Dead Men Kill (Stories from the Golden Age) Page 5

  Then he became conscious of the silence. Voices no longer came from the other side of the wall. But the silence was not complete. The throb of the drum was still heavy in the blackness.

  The silence would mean that Morton was about to die. Morton, to whom he had talked that afternoon. Someway, somehow, he must get free! And then he sickened as he realized that his remaining minutes of life were few. That nickel-plated syringe . . .

  The door clicked and swung open stealthily. Lane tried to look in that direction, but could not. Blackness was still about him. Then the icy white beam of a flashlight bit into his eyes, blinding him. Lane moaned. Why were they about to torture him further?

  Dawn Drayden’s voice came to him.

  “Lie still. You’ll be free in an instant.” Her fingers were working at his bonds.

  “What’s the use?” muttered Lane.

  “Plenty of use!” whispered the girl. “You’re not dead. There was nothing but water in that syringe. I put it there myself.”

  Hope spurted through Lane like fire. He felt his arms come free, felt the ropes fall away from his legs. He sat up, oblivious of the ache in his head.

  “You mean it?” Disbelief, wonder, were in his words.

  “Of course I mean it!” exclaimed Dawn.

  But hope lagged as Lane realized that this must be just another ruse. “Why are you doing this for me?”

  Her face came into the light. Her eyes were hard as she gazed at him.

  “I have reasons of my own.” Her voice was low and intense as she spoke. “Reasons that have been driving me on from the first. I can’t tell you now—there isn’t time. I’m risking my life now as it is.

  “If Leroux ever learns that I have helped you, that I put water in that syringe . . .” the girl shuddered. “But let’s not think of that. I haven’t a gun for you. You’ve got to get out of here yourself.”

  “But why are you doing all this for me?” Lane repeated.

  “Because I want Dr. Leroux caught!” Dawn hurried out of the room. “I hate him. He’s a fiend, a murderer!”

  No gun, a drum beating in the distance, a fiend still in his path—but, for the moment, Terry Lane was free. He didn’t consider the odds. He was in debt to the girl—and he would have to try and repay it by getting out of this place alive. The detective strode forward into—action!

  Steps were before him and he ran quickly down. Where the flight turned, he saw a shadow coming. The shadow suddenly dissolved into a spot of light. A flashlight beam struck the detective in the face. Lane launched himself and soared downward, straight at the glow.

  He crashed into the man on the stairs. Fists savagely smashed into flesh and bone. The two toppled back and slammed downward, to land in a heap at the bottom.

  He crashed into the man on the stairs. Fists savagely smashed into flesh and bone. The two toppled back and slammed downward, to land in a heap at the bottom.

  Lane was on top. He sank vicious knuckles into his opponent. The man went limp under him. A second later, Lane held a gun in his hand.

  As he plunged down the dim corridor, a phrase ran through the detective’s mind. “I have come to kill you, Morton!” Someway, he must stop that murder!

  A door presented itself, and without pausing, Lane kicked it open. The mad, whirling strains of a jazz band hit him full in the face. He stopped and looked ahead to realize that he stood in the wings of a stage.

  This, then, had been the source of the drum. That instrument alone had carried through the walls into the death chamber. Lane grinned and felt the world right itself about him. There was nothing ominous about a jazz band. He was in the Club Haitian!

  But fate gave him no breathing space. The brief pause netted a fusillade of shots behind him. Bullets tore hungrily at the door panels. Splinters gashed through the air. Lead ricocheted out onto the stage. With no time to spare for a backward glance, Lane dashed into the floodlights and stood in full view of the floor.

  The jazz band stopped on a discord. Bullets lashed through the stage props. A trumpet player pitched forward, with a red splotch growing wider on his shirt.

  The master of ceremonies rushed toward the detective, an automatic glinting wickedly in his sleek hand. Lane sidestepped swiftly, lunged and sent his left fist to the man’s loose mouth. The body slumped.

  Waiters had stopped and lead was now coming from two angles. Lane shot a look to the rear. The stage door was disgorging a blur of flame.

