The front of the mummy case sprang open. A figure stepped from within. A flashlight glimmered upon the next case in the row. Brawny hands ripped open the bands that held the second case. Another man came into view.
Both set to work. Other cases were opened. Where eight closed mummy cases had been, four opened ones remained. Flashlights were flickering about the room. Two men, sneaking through the darkness, reached the door.
“Get the watchman,” came a growl. “Grab him and tie him up. We don’t want any shooting until we’re ready for it.”
“All right, Sinker.”
Men moved out into the darkness of the hall, bound on the mission ordered by Sinker Hargun. These men who had come from the mummy cases were invaders from the underworld, under the command of Brodie Brodan’s hidden lieutenant.
Flashlights showed upon the cases which harbored the items of the Armsbury collection. Clay tablets were dumped into burlap bags which the invaders had with them. Specimens of metal sculpture were piled into other containers.
A squad of crooks was rifling this room of its supposed treasure. Actually, Duke Larrin’s orders were being completed. Spurious items of fake origin were being lifted for destruction. The last evidence of Cecil Armsbury’s swindles was being reclaimed!
Whispers in the darkness. They announced that the watchman had been captured. Gangsters had trailed him to an obscure part of the museum. He was bound and gagged — totally unaware of how the yeggs had entered.
“That’s good,” growled Sinker. “Drag this stuff out to the back door. Set that charge so we can blow the works and make it look like we came in there. But don’t do nothing until after we’ve finished in here. Come back, you gorillas, when you’re ready.”
His flashlight sweeping along the floor, Sinker Hargun revealed the door to the Senwosri tomb. It was a formidable barrier because of its powerful lock. Sinker Hargun, however, was a thug who used measures more persuasive than lock-picking.
HIS flashlight showed him making arrangements in front of the door that hid the tomb. His warning growl sent mobsters scurrying to cover, with Hargun at their heels. Then came a muffled report; with it a burst of flame. Flashlights showed clouds of pungent smoke.
As the vapor cleared, Sinker uttered a command. His torch marked the mummy case of Senwosri. The heavy object had toppled backward from the explosion and was leaning against the wall beside the stone sarcophagus.
“Come on!”
Mobsters piled into the tomb. Three on a side, they gathered up the heavy mummy case of the Egyptian king. Struggling with their burden, they made their way along the corridor to the back.
Sinker Hargun, chasing ahead, yanked open the bars of the rear entrance. He uttered a warning hiss. A reply came from the alleyway. A truck was parked there.
“Make it speedy, Sinker,” came a low voice. “You could hear that boom out this way. Maybe they got it in the avenue. Make it speedy.”
The mummy case came floundering through the wide doorway. Sinker aided the men who were carrying it. The big case slid aboard the truck and settled into a mammoth box, coffinlike in shape, which was there to receive it.
“Yank those doors,” growled Sinker. “Shoot the works as we start, Terry. Climb on with us—”
The truck was in motion. A stooping yegg was standing by the doors which he had closed. He was igniting a new charge. He came bounding after the rolling truck and leaped aboard. As the truck reached a side street, a huge roar followed it. A second explosion had wrecked the rear entrance of the Egyptian Museum.
The truck was speeding toward a rear avenue. Police whistles were sounding from in front of the Egyptian Museum. Sinker Hargun, growling a laugh, had clambered up to the front seat of the truck.
“It’s soft,” was his comment to the driver. “Say, bo, this job went through like clockwork. The bulls are goin’ to go goofy when they look it over.
“Keep on rolling. I’ll show you where we’re goin’ to unload. There ain’t nobody can stop us now. This job is a honey.”
AT Sinker’s direction, the truck driver guided the big vehicle on a weaving course. Far from the vicinity of the robbed museum, there was no need for hurry. The truck was moving slowly when it neared the vicinity which Sinker Hargun required.
“Easy, now,” warned the leader. “Stop here — we’re goin’ to make sure there’s nobody following.”
The driver obeyed. Gangsters dropped to the street and strolled back along the sidewalk. They returned to report that no one was on the trail of the truck.
Sinker ordered the driver ahead. He growled new directions. When he issued his final command to stop, the truck had pulled up close to an old apartment hotel — Ridgelow Court.
Sinker Hargun alighted. He strolled down a side entrance and rapped at a big delivery door. A janitor opened it.
“Got my truck outside,” announced Sinker. “Bringing in a big couch to go down in Mr. Sudgen’s storage room. I got the key.”
The janitor nodded as he peered from the door and saw a crew of men unloading a huge box from a truck. He pointed out the way to the subcellar. As the pretended moving men came through, the janitor strolled away.
Men went back and brought in burlap bags. These — had the janitor seen them — would have passed for bags of household effects. But the janitor gave no further thought to the matter. When he happened back, he noted that the truck had moved away. He thought that the crew of storage men had gone with it.
Little did he realize that the subcellar harbored Sinker Hargun, notorious gangster, and a crew of sullen thugs. The box which had been unloaded was going through a passage that led beyond the subcellar of Ridgelow Court.
The mummy case of Senwosri, pillaged from the Egyptian Museum, was being delivered to the crime crypt!
CHAPTER XVII. BRODIE’S MOVE
WHILE hard-faced thugs, members of Brodie Brodan’s under-cover band, were lugging away their loot from the Egyptian Museum, their absent leader was enjoying a gala night. Brodie was at the Club Madrid, one of the most glittering of Manhattan’s night cafes.
Brodie, attired in well-fitting tuxedo, was seated at a conspicuous table. The gang leader was applauding a dancing act. His bluff face wore a grin; a paper cap perched above his heavy eyebrows gave him the appearance of a playboy.
At the table with Brodie was Fritz Fursch, his alibi pal from Chicago. Fritz had come in at Brodie’s order and seemed to be enjoying his visit to New York.
But Brodie, despite his merrymaking had serious thoughts in mind. He was secretly eyeing a stocky, swarthy-faced man on the other side of the floor. This individual, half behind a pillar, was also making a pretense of watching the floor show. Actually, however, his gaze was on Brodie Brodan.
It was Detective Joe Cardona. Persistent in his hunches, the sleuth was dogging Brodie’s trail. Baffled in his attempts to locate the murderers of Perry Trappe and Tyler Bogart, Joe was watching Brodie in the hope that he could at least frustrate further crime.
Cardona’s reasoning showed logic. He had accepted Brodan’s first alibi. He had also been forced to take the second. One had been on the say-so of Fritz Fursch from Chicago; the other on the statements of Lobo Ruscott, proprietor of the Club Madrid. Cardona was not willing to base much on the testimonies of those two.
So he had watched Brodie Brodan — either through his own observation or with the aid of stool pigeons.
Joe was sure that Brodie had been at the Club Madrid on the night that mobsters appeared at Brisbane Calbot’s. He was sure that some of those dead gangsters were members of Brodie’s old crew.
Whatever the purpose at Calbot’s, it had failed. That, Cardona knew. He had attributed the failure to the possible absence of Brodie Brodan. That was why Cardona was again at the Club Madrid. Brodie watched, was crimped. Such was Cardona’s maxim.