the hot gun. There were two other killers out there in the darkness.
He jabbed the black muzzle viciously toward the next mobster, pressed the crescent-shaped trigger, and sent lead hurtling into the night. A man fifty feet away cried out in sudden fury.
Then bullets came back at Van, screaming, rocketing, striking the stone beside him, whining off into the darkness like demons gone mad. For a moment it was nip and tuck which gun would get in its inning. But cold anger filled Van – anger at the murder he had witnessed, anger at the knowledge that the Chief had almost beaten him with this latest trick. He found a mark suddenly, heard a man gasping and thrashing among the bushes.
The third machine-gunner tried to flee then. He was higher up. He sent a burst down where Van was, then took to his heels. Van shouted for him to halt. But the man went on. Up by the fence he turned again, lashed out at Van with murderous fire; and it was there that Van’s burst got him instead. He cried out once. Van heard the clatter of metal on concrete as his machine-gun fell.
Van called to the inspector. Together they climbed back up the slope to the highway and Van turned on his flash.
The man lying up there beside the road was the sinister “Doc” whom he had seen in the Chief’s hideout.
Four of Van’s slugs had stitched him across the chest.
CHAPTER XIX
QUICKLY looking over the police sedan, Van saw it was hopelessly out of commission. He stared at it grimly till Farragut called in excitement:
“There’s a car coming up the road.”
Van stepped aside, waving his flashlight. But instead of stopping the car speeded up and roared by. Van got a glimpse of it and swore harshly. It was a big limousine with four men in it and with a low official number.
“Moxley!” said Farragut. “Those were some of my boys with him. They couldn’t see who we were. They had orders from me not to stop for anything or anybody. I’m afraid you’re too late, Phantom!”
Too late! Van feared it also. Unless he could reach Moxley within the next half hour the man faced certain death. He grabbed Farragut’s arm.
“That girl must be around here somewhere,” he said swiftly, “and the car they came in!”
Farragut nodded, and they began a frantic search. They found Dolly DeLong, still wired and helpless, lying in the shadow of a culvert. Her face showed deathly pallor. She shrank away as Van reached down to touch her, mistaking him for one of the killers and thinking her own end was near. But when he drew the adhesive tape from her mouth, when he spoke quietly and she realized she’d been rescued, she broke into a torrent of words.
“I’m innocent,” she pleaded. “I’m a good girl, and I don’t play ‘round with criminals. They snatched me, brought me out here, made me lie in the road as a decoy. I didn’t know -”
Van silenced her quickly. “Tell all that in court when you testify against Blackie Guido. What I want to know now is – where’s the car?”
The girl’s eyes dilated at the revelation that Van knew of her connection with Blackie. She gestured mechanically. Her voice almost broke.
“Back there – in a side road – they parked it -”
Van had already jerked her to her feet and was running, dragging her along with him while the inspector followed.
THEY found the killers’ car a hundred feet in from the highway, standing with lights out in a rutted lane. The engine was silent. The Chief’s men had taken no chance on their hearing it. Van swore and fumed while the self- starter whined, while the cold motor gave him trouble. Every second was precious. He got it going finally. With Inspector Farragut in back with the girl he roared out of the lane.
Once on the highway, he sent the big car hurtling ahead. It was fast, but he knew that the limousine carrying Moxley had many minutes advantage. He knew that if ever he’d raced with death he was doing it tonight.
Farragut spoke huskily as they neared the city. “If we don’t make it in time, Phantom, I’m afraid the next killing may be a doubleheader. The Chief’s likely to come back to Caulder’s place, and wipe out Caulder and Moxley both.”
Van didn’t answer. His lips were grim, his hands taut on the wheel, his eyes burning. He knew better than Farragut the fate that awaited Moxley. Miles fled by underneath them. They roared at last down a long avenue.
Then Van twisted the wheel savagely and swerved into the Caulder drive. There were detectives standing on the porch, but Van, leaping from the car, ran past them. Inside the house he grabbed another of Farragut’s men.
“Where’s Moxley?” he demanded.
“Upstairs with Caulder. They wanted to be alone except for the nurse. He’s with them and will give warning if -”
But Van was already out of earshot, plunging up the broad stairway like a being possessed. He reached the top landing, sped down the hall where painters, plasterers, and carpenters had already erased the signs of the grenade. He checked himself violently before Caulder’s door, reached for the knob. The door was shut, locked – and Dick Van Loan’s blood seemed to go cold within him.
“Who is it?” came the muffled voice of Caulder’s nurse inside. There was something in that voice, a note of apprehension, that further chilled the Phantom.
He didn’t answer. He took two steps back, hurled his body forward, striking the door savagely with all the force of his powerful frame. The panels bent, the lock snapped – the door crashed open. Van plunged into the sick room, drawing his gun – they stopped frozen.
The nurse had a small leather blackjack in his hand, and he stood above Judd Moxley. Moxley lay on the floor unconscious. And Esmond Caulder, his face bandaged where he’d been burned, was on the bed. The nurse dropped the blackjack suddenly and went for a gun. His hand dived into the pocket of his white uniform. He fired through the cloth.
That bullet came so close that it seared Van’s right side. But he fired back. His shot caught the nurse in the shoulder, smashed his gun arm, and literally spun him. The man fell over a chair leg and crashed against the wall.
Before Van could turn, a screaming mouthing human fury leaped at him off the bed. Van went down under the weight of that first onslaught. But he twisted in time to avoid the smothering blanket that Esmond Caulder tried to loop over his head. He twisted, and then lashed out at that murder-contorted face with all the strength in him. He knocked Caulder off him, knocked him back against the foot of the bed.
Caulder, dazed as he was from Van’s blow, tried to pluck a gun from some inner pocket. Van brought the muzzle of his own automatic down in a smashing swoop on Caulder’s wrist, breaking the bone, sending Caulder’s weapon spinning away.
There was a brief, dramatic silence while Caulder stared up at Van, his wrinkled face a satanic mask of hate and frustration. Then Farragut came bounding into the room, gasping, gesturing a gun in his hand, and two detectives close behind him.
“Great God! What are you doing, Phantom?”
Dick Van Loan pointed. “The Chief, Inspector! Take a look at him. He won’t have a chance to kill off the rest of his family now.”
“The Chief – Caulder?”
“Exactly! He wasn’t dying of angina pectoris. He even fooled the doctor. There are drugs, Inspector, which can slow the pulse, cut down the heart action, and turn the face white and the lips blue. There are drugs which can reproduce the symptoms of the worst heart trouble.
“Chloral hydrate in certain combinations will do the trick. Few people want to use such things; but Caulder did. Caulder, with his period as administrator almost over wanted the family fortune all for himself; or as big a slice of it as he could lay his hands on.”