  Without stopping, Lane jumped over the footlights and raced in among the panic-stricken guests. Waiters clutched at him, tried to beat him down. Expertly he skirted the tables and made for the main entrance.

  A doorman in a welter of gold braid crouched and whipped out a revolver. Lane saw him and skipped to one side. The doorman’s weapon belched smoke. The detective cracked down, shooting from the hip. His automatic snapped back into his palm. The doorman screamed and rolled to the floor, spitting blood.

  Glass was shattering about Lane. Bullets were whipping into potted palms. Splinters flew from the woodwork. The detective ran swiftly to the entrance, lanced through the door, raced out into the street.

  A cab was cruising past at low speed and Lane leaped for it. “The Morton residence, and step on it!”

  The driver gave Lane a wild-eyed stare, and then stepped all the way down on the accelerator. Bullets were biting into the machine from the doorway of the Club Haitian.

  The toneless phrase rang incessantly in the detective’s ears as he watched the street lights whip past. “I have come to kill you, Morton!” One scene was before him—the unfocused eyes of the dead Cramer.

  CHAPTER SIX

  March of the Ghouls

  LIGHTS from the Morton residence glowed harshly through the blackness. The only sound in the night came from beneath the hood of the cab.

  Lane paid the driver with a five-dollar bill he found in his coat and then, without waiting for change, cautiously stepped onto the front lawn of the mammoth home.

  The shrubbery was a grim assortment of shadows which might hold a clutching death, but the detective pressed grimly forward. Cold stone steps were under his feet and he ascended them two at a time. In spite of himself, he could not evade the hand of fear that clutched at him.

  A premonition came over him that he was too late.

  No, not too late. A hideous scream blasted the silence of the night!

  The front door was open. Lane sprinted into the deserted hallway. Another scream came from the top of the stairs. It was a race against death. Up there, Cramer . . .

  The detective thudded up the carpeted flight and whirled to face the room on his left.

  He saw the back of a man—the back of a coat from the grave! Cramer was slowly approaching the bed where Morton cowered with terror-stricken eyes.

  Lane rushed forward, stepped into the room—to be savagely clutched from behind! He tried to wrench himself free, but the arms held fast. Some invisible person was holding him powerless.

  He kicked back. The grasp tightened until Lane felt his ribs cracking under the strain. He struggled and saw things go momentarily black before him. Then he understood that it was useless to try.

  Cramer was plodding machinelike toward the bed, hands clutching out before him. Morton’s palms were held out, supplicating, pitiful.

  “I have come to kill you, Morton!” rasped Cramer, in a dead voice.

  “Don’t!” screamed Morton. “Don’t come near me! You’re dead, man! Get away from me!”

  Cramer did not seem to hear. His steps were relentless, leaden. His sunken eyes bored unseeing before him. His face was puttylike in death. The hands were clenching and unclenching hungrily.

  Morton was sobbing, racked with terror. On the floor beside the bed lay an untouched gun. Morton knew that he was about to die.

  The detective writhed anew but only succeeded in causing the grip about him to tighten.

  “Cramer!” he shouted. “Cramer!”

  But the advancing murderer gave no he
ed. Only a few feet separated the dead man and his prey.

  Morton caught sight of the detective.

  “My God, Lane, save me! Save me!” The words ended in a shriek. A hopeless glaze came into the banker’s eyes, sobs choked him.

  “I have come to kill you, Morton!” intoned Cramer.

  The convulsing hands stabbed forward. Clawlike fingers met about Morton’s throat. The banker was jerked to the floor. Cramer slowly pressed the body down. The dead man’s eyes were glassy, terrifying, without expression.

  Seconds lagged by. Then the murderer dropped Morton and stood up, carefully turning toward the door. Morton’s head rolled limply. Congested blood rattled hoarsely in his throat. The banker’s hands closed over folds in the rug. The grayness of engulfing death spread over Morton’s face.

  Cramer plodded to the door, approached the top of the steps, and walked slowly down.

  Lane kicked viciously, furiously back with his heels at the shins of his captor. He knew that something would happen in a moment.

