Death Sends His Maniacs

Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.

EMILE C. TEPPERMAN

DEATH SENDS HIS MANIACS

RGL e-Book Cover^©

A SMASHING, AMAZING NOVEL OF WEIRD CRIME

First published in Strange Detective Mysteries, November 1939

This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2020
Version Date:2020-10-23
Produced by Matthias Kaether and Roy Glashan

All content added by RGL is proprietary and protected by copyright.

Click here for more books by this author

Strange Detective Mysteries, November 1939, with "Death Sends His Maniacs"

"Get him, boys!" he bawled.... The slavering band of lunatics leaped in.

CHAPTER I. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
CHAPTER II. WITH THE KILLER'S COMPLIMENTS
CHAPTER III. THE RAZOR IS SHARP
CHAPTER IV. THE NUMBER IS DISCONNECTED
CHAPTER V. LIGHTS OUT!
CHAPTER VI. MAD-HOUSE OF MURDER
CHAPTER VII. "DOCTOR SARDO ALWAYS WINS!"

CHAPTER I. — BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

COMING out of the swanky Blue Ribbon Club with the lovely Anabelle Shannon on his arm, Chick Lester had the feeling that every man in the place was following him with envious glances. But he wasn't particularly happy about it.

He gave the hat-check girl the bit of pasteboard with Number 16 on it, and she brought out his black felt hat and Anabelle's sable wrap. As Chick helped Anabelle into it, his fingers rested for just an instant longer than necessary upon the soft velvety smoothness of her bare shoulder.

She threw him a frigid glance. "Don't forget, Mister Lester, that you're just paid to protect me—not to paw me!"

"Nuts to you, Shannon," he growled. "Any time you want to change bodyguards, just yelp. I didn't want this job in the first place. What do you think you are—a piece of Chinese porcelain? Are you so fragile you break when you're touched?"

Two angry spots of red appeared in her cream-and-ivory cheeks. "I'll certainly ask Dan Metzger to get me another bodyguard. The first thing tomorrow. And I hope he fires you when I tell him what I think of you!"

"Suits me," Chick said. "If you can get me fired, I'll buy you a carload of orchids. I've been trying to break my contract with Metzger for the last six months. Now come on. It's home and to bed for you!"

But the hat-check girl called out, "Oh, Miss Shannon! Would—would you care to give me your autograph?"

Anabelle Shannon shook Chick's arm off her. She said haughtily, "Stand aside, slave." She smiled sweetly at the girl behind the counter. "Of course, my dear!"

The hat-check girl was not bad on looks herself. She was taller than Anabelle, and a brunette, whereas Anabelle Shannon had glorious platinum hair.

Miss Shannon took the pen the girl handed her, and bent down to write her name in the autograph album which the dark-haired girl had reversed on the counter. In doing so, she threw back her sable cloak, and made to rest her white arm upon the counter.

Chick Lester's hand was on the small automatic in his tuxedo pocket. His eyes were everywhere, watchful and alert for danger. The reason Chick received a salary of one thousand dollars a week from American National Pictures was that he could spot danger where no one else would think of looking for it. His mind was like an X-ray machine, which could look into and through a situation, and unerringly point to the dark spot of peril.

IT wasn't much—just a little nail protruding from the top of the hat-check counter. Anabelle Shannon's arm was coming down on it as she leaned over to sign the autograph book. There wasn't more than an eighth of an inch of the nail protruding from the wood, and a scratch from it might hardly be noticed. Another man wouldn't have given it a thought.

But Chick Lester acted in the same split-instant in which he perceived it. There was no time to call a warning. His arm swept out and around, and he seized Anabelle about her slim waist and fairly lifted her up in the air and away from the nail.

Anabelle squirmed and kicked back at his shins with her small silver-slippered feet. Her hands, clawing wildly, caught at the hand of the hat-check girl. She clung to the dark girl's hand, dragging her across the counter as she was carried back by Chick Lester.

The brunette's left breast scraped across the top of the counter, sweeping the autograph book off.... The girl screamed once, madly!

Anabelle Shannon let go her grip on the girl's hand as Lester put her down. She swung on him with blazing eyes.

But Chick Lester wasn't listening to her. He was taut, and his quick and inquiring eyes were fixed upon the hat-check girl. She had pulled herself up from the counter, and was doing a bewildering thing. She was ripping her blouse away from her body, ripping away also the brassiere underneath it. There, upon her left breast, was a small scratch, hardly more than a half inch long. But she was staring down at it with eyes that were wide and full of an unholy terror.

She had screamed only the one time. Now she was utterly silent. Suddenly she began to claw and tear at her breast. Her long painted fingernails ripped the skin off in bloody streaks.

She stopped that as suddenly as she had begun. Her shoulders dropped hopelessly. She looked up at Chick Lester and said, "You fiend! You lucky fiend! How did you know?"

With the last word, her body became dreadfully rigid. Her eyes seemed about to burst from their sockets, and her mouth opened wide, as if she were going to scream. But no sound came. Her body arched back, as if under terrific inward pressure, and she collapsed behind the counter.

