Nace considered this. They were watching a house — and they were afraid to go near it.
He took out his pipe, put it away again. He felt absently of the notch in his left ear. The apartment house was very silent, probably due to the soundproofed construction.
Nace fell to wondering about the mysterious woman who had called him. He did not know her name — knew nothing except that she had called him with an excited plea for aid.
He would, he was sure, recognize her voice if he heard it again.
Word of the girl suddenly came from within the room.
“That girl, what about her?” Moe asked abruptly.
Baron von Auster chuckled. “I should not be surprised to learn she is lying somewhere with a part of the green skeleton clutching her pretty face. No doubt she possesses dangerous knowledge. Reel and Hoo Li will not give her a chance to get to the police.”
“Blazes!” Heavy grunted. “You say Reel is doin’ the killin’ with the green skeleton?”
“Ich weiss nicht!” snapped the baron, then translated into English. “I do not know — for sure! But who else could it be? Jimmy Offitt and the girl — Rosa Andricksen — were working together, against us. We all know that. Ja!”
A match scratched — evidently Baron von Auster lighting a cigarette.
“The green skull vanished!” he continued. “Who could have gotten it but Jimmy Offitt or Rosa Andricksen? It is obvious Reel and Hoo Li sought to recover it, just as we three are seeking it. Ja!”
“And they got it first!” Heavy growled. “They croaked Jimmy Offitt, after scarin’ him into tellin’ ’em where he had it hid! The girl was there, so they grabbed her, too. She got to the phone and squawked to this Nace guy. That’s how it figures, huh?”
“That is how it figures, mein Herren. Reel and Hoo Li now have the green skull. As soon as they appear at Reel’s black house, we shall go and have our try at getting it!”
Silence fell. One of the men coughed, and the concussion in Nace’s headset was ear-splitting. The trio seemed to have settled down to wait, binoculars glued on some neighboring dwelling. A black house where an orange light burned.
Nace detached his listening device and eased it into the zipper bag. He walked down the stairs, carrying the bag, released the elevator doors so the cage could operate and swung out into the night.
He was going to hunt that black house with an orange light. It looked as if the next developments would be there.
Chapter III
The Grasping Foot
Lee nace made a tall, bony, somewhat incongruous figure in the pale night, dark clothing and sun-broiled features merging with the gloom. Removing his shapeless white Panama, the only article of his attire which clashed with the murk, he rolled it and shoved it inside his vest. At the end of the apartment house, he stopped and let his gaze rove.
Before him lay the Plaza golf course. It sloped down to the sea, spotted with trees, and with some carefully cultivated brush between the fairways. It had the name of being a sporty course.
Beyond the golf links were scattered houses, great mansions. Nace knew the men upstairs must be watching one of these — they were looking in that direction.
The moon had come out faintly, and was casting creamy luminance. Two of the distant houses were very white. A third, one nearest the water, was extremely dark — black and ominous as a coffin. An orange light glowed from a downstairs window.
“That’s it!” Nace decided, and set out.
He charged his short pipe, planted the cracked stem in his teeth, and gnawed it as he strode along.
He swung in a wide circle, keeping out of sight of the three sinister watchers in the Plaza, and reached the shore of Long Island Sound. He followed the beach.
The golf course shrubbery now shielded him from the watchers at the Plaza. He shook dottle out of his pipe, chewed it cold.
The black coffin of a house bulked bigger and bigger. Nace neared it from the rear. Bushes, small trees, dotted the grounds. A concrete drive down to the beach, walled with a low hedge. Moon shadow lurked in the lee of the hedge like shapeless black animals.
Nace drifted into the shadow, but did not go far. He crouched in the murk, drew softly on his unlighted pipe, and did some pointed wondering.
The trio at the Plaza had been afraid to venture near this place. They were not cowards — their attack on Nace at the bungalow showed that. Therefore, there must be deadly danger about this casket house.
Nace was going in. But he was going to use some care.
He retraced his steps to the beach. A rowboat was drawn up on the sand. It held oars. Nace got one.
Probing ahead with the oar, he advanced along the hedge, keeping low and out of sight. The black house grew even more in size as he came nearer. It was of some expensive dark brick, roofed with black tile. On one side was a garage large enough for four or five cars, and tool houses. On the other side lay a commodious swimming pool.
There was a macabre air about it, as if the place encased a gigantic, deadly corpse. Nace stopped suddenly.
He punched gently with the oar. It came again — the thing that had halted him. A sharp, ugly tap on the end of the oar!
From his bag, Nace produced a flashlight. This light was peculiar in that it threw a beam of unusual shape — a thin rod of light, no thicker through than a finger. He streaked the ray at the end of the oar.
His scalp crawled. Cru-n-c-h! went his teeth through the new pipe stem.
Before him, a loathsome cone of yellowish-brown coils glistened in the light, squirming and heaving. A hideous hood waved like a gently moving fan.
Nace had no trouble recognizing the species of the snake. It was the likeness of just such a reptile that he was doomed to wear to the grave as a scar upon his forehead. A scar, fortunately for his association with the rest of mankind, which only became visible when his skin flushed with anger — the scar which had given him his nickname of the Blond Adder.
The cobra was picketed with a small wire, tied tightly just below its hood and running to a steel peg thrust in the ground. Like a frightsome watchdog!
Nace struck at the blunt, venomous head with the oar. The single blow put the thing out of commission, and without much noise.
He went ahead, somewhat more cautiously, leaving the reptile lifeless behind. It was not without reason that the three watchers in the Plaza had feared to come near this place, he reflected.
The sepulchral shadow of the vast black house enwrapped Nace. He kept probing with the oar, not knowing what other death traps might await.
Reaching a window without incident, he drew his listening device out of the canvas bag, stuck the microphone to the glass and clamped on the headset. Tiny sounds within the house assumed gigantic volume.
He could hear two or three clocks ticking, a radiator bubbling, and a drone that probably came from an electric refrigerator in the kitchen regions. If there was anyone in the house, they were keeping very quiet. Nace replaced his listening apparatus.
From the bag he took a bottle of chemical and a fine brush. Wetting the brush in the chemical, he ran it around the puttied edge of the window pane. Almost at once, the putty was softened to a paste.
Nace had put in many hours of experimenting in his own laboratory to perfect the ingredients in that chemical concoction. He pulled out small brads around the pane, using pliers.
Applying a rubber suction cup to the pane, he lifted it out.
But he did not go through. Instead, he daubed another chemical on a long, slender, stiff wire and passed it up and down and from side to side in the opening.