  The arms came away from him suddenly and whipped him around. Lane was sent spinning over against the wall. Flame spat at him from his captor’s gun. A slug whined away from the plaster.

  The detective gained his balance and darted to one side. It was evident that he was about to be killed in cold blood. Another bullet smashed beside him. Terry saw the silhouette of Leroux’s henchman and dived at the same instant. The man was bowled to one side.

  Lane leaped for the stairs and went down four at a time. Flame and hot metal slashed at him from the landing top.

  At the bottom of the staircase, the detective passed Cramer. Drawing his own gun, he stopped and darted in ahead of the walking dead man. Cramer did not pause; he bumped into the detective. Lane stopped the figure and held it as a shield. Quickly he sent a volley of shots into the upper landing.

  A bullet grazed Cramer’s shoulder, spinning him about. Lane stepped to one side, expecting the man to fall. But Cramer slowly turned around and once more began his march to the door.

  With a squeal of brakes, a car drew up outside the house. Lane thought for one brief instant that help had arrived from Headquarters. But he was wrong. The sound had not died away before the front of the house came alive with powder flashes. Loup-garou and his men had arrived from the Club Haitian!

  Between two fires, the detective jumped into the living room and turned to send a shot into the ranks of his attackers. The gun clicked empty.

  The entrance was crammed with running men. Lane knew he could not remain in the house without a gun, and he made a dash for the back of the residence. There he knew he would find an exit.

  A moment later, he found himself out of the house and running through the backyard. Bullets kicked into the turf about him. He vaulted a fence, lit running, and made for the nearest telephone, even though he knew that the house would be deserted before the police could arrive—that is, deserted except for the body of Morton, killed by the dead hands of Cramer.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Loup-garou

  IT’S fantastic,” spat Inspector Leonard. “Fantastic, weird and ridiculous! If I didn’t know you better, Lane, I’d say you were lying!”

  Lane gave his chief a bleak glance. “You’d think I was lying if I suddenly walked up and choked you to death?”

  “Humph! What are you trying to do, scare me?”

  “No,” said Lane. “But you wouldn’t be so doubtful if my dead body walked into your office.”

  “Bosh!” snapped Leonard. “How about it, Reynolds?”

  Reynolds took his pipe out of his mouth and put his feet down on the floor. Absently he tapped the pipe against the gleaming emerald on his finger.

  “All I can say is, I pronounced Cramer dead,” he said slowly. “He looked like he’d stay that way, too. Even had embalming incisions on his chest. Lane’s men got his fingerprints and found them again on Morton’s throat.”

  “Still,” interjected Lane, “Loup-garou made doggone sure that that woman didn’t talk—Janey Lou, I mean. There must have been something funny about that corpse.”

  “You’re wrong,” corrected Reynolds. “When I say a man is dead, he’s dead!”

  “Yes,” said Lane, “he’s dead. But how do you account for Cramer’s coming back, then? I even saw a bullet slice into him.”

  “Did he fall?” queried the coroner.

  “No. He didn’t fall. It turned him around.” Lane wrinkled his face at the recollection. “He turned around and kept right on for the door.”

  Reynolds chuckled. “You can’t kill a man twice, can you?”

  “Bah!” exclaimed the inspector. “You’re both full of hop. I won’t believe dead men walk until I see it with my own eyes! This human coyote, or whatever he is, is making monkeys out of you!

  “It’s just the old hocus-pocus. I’ve got records right now which state that over two million dollars have been extorted from prominent men in this city during the last week. Two million! I’ve seen these things happen before and they’re always directly traceable to some presto-change-o crook. If you let this thing keep up, this Dr. Leroux will own the whole darned town!”

  “You’re right about that,” agreed Lane. “I’ve traced every possible lead and there’s no answer. The thing’s driving me crazy!” He glanced hopefully at the coroner. “Say, Reynolds, you’ve been to Haiti. Dig up all the dope you can on zombies for me, will you?”

  The jangle of the phone interrupted them. Lane snatched at it as though he was a drowning man and the instrument was the proverbial straw.

