He was far more successful than he could have hoped. He had only wanted to buy time, to upset her schedule, to harry her into some other course of action. But miraculously, the narrow size of the room had come to his aid. The table, Mark Slate and all, came down on Arnolda Van Atta's left ankle as she tried to skip back. Her scream of bone-breaking torment rose like a banshee's shriek in the confining space of the room.
For a frenzied moment, the room was a madhouse.
Slate, pinned face down to the table, could not see a thing. He could only feel his own weight, dragging against the bonds, pushing down on Arnolda Van Atta. Feebly, she was crying and flailing out at him with the riding crop, her curses and gurgles of pain sounding like those of a madwoman. The end of the leather crop fell short, missing him by inches. Finally, she gave up all together and sprawled out on the floor, her face buried in her arms, crying piteously. The table, laden with Slate's weight, had crushed her ankle.
The soundproof room was a mockery, now.
Arnolda Van Atta could not cry out for help.
And Mark Slate could do nothing for her.
Unless she cooperated.
"Pussycat," he said quickly, breathing hard. "There's nothing for it, unless you do your damndest to untie my hands. Then I can get this bloody table off your leg. You hear me! Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Your leg will only get worse if you don't do what I tell you—"
"The pain—" she moaned. "I can't—think straight—" A moan of agony was torn from her again.
"Think," he commanded. "Twist yourself around. Can't you reach my right hand? Just my right hand? That's all you need to do."
"I'll kill you for this," she gasped. "I'll have you—" She stopped talking as another fierce whimper escaped her. But he could feel her moving, wrenching herself, trying to curve her body around so she could reach the hand closest to her.
She was THRUSH, all right. But she was still a woman in agony.
Mark Slate waited, hoping she could make it before the others came around looking for her.
You always had a chance when the big shots gave in to one of their weird tendencies. Like a private torture chamber and all that Sax Rohmer nonsense.
"Come on, Miss Van Atta," he whispered. "Keep on coming."
The room echoed with the fierce order.
Mr. Riddle and Fried Rice and Pig Alley were restless. The tinny clock on the wooden bureau beyond the table where their gin rummy game was in progress now said eight thirty-five.
Pig Alley was sweating visibly. Tiny globules of perspiration stood forth on his Gallic face. His dark eyes kept looking toward the door.
"Sacre," he muttered under his breath.
"Patience," Fried Rice said, "and shuffle the cards. That is an estimable quote from Cervantes."
Pig Alley stuck out his tongue in disgust and glanced angrily at Mr. Riddle. Frankenstein's leer was intact, as it always would be. But the thin, lanky figure was ill at ease. It was apparent in the tilt of the head toward the door and the drumming of the fingers of both hands on the table top.
"Yes," Mr. Riddle said. "It is a nuisance, gentlemen. But we must wait on the lady and her whims. She is directing this operation."
Pig Alley snorted. "And why you, dear Riddle? With that mask and all this Halloween business. I thought you were in charge—"
"So I am," he agreed coldly. "But I still answer to Miss Van Atta. If you knew her true identity, you wouldn't dare question her for a moment."
"And that is—"
Fried Rice looked up sharply at Mr. Riddle as Pig Alley flung the question. But the Frankenstein head nodded.
"How long do you want to live, Pig Alley?"
"In other words, it is not my affair. Mind my own business."
"Exactly."
"Very well, but in God's name what more can she want to do to that poor Uncle agent?"
Mr. Riddle sighed funereally.
"I agree with you on that. Zorki is far more important than this diversion. But there is time, she said. And what she says, I am afraid, is what we will do when the time comes."
Fried Rice flicked a voluminous sleeve and drew a card from the much-used deck. He turned up an ace of spades. He chuckled in his dry, thin voice.
"The Death Card," he said. "I should say Mr. Slate is very close to death by this time."
Mr. Riddle pushed back his chair and stood up. Hidden when he sat was the almost spectral quality of his body. It was as thin as a skeleton, sharply contrasting with the fullsome Frankenstein mask.
"Perhaps I should go see, anyway. Play without me. I should be back soon."
He left the room without waiting for comments from his subordinates. Fried Rice and Pig Alley merely exchanged glances and returned to the game.
Fried Rice was winning, handily.
The corridor was illuminated by three globes of light placed at even distances along the ceiling. As Mr. Riddle had inspected, Arnolda Van Atta had restricted this phase of the operation to the entire floor. There was no danger of running into strangers. Still, one couldn't be too careful. Once out of the room, he paused to tug the Frankenstein mask free of his face.
Had anyone been watching they would have been amazed to see atop the thin body in ill-fitting suit the face of a beautiful woman. The hair had been cut so close to the scalp as to be no more than a peachlike fuzz of pelt. The face of the woman who had introduced herself as Mr. Riddle belonged on a statue in a museum. Her mouth, eyes, nose, ears and chin were so regular and even as to constitute nearly chiseled perfection.
The bogus Mr. Riddle started down the long corridor toward the room that held Mark Slate.
Suddenly, he-she paused, senses sharpened, faculties alerted. The tiniest click of sound had come from somewhere. The first indication that something was wrong was the sudden one-by-one extinction of the three lights overhead. It was magical. Like a winking eye. But long before the third bulb had died, Mr. Riddle had reversed the field, and sped backward toward the fire door at the other end of the corridor.
Mr. Riddle vanished through it in an instant, tugging the Frankenstein mask back into place.
The hotel's back staircase formed a central shaft in the very heart of the building.
April Dancer loomed in the darkness of the corridor. She held in her right hand a peculiarly box-shaped object from which no apparent light came. Yet, in actuality, it threw a ray of "black light" which lit up the hallway before her as well as daylight. She advanced down the corridor, the infrared rays of the box fluorescing the carpet before her. In her left hand, she held her specially designed service pistol. A compact weapon no larger than the palm of her hand.
The twin elevator cages whirred open. From each of them stepped a man. They too held the boxlike devices. They were also armed and on the ready. Walter Fleming and Pete Barnes now saw April Dancer and they all converged together in the center of the corridor.
There were only two doors on the floor.
One to the left of the elevators, one to the right
It had taken but a half hour to locate the blue-paneled truck. Parked outside in plain view on the sidewalk before one of the many apartment houses on the West Side in the mid-Fifties. April had lost no time commandeering a detail to hurry to the scene.