Baron Marz von Auster’s white monkey jacket had been labeled as coming from a shop in the Plaza.
The rush of night air — it was now fairly dark — had cooled Nace’s forehead. The weird serpentine scar was gone, almost magically. His shaggy blond hair blew about like a plume. This uncovered the upper part of his left ear, disclosing a large notch — the mark of an old bullet. Nace wore his blond hair long to hide that scar.
He wheeled in to the curb, pipe smoke a fog about his bony face.
A brand new sedan of moderate price was pulling up before one of the numerous side entrances of the Plaza. Baron von Auster and the other two! Nace was sure of it — positive when, an instant later, he saw the trio hurry to the side door and fit a key in the lock.
Nace drew a bag from the roadster rumble. It was rather large, that bag, of canvas and closed with a zipper fastener. It was shabby, for it had seen use. Nace always carried it when he went on a case. It was his bag of tricks, and there were those who said it had no bottom.
His cleated baseball shoes gritted noisily on the curbing. He frowned down at them, then eased into nearby shrubbery. When he came out a little later, he had exchanged his baseball suit for a dark coat and trousers and soft-soled shoes. The dark clothes and sneakers had been in the zipper bag.
His baseball suit was rolled around the noisy shoes. He pegged the bundle into the roadster rumble. He ran to the apartment house. He had been in the Plaza when dallying with the idea of taking an apartment there. He liked the idea of those side entrances. He knew of no other place in town that was arranged just like this.
The entrances were fairly private — each admitted to a bank of automatic elevators serving the apartments immediately above. There was no bother of wandering through long halls and leaving and entering through a central lobby — unless one desired to do so.
The door was locked. Out of Nace’s zipper bag came a bundle of master keys. These locks were usually not very complicated. This one was not — in twenty seconds, he was inside.
The elevator was still going up. Nace drew a slender steel rod from the bag and waited. The elevator cage stopped somewhere overhead.
Nace promptly inserted his rod in a small hole provided by the elevator manufacturer for just that purpose, and got the sliding doors open. This broke the electrical connection that permitted the lift to operate. The cage would remain where it was until the doors closed.
Nace propped them open by wedging half a dozen matches in the track. Then he ran up the stairs, hunting the cage.
The car had stopped on the top floor — the sixth. There were doors opening off a small corridor. All were closed. Five of them! His quarry might be behind any one.
Out of Nace’s zipper bag came a can. It resembled a talcum powder container, even to the perforated top. He sprinkled a fine yellow powder over the handiest door knob, then brought his nostrils close to it and sniffed.
There was a pungent odor. But it was not strong.
Nace tried another knob — another. From the fourth, he got a very strong odor. He tried the last one. But only at the fourth was there a pronounced result.
This told him which apartment the men had entered. They had not worn gloves. The hand of one of them, in grasping the knob, had left an oily film — the same sort of a film that accounts for fingerprints. Nace’s powder, a concoction of his own, produced an odor when it mingled with the oil. But so microscopic was the oily deposit that it would not react with the chemicals in the powder after being exposed to the air for some minutes.
Nace listened at the door. There was talk, but it came to his ears as a hollow, unintelligible murmur. The keyhole was not of a type that extended completely through the door. He tried the crack at the bottom. Nothing doing there, either. The crack would not have let a sheet of paper through.
Nace felt of the door, pushed gently. It was of metal, a thin sheet.
Out of Nace’s zipper carry-all came a remarkable device. This consisted of a super-sensitive microphone that could be held to a flat surface with rubber vacuum cups of the type employed in sticking ashtrays on car windows. There was a powerful amplifier, utilizing vacuum tubes of small voltage, and a sensitive phone headset. All three were connected by wires.
Nace set his microphone against the door, donned the headset, and switched on the amplifier. He twirled the volume dials. The murmur of voices loudened rapidly. Somewhere downstairs, a door slammed and, so sensitive was the apparatus, it was like a thunderclap. A truck ran past in the street outside, and the phone diaphragms roared with vibration.
Voices finally became understandable.
“What’s the matter with leavin’ the shade up an’ watchin’ from the darkened room?” Heavy was demanding.
“Oi, and why not?” Moe echoed.
“Does it not occur to you that Reel or Hoo Li, like ourselves, may possess binoculars?” Baron von Auster asked dryly. “They might catch the reflection of starlight upon our own glasses. We will cut small holes through the shades. Ja!”
“O.K.,” Heavy agreed. “There ain’t no sense in takin’ chances, at that!”
There was a little stirring about in the room; a knife ripped noisily at a window shade.
Nace scowled, fingering absently at the sweat-shirt sleeves projecting from the short sleeves of his baseball blouse. These three were watching two men named Reel and Hoo Li. The latter name sounded Chinese. The other — English, probably.
“Hell — they’re there now!” Heavy barked suddenly.
“Nein! I noticed nothing!” Baron von Auster snapped.
“That orange light—”
“That does not mean Reel or Hoo Li are present! Reel, I believe, keeps that light burning in his room at all hours, whether he is there or not. It is, I believe, a light made from one of Reel’s green skulls.”
“Green skulls — ugh!” Moe muttered. “I can’t get it out of my head how that Jimmy Offitt looked when we found him! Them green bones diggin’ into his face!”
Nace was nothing if not surprised to hear this. He had mentally attributed the killing of Jimmy Offitt to these three. Now it seemed otherwise!
“We should’ve left the body of Offitt layin’ where we found it,” Heavy offered grouchily. “We left tracks draggin’ it into them bushes from off the lawn.”
“We could not leave it lying in plain view to be seen by any tramp who chanced to cross the yard!” sneered the baron. “Anyway, the tracks do not matter. That private detective, Nace, already has us connected with the affair. Der Hund!”
“We should have put the croak on that shamus!” Moe snarled.
Heavy gave vent to a big, uneasy rumble of a laugh. “We done the wise thing in beatin’ it! This Nace is poison, I tell you!”
For fully four minutes, there was silence. Then Heavy made another of his nervous, grumbling mirth sounds.
“Why not go over an’ be friskin’ Reel’s house for this green skull?” he demanded. “Then, when Reel and Hoo Li show up, we can grab ’em! I know ways of makin’ ’em talk!”
“My friend, I also know ways of making men talk!” Baron von Auster said softly.
“Then why not go over?”
Baron von Auster let several seconds pass, then made a clicking sound with his tongue.
“Himmel! Have you ever been near that black house, my friend?”
“Hell, no! What’s that got to do—”
“A great deal! That house is a place of peril! I am honest when I tell you I would not dare go there unless Reel and Hoo Li are on hand to welcome us. And you know I am no coward.”