  “Hello! You know who? No, I don’t. . . . Oh, yes! I’m sorry, I guess I’m kind of upset. . . . It was enough to upset anybody, at that. Where? Across the street from . . . I get you; at seven-thirty tonight. I’ll be there! You bet I will!”

  Lane carefully placed the receiver on the hook and placidly leaned back in his chair. “Gentlemen,” he breathed, “ Loup-garou is going to be in the bullpen not later than ten tonight!”

  “If he isn’t,” growled Inspector Leonard, “you can turn in that shiny badge! And I mean it!”

  “And if he is,” grinned Lane, “I’ll turn it in anyway—for a lieutenancy!”

  As per Dawn Drayden’s orders, Detective-Sergeant Terry Lane stood across from Gault’s undertaking parlor at seven-thirty sharp. He was alone, in accordance with the girl’s request.

  An arm touched him lightly on the shoulder and he whirled to see Dawn’s beautiful face beside him. She was pale and worry lurked in her blue eyes, but she gave him a reassuring smile.

  “This isn’t any trap,” she said. “And with a little luck, we’ll be able to wipe the slate clean.”

  “Leroux is coming to Gault’s tonight?” Lane asked.

  “Yes. He is coming with a dead man at eight o’clock. We’ll have to be on hand before that time, if we expect to connect.”

  Lane patted the gun in his shoulder holster. “All right. The fireworks can’t start too soon to suit me!”

  Walking with short, quick steps, and keeping in the shadows, the girl led him around to the side of the undertaking parlor and then stepped back, pointing to a window. “That leads to the embalming room. We’ll wait there.”

  The detective reached up and gave the window a tug. It responded, and slid silently open. He boosted himself up and crawled inside. The odor which greeted him was far from pleasant.

  He reached down for the girl’s hands and pulled her up and into the room.

  “Now,” whispered Lane, “we’ll sit down and wait for our friend.”

  “No. There’s a guard in the outer room you’ll have to get out of the way first. And when Leroux enters, we’ll have to hide and wait for him to finish his work. Otherwise, we’ll murder the man he’ll bring with him.”

  “What do you mean?” breathed Lane.

  Dawn shrugged. “Wait and see. Meantime, you’d better dispose of that guard.”

  The detective walked lightly to the door and stopped there with his ear to a cr
ack, listening. Slowly he turned the knob. The shaft of light grew wider. A man sat there with his back to Lane, a shotgun across his knees. The detective recognized one of the waiters of the Club Haitian.

  Drawing a bead on the man with his automatic, Lane hissed: “Hands up! Quick!”

  But if he looked for a docile surrender, Lane was mistaken. The guard roared out a violent oath and spun about, bringing up the wicked length of his sawed-off shotgun.

  “Look out!” cried Dawn.

  Lane was looking out. He made a flying tackle from where he stood. Before the guard’s weapon came up to firing position, the detective struck a paralyzing blow to the man’s face. With another bellow the guard sidestepped, and tried again to bring the shotgun into play.

  The detective measured the distance to the guard’s chin. He drew back his fist and sent a terrific blow to the man’s face. With a gasp, the guard folded up like an accordion and lay still.

  Dawn stood by with a handful of catgut. Lane made a quick job of tying the ex-waiter securely. He looked about for a place of concealment and hit upon one of the numerous coffins which lined the wall in various postures. He grinned and chose a box which did not have a glass window.

  Dawn inspected the guard’s improvised gag and then held open the lid of the coffin. She repressed a shudder as the detective laid his burden in the box.

  “Looks natural, doesn’t he?” whispered Lane, adjusting the guard’s head on the white satin pillow.

  “We’d better find a place to hide ourselves,” said Dawn. “It’s almost eight.”

  “What’s better than a coffin? Lord knows there’s enough of them around!”

  He sent a look of compassion toward the girl. “I know it’s gruesome, but that can’t be helped. It’s the last place they’ll look.”

  “I hope so,” she breathed. “Let’s use the ones that are standing up. I couldn’t stand the thought of lying in one.”