The Phantom Detective: Fangs of Murder. Robert Wallace
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them to you. They came from different parts of the world.”
“We tried to trace these messages, but we couldn’t,” John Gifford spoke in his deep voice. “We thought at first like you are thinking now, but time has changed us. And this time we received this message which promises death to us, one at a time. We would have been foolish not to come to the police for aid.”
Inspector Gregg picked up one of the seven copies of identical messages from “The Fang,” and read it again.
In block-printed letters of red on black parchment paper, the words stared up at him.
MY TIME FOR REVENGE DRAWS NEAR AT LAST ON THIS TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF BURNOOSE’S DEATH. WHEN THE CHARLEMAGNE DOCKS IN NEW YORK NEXT TRIP YOU SHALL FEEL THE FANG OF DOOM. ONE BY ONE NINE MEN SHALL DIE — IF I MAY CALL YOU MEN. WHO SHALL GO FIRST? I INVITE YUH TO MY DEBARKATION.
Inspector Gregg cleared his throat and glanced swiftly around the circle. He was surprised to find all seven men watching him in nervous intensity.
“This is theatrical hokum,” he snorted. “It stinks of melodrama. I’m amazed that you let such a crank letter disturb you. And whoever heard of murder by appointment?”
“Inspector Gregg,” said Carl Fenwick in a sepulchral voice, “please bear in mind that this Al Millett was a far more desperate and depraved character than you are giving him credit for, and that he hates the nine of us with a vindictiveness that fairly seethes in its intensity.”
“It’s too bad the Marcy brothers aren’t here to talk to you, Inspector Gregg,” added Paul Corbin in his queer, husky voice. They knew Millett more intimately, and can give you fuller details.”
“Anyway, we’ve increased the police guard for the Charlemagne’s docking, and I have a cordon of plainclothes men on hand to apprehend this Millet guy for questioning and investigation. And you are here to point him out to us. So we’ll pull his ’fangs’ before he can even sink ’em in a piece of pie at the Automat.”
“If we point him out,” observed Kenneth Meade in his stilted, slow, hoarse manner of speech. “He may be in hiding — a stowaway. Perhaps he’s changed his appearance -- other men have. He was fiendishly clever with disguise. I wish —”
“The Marcy brothers!” ejaculated Gordon Drake from the window. “I see their car just pulling up. They’re not getting out, of course.”
“Why should they?” commented John Gifford quickly. “The boat’s docking. We’d better get out of here ourselves.”
“We’ll see what the Marcys say, first,” decided Inspector Gregg, leading the way swiftly out to the parking lanes, the others following him more slowly.
THE MARCY CAR, RESPLENDENT with glittering nickel and liveried chauffeur, was parked in a little cleared space back from the front lines, as if shrinking from publicity.
In the rear seat, two brothers with faces startlingly similar, save that Benjamin wore a mustache, while Lyle was clean-shaven, looked out at the approaching detective. Famous as theatre owners, they shrank from notoriety.
“Well?” Benjamin Marcy’s mustache bristled at the converging group, although his piercing eyes had the same brooding, world-weary, yet anxious look that all these worried men seemed to have. “You don’t expect us to get out and jam into that crowd, do you? I’m tired.”
“Just tell me in few words what you can about this guy Millett,” Gregg spoke swiftly.
As one, the two brothers leaned forward.
“Al Millett must be a madman,” Lyle Marcy stated, his lean face darkening. “We were all in the show business together many years ago.
“Millett got terribly angry when we wouldn’t pool our money and back him in a crazy wild-west show of his own. His wife died, and he disappeared, after threatening us with revenge. As for his coming back now —”
“We don’t believe it!” Benjamin Marcy broke in fiercely. “This whole thing is somebody’s idea of a bad joke.”
“Whose?” demanded Andrews, panting from his laborious exertions to arrive at the car in a group with the others, leaning heavily on his cane.
“You Marcys know you’re as worried about this thing as any of the rest of us.”
“The only thing I’m worried about is the publicity,” denied Benjamin Marcy savagely. “Lyle and I hate publicity!”
The sound of a hoarse, bass siren shook the air around them. Growing commotion at the docks warned them.
“Come on, you men, and take your positions on the second level,” cried Gregg. “All passengers disembark there. You can’t miss your man, if he comes ashore.”
Leaving the grimly waiting Marcy brothers, the group made its way to the spacious second level where alphabetical partitions awaited tourists and luggage.
Pulleys creaked, winches groaned, and the huge liner came gently to rest. In a moment the gangways came sliding down, and people were pouring along them like ants. A pair of plainclothes officers stood by at each exit, watching for the chief inspector’s signal. Gregg watched the faces of his companions who went to their appointed stations, staring nervously all along the side of the great ship and up and down the gangways.
Nothing happened. The stream of passengers dwindled, died away. And no alarm had been given.
“WELL, GENTLEMEN,” GRUNTED INSPECTOR Gregg a bit peevishly an hour later. “After all your hullabaloo, your Nemesis doesn’t seem to have even got off the boat. If you can wait another hour, I’ll have the ship inspected from stem to stern to make sure your man is not aboard.”
“Please,” whispered Meade in his odd articulation. “We must be certain.”
“Where’s Andrews?” demanded Drake suddenly. “He’s supposed to be watching the D to G section.”
“There he is,” Gregg pointed. “Guess he just went down to the washroom for a moment. You haven’t seen this building until you tour it. It is conveniently arranged so that everything is accessible from almost any part of building or grounds. Well-engineered construction. Well, let’s go on board and —”
The sudden wail of a police ambulance beat upon their eardrums and rose in a sharp crescendo of sound. Police whistles shrilled. Somewhere a woman screamed. A uniformed officer dashed up to Inspector Gregg and began murmuring in his ear. At once Gregg stiffened. He motioned brusquely for the policeman to lead the way. As the followed, very white of face, the seven elderly men who had been responsible for him being here tonight fell in line as he passed their posts, and streamed along after him.
Down in the parking area the night had turned into bedlam. Red-faced patrolmen were forming lines to keep back the surging crowd and divert traffic. Screaming sirens announced the arrival of radio and squad cars. Frantic terror clutched at the hearts of the men following the chief detective as they realized the direction they were heading.
The Marcy limousine, still in an area of shadows, but no longer avoiding publicity, was before them. The car itself was harshly outlined now in the concentrated glare of police hand torches. The first thing of significance that caught Inspector Gregg’s eye was the liveried chauffeur, lolling over his wheel. The back of his skull was a bloody ruin, bashed in by some blunt instrument.
The inspector’s eyes went to the rear of the car. He braced himself for this look. The uniformed man had told him what he would find. Even so, hardened to crime as he was, he recoiled. His usually placid face went grey, eyes widening in a shock of horror and revulsion.
Benjamin and Lyle Marcy were still together in the back seat, but they had slumped down. Where their abdomens should have been, there was a gaping hole in each corpse, in the back of which the very spinal columns were exposed. Blood and viscera splattered and fouled the seat, the sides, and the floor of the tonneau.
The faces of the two