The Phantom crawled up on top of the man in time to use the side of his right hand in a blow that half paralyzed Vogel’s right arm. Vogel’s left hand darted out, fingers spread wide and aimed at the Phantom’s eyes.
Missing them, when the Phantom threw his head back, Vogel’s thick, powerful fingers closed around the Phantom’s throat. The Phantom had one hand in constant use holding down Vogel’s right hand. With the other he beat short, chopping punches to the region of the man’s heart. Vogel’s fat fingers shut off his wind completely. He couldn’t take too much of this without blacking out, and if he did for as little as ten seconds, he’d be a dead man.
Vogel seemed to sense that the Phantom was holding the advantage and pressed the attack harder, trying to use his knees now. The Phantom began aiming those left hand punches at Vogel’s jaw, but it wasn’t a glass jaw. The man could absorb plenty of punishment, and all the while the Phantom’s lungs clamored for air.
Somewhere behind the struggling men was a terrific crashing sound. The Phantom knew that the very heavy lift chain had swung back to hit the catwalk rail again. Then Vogel suddenly let go of the Phantom’s throat, moved his hand up across the Phantom’s face, and brought down a fist against the back of the detective’s neck.
It was a rabbit punch and ordinarily would have finished the fight, but Vogel was weakening under the steady punishment of the Phantom’s blows. He lacked the proper amount of strength to make a maneuver like that fully effective. But it brought the Phantom down atop his opponent, and Vogel was quick to take advantage of this. He managed to raise his knees and with a mighty effort dislodged the Phantom.
Vogel scrambled to his feet. He backed up, grinning wolfishly and wiping blood from the corner of his mouth with a grimy set of knuckles. He poised, ready to charge in and use his feet again. The Phantom struggled into a sitting position and started to bring up his gun.
Vogel tensed for the attack, all his attention on the Phantom. He didn’t hear the heavy lift chain swinging back – not until it struck the rail beside him. He screamed, whirled about to avoid being struck, and put all his weight against the catwalk rail. The chain had already weakened it in two places; now it ripped through a third, no more than a yard from where Vogel was huddled in terror.
Vogel felt the barrier give way. He saw the Phantom diving at him with both hands extended, but it was too late. Vogel’s scream grew shriller and shriller until the impact of his fall cut it off.
The Phantom reeled a few steps clutching at a sturdy section of the rail. He was getting his strength and wind back quickly. By sheer accident, his plan had failed, and a man who might have told him much of the truth was dead. He’d risked his own life to expose Vogel as a killer – and very nearly lost it when Vogel proved to be a surprisingly good fighter.
Somewhere in this vast building a telephone was ringing. It seemed miles away but it was insistent. The Phantom moved quickly down the steel staircase.
CHAPTER XVI
HURRYING into the office, the Phantom found the phone still clamoring. He picked it up, said, “Hello!” and his voice was the exact duplicate of Vogel’s. One of the Phantom Detective’s assets in fighting crime was his ability to duplicate voices. He’d made a study of it; and when he spoke now, Vogel’s closest friends wouldn’t have recognized the slight discrepancy.
“Why did it take you so long to answer the phone?” the man at the other end of the wire asked. He sounded like Barker with the twisted ear. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything is okay,” the Phantom replied. “You don’t know how okay. I had a visitor.”
“You didn’t let him go?” Len Barker shouted. “What did he look like?”
“Now hold everything,” the Phantom said with a chuckle that matched Vogel’s. “I took him to the catwalk above the furnaces; and, you know, that guy jumped off and got himself smeared all over the cement floor.”
“Good! Whoever he was, the man must have been dangerous. That was good work, Vogel.”
“Good? Listen, it was much better than you think. Ask me who the guy was, the guy I knocked off. Go on – ask me!”
“Cut the comedy,” Len snorted. “Tell me who he was.”
“The Phantom Detective!”
Len gave a hissing intake of breath. “Are you sure? Listen, Vogel, if you knocked off the Phantom you’ll get the biggest bonus of your life.”
“I found the badge on him. The Phantom’s badge. And I’m not interested in any bonus, Len. I’m coming in on the ground floor of this racket. I’m taking my share.”
“Go easy, Vogel,” Len said. “We don’t share; and – well, you know I’m not the only one in this business. I can’t invite you in, even if you bumped the Phantom off. But I can put in a good word for you.”
The Phantom took a long shot, seizing the opening Len had just given him.
“I know Bernie is in,” he said, “and somebody else besides. The real big shot. I want to meet him, Len. The big boy himself. Because I found something else on the Phantom. He was getting along in case. He knew plenty, and he wrote most of it down.”
Len’s end of the wire was silent for a moment or two. Then the man with the twisted ear blurted, “I’ve got to take a chance. Be in the lobby of the Monarch Hotel in an hour. Look for either Bernie or me. And Vogel – if you’re kidding about finding some papers on the Phantom’s body, Bernie won’t like it. I won’t like it either, even if you did knock off the one man we were afraid of.”
“In an hour,” the Phantom said. “And you’d better bring along somebody more important than Bernie, on account of I want to talk business. Big business.”
The Phantom hung up, wondering if this trap was going to work. There were a lot of loopholes. Bernie, or the man behind him, might get suspicious and take precautions. They might be prepared to murder Vogel on sight – though the lobby of the fashionable Monarch Hotel was hardly the place for that. They’d chosen the meeting place well. Here, an unknown master-mind might casually saunter about, studying the man who claimed to have killed the Phantom Detective. Here, a dangerous person might be fingered for quick death soon after he left the lobby.
The Phantom hurried out to where he’d left his car. On the way back, he stopped off at a small police station, identified himself, and told the desk sergeant where he could find the dead Vogel. He exacted a promise not to give the death any publicity for several hours.
IT WAS a fast ride back, but the Phantom reached the hotel lobby about ten minutes before the appointed time. He purchased a newspaper at the newsstand, went over to a chair in a corner of the lobby, and sat there, surveying the whole place while he pretended to read his paper. He kept his face obscured enough so that he wouldn’t be recognized quickly.
Promptly at the appointed time, two people he knew came across the lobby from the street entrance. One was Vicki Selden, and with her walked Hugh Royal, the artist who had put the Phantom on Vicki’s trail. When they were halfway across the lobby, Bernie Pennell, sleekly dressed and wearing his usual pearl-gray hat, pushed through the revolving doors.
He took up a position near the newsstand, and his eyes roved over the lobby to the other. If he saw and recognized the Phantom he gave no sign of it.
A bellboy, swinging out from the main desk, began paging Hugh Royal. The artist called him over, they talked briefly, and Royal excused himself to Vicki. He hurried over to a bank of telephone booths, stepped into one of them, and stayed there for about twenty seconds.
Then he came out and returned to Vicki’s side. They talked a moment and finally walked out of the hotel. The Phantom glanced toward the newsstand and discovered that while he had centered all his attention on the artist, Bernie Pennell had quietly faded out of sight.