“Here is the setup,” Bernie said. “I’m going back to town and rig us an alibi. We don’t know how much the Phantom knew, or guessed and maybe told someone, so we can’t take chances. If we’re picked up, we want our alibis intact.”
“Okay,” Len said. “So long as I get to knock off this guy, I’m satisfied. He winged me, and nobody gets away with that. I can take the launch across the lake and swipe the Phantom’s car. The launch shipped a little water when we crashed her into that rowboat, but I think she’s shipshape.”
“Good,” Bernie said. “But we’re taking no chances. Remember what happened to Vogel. For one split second he must have forgotten to watch the Phantom, and – he got killed. The same thing will happen to you if you relax. But I figure if we lock him behind that cellar partition – in the old wood bin down there – he can’t get out unless he knocks down the door or the wall. But you’ll be outside and ready for him. Give me an hour and a half before you kill him, and then I’ll have fifty men who’ll swear both of us were in town, miles from here, at the time the medical examiner says the Phantom died.”
“That thick headed servant of the Doc’s takes the rap,” Len said. “That’s the way we figured it, Bernie.”
“Yes. Use Luke’s knife on the Phantom. Make it look as if there was a fight down in the cellar, and just leave Luke where he is. The stuff we put in that bottle will keep him under for another three or four hours. By the time he wakes up, somebody will have found the Doc and the Phantom. Luke won’t know what happened except he got drunk.”
“An hour and a half,” Len said. “Okay. That’s plenty of time, but help me bring the Phantom out of it before you go. When he gets it, I want him to see it coming.”
They lifted the inert Phantom and shoved him into a chair near a small table. Bernie threw a glass of water in his face, and Len adopted a method he liked even more.
He began slapping the Phantom until he groaned and opened his eyes.
It required several minutes before he was able really to get his bearings. Both men covered him with guns. Len walked over and picked up the knife from the floor beside Luke’s couch. He stuck his gun under his belt, held the knife by its tip and took an envelope out of his pocket. He walked over and dropped this on the table beside the Phantom.
“Okay,” Len said. “Read that, and you’ll know just what this is all about.”
The Phantom reached for the envelope. Len’s. knife made a hissing sound as it whizzed through the air. Its point hit the envelope squarely in the middle, about three or four inches from the Phantom’s fingertips. It quivered there while Len laughed loudly.
“That’s a sample of what I can do with a blade, Phantom. A little sample of the way you’re going to get it. Okay, Bernie, let’s put him in that wood bin down in the cellar. Then we check watches, and I’ll wait here for ninety minutes before I bury the knife in the Phantom’s chest and head back to town myself.”
CHAPTER XVIII
DR. WINTERLY’S SECRET
NOT ENOUGH strength remained in the Phantom for him to resist when they seized and shoved him to the cellar steps. Bernie opened the door; and Len, with a laugh, pushed his helpless prisoner downstairs. The fall almost robbed the Phantom of his senses again.
He was pushed and propelled to a narrow door made of slats, set about two inches apart. It opened on creaky hinges, and a weakling could have pushed the door off its frame. This was one-third of the cellar, a bin created of these slats which reached to the ceiling. Wood had been piled up here, and the walls of the bin were only meant to keep the wood orderly. The floor was of dirt and felt cool against the Phantom’s cheek.
He knew he had plenty of time. Bernie departed soon after they closed the rickety door and shoved a stick of wood through the hasp which held it shut. Len tipped a shaded, strong electric light bulb so that it acted as a floodlight and penetrated into the deepest part of the bin. Len had a chair tilted against the wall. An upturned barrel acted as a table, and he laid a gun on it with the knife beside it, its point off the edge of the barrel so the weapon could be quickly seized and set into motion.
The Phantom crawled over until he reached the wall. There he pulled himself into a sitting position and took stock of his circumstances. They didn’t look too good.
His head was clearing though, and the assortment of aches and pains abating. He looked limp and helpless, but there was strength in his muscles by now, and he was thinking hard.
To get out of this virtual cage, he had to crash down the door. An easy task but not with Len seated just opposite with a gun and a knife, both ready to use on him. No matter how fast he acted, he couldn’t possibly be fast enough to prevent Len from moving in. The slatted walls and door of this bin would impede the Phantom just enough to permit Len to get set.
The Phantom reached up with one hand, secured a grip on one of the slats, and hauled himself into a standing position. The board under his hand cracked and then sagged from its moorings. The bin was ready to collapse.
“Come on out, Phantom,” Len said. “All you have to do is bust the door down. Or the wall, if you like. Any wall. Just come out and see how it feels to get a knife buried in your chest. I don’t miss with a knife, Phantom. And I’m no dope like Vogel must have been. You got him, but you won’t get me.”
The Phantom walked unsteadily to the door and watched Len intently. The killer’s hand moved down toward the knife, fingers grasped the tip of it. The Phantom merely put his hands on the slats of the door and stood there, peering between them.
Len. reissued his invitation. “Step out, Phantom. Sure, it’s easy. Give the door a shove. It’ll fall right down – and so will you.”
He laughed, relishing his own idea of a joke. The Phantom merely watched without comment. There was a way out of this, somehow. There had to be. Barker was, to all appearances, much smarter than an average pug, but he could bested in a battle of wits. No man who lived by crime could possibly possess a superlative amount of cleverness or mental brilliance. Len’s mind was wily, shrewd, fast to react perhaps, but somewhere in his makeup was a weak point. Phantom had to learn it.
“Why did you use a gun on Arthur Arden if you’re so handy with a knife?” he asked blandly.
Len laughed. “I’d have used a knife if I’d been there. But what’s the difference? He’s just as dead.”
“Very true,” the Phantom replied.
Len hadn’t tried to evade that question. He possessed a very direct way of thinking. Why not take advantage of it?
“You’d better have a good alibi for that night, Len,” the Phantom said. “Bernie has one, but have you?”
“Try and bust it,” Len grinned. “I’m a whiz at alibis.”
“They can be broken,” the Phantom said slowly. “A false one, at least.”
“Ours ain’t faked for that night,” Len assured him, and indirectly told the Phantom that Arthur Arden’s murder had been committed by the man who engineered this whole series of crimes.
What was just as interesting, to the Phantom’s present way of thinking, was the fact that Len had no idea he’d given so much away in that brief statement.
THE Phantom’s right hand closed around one of the four inch wide boards forming the wall. He slowly applied pressure. Nails squealed. The board began parting from its moorings, and Len’s hand darted toward the knife again.
The Phantom let go of the board. One half hearted yank could free it. He glanced at his watch. In fifteen minutes, Bernie would have fashioned the alibi for himself and for Len, who was to be the actual murderer. When the time came, Len would force the Phantom at gun point, out of the bin, upstairs to the room where Luke was sleeping off his drug-induced coma. Then the knife would make its last flight. When the Phantom was found, Luke’s prints would be smeared all over the knife blade and handle.