence to back up Vicki Selden’s claim that Arthur Arden had been almost broke.
In a smaller back room of the apartment, he found the billiard table. He located the eight ball in one of the side pockets. It looked and felt like any ordinary billiard ball. He dug at the surface with his penknife. The material chipped. Underneath it was just another billiard ball. Like the one found at the feet of Arthur Arden’s corpse, it was no different from a million other billiard balls.
The Phantom placed the black ball in the center of the pool table and left it there. In his mind a new idea was forming. If these eight balls meant nothing in themselves, then there was something about them that had a meaning. Perhaps the color, perhaps their silly reputation for being a symbol of bad luck. Perhaps even the number eight possessed some significance.
He returned to the living room for one last look around and noticed the plain Mason jar standing on the mantel of the imitation fireplace.
It was greasy and dirty, and certainly didn’t belong there.
The Phantom took it down and removed the flat glass top. He dumped some of the contents into the palm of his hand. The slight frown on his forehead grew deeper. That simple Mason jar contained more of that bronze colored powder which he had first seen near Arden’s corpse. The powder he had proved to be some metallic alloy. These clues at the Arden lakeside home were taking on more meaning.
The Phantom replaced the jar and its contents on the mantel, quietly left the apartment and the building, and paused on the sidewalk for a quick look around. Then he crossed the street and took up a position down a fairly dark driveway.
CHAPTER XIV
JUST two minutes of nine, a taxi slid to the curb in front of the apartment house, and Vicki Selden got out. She paid the driver, didn’t look around at all, but hurried into the building. From his hiding place, the Phantom saw another cab pull up half a block down the street, and Len with the twisted ear got out. He flung a bill at the driver and began running toward the building.