Perry Grayson, the manager of the Blue Ribbon, came running over and pulled open the half-door. He knelt beside the girl, looked up with frightened eyes.

A CROWD was gathering in the lobby. Anabelle Shannon stood dumbly staring at the stiff and rigid body of the hat-check girl, and she began to shiver. She did not protest when Chick Lester took her hurriedly by the arm and dragged her out of the place. There was so much commotion that no one noticed their departure.

In the street, the doorman was not on duty. He had come running in to find out what was the matter.

"She got what you were supposed to get," Chick told her grimly. "That nail on the counter was poisoned. She was supposed to get you to autograph the book so you'd rub your elbow against the nail. If I hadn't yanked you out of the way, you'd be lying there on the floor."

But she shut up like a clam. "Come on." She was shivering. "Take me home. Get me behind locked doors!"

Chick scowled. "Look here, Shannon, if you know who's behind that business inside, you better talk up."

"All right," said Chick Lester. He raised his hand to summon a taxi from the cab rank down the street. But just then another cab came swinging in toward them. It had apparently been cruising slowly down the block. It cut in ahead of the one from the cab rank.

But the cruising cab didn't stop at the curb. Chick got a quick glimpse of the driver, twisting the wheel in toward the sidewalk. The man was wearing a uniform cap with a low vizor, so that very little of his face was visible, except for a broad cleft in the chin. That was all Chick got a chance to see. The motor accelerated with a mounting roar, and the taxi leaped the curb. It bounced up on the sidewalk and bore down upon them—a thundering juggernaut of steel that would crush them to pulp when it struck.

Anabelle Shannon uttered a little frightened squeak of a cry, which died at once in her throat. She stood there, transfixed with terror, unable to move.

He gave Anabelle Shannon a terrific shove between her shoulder blades, with the flat of his hand. It sent her sprawling on the sidewalk, out of the path of the roaring cab.

The driver saw what he had done, and madly twisted the wheel to swing the car around so that it would strike her.

But in so doing, he gave Chick the chance he wanted. The automatic in Chick's pocket began to cough, belching through the cloth, as he squeezed the trigger. The slugs poured through the open window of the car, riddling the driver's head.

The man fell away from the wheel before he could complete the swift half-turn. But his foot must have remained upon the accelerator, for the car went hurtling between Chick and Anabelle Shannon, to crash into the entrance of the Blue Ribbon Club. The hood accordioned upon itself to the accompaniment of rending metal and hissing water, with the screams of frightened women from inside the club rising to mingle with the reverberating echoes of Chick's shots.

CHICK ran swiftly around the wrecked car, and lifted Anabelle Shannon from the ground. He got her by the armpits, and hauled her to her feet.

"Yes," he told her. "What did you want me to do—kiss him? Come on. Let's get out of here!"

"Later. First, I'm taking you home. Do you want to get your name in the papers from coast to coast?"

He hurried her down the street, not looking back. Behind them, the wrecked cab suddenly erupted in a shattering explosion, and flames licked high in the air. As if by magic, crowds of people came running from every direction. No one even noticed Chick and Anabelle. A block away he flagged a cruising cab and bundled her into it. "Parkside Hotel!" he snapped.

"But I don't live there!" she protested, as the cab got under way. "I live at the Northern View."

"Never mind where you live. You're checking in at the Parkside under another name—till I get a line on whoever it is that's trying to knock you off."

He laughed harshly. "An accident? Yes. It was an accident that he didn't get you. And an accident that the girl in the hat-check room didn't get you. Shannon, someone is trying damned hard to make you dead—and you know who it is. Now are you going to come clean?"

She stiffened, turned her head away from him. "I don't know what you're talking about. Chick Lester."

"You know what I'm talking about all right!" he said grimly. "You admitted it. Now I can't work blind. This enemy of yours is slick. Too slick to tackle without knowing more about him. You going to tell me about him?"

"You're crazy, Mr. Lester. That business with the cab was only an accident. It jumped the curb, and you imagined the man was trying to kill me. The hat-check girl just wanted my autograph, and you dragged me away—"

"Anyway," she said, "I want to go home. I'm not going to any hotel with you." She tapped on the glass panel. "Driver! Take us to the Northern View Hotel!"

The driver nodded, and swung the cab west at the next corner. Chick Lester's mouth tightened. He rapped on the panel. "Slow up and let me off right here."

"Home!" he told her, with a crooked smile. "I wash my hands. You can go wherever you damned please. Get yourself killed any way you like. Me, I'm through."

Chick kept one hand on the door. "Look, Shannon," he said patiently. "I'm paid to protect you. While I'm on the job. I'll do it my way. You take orders from me, or you can go sit on a tack."

"Come back, you beast. All right. After all, you've saved my life twice in ten minutes." She was rebellious, but cowed. "I'll—do what you say."

Chick nodded. "That's better." He climbed back into the cab. "Make it the Parkside Hotel, driver."

"Wait," she begged. "Just let me stop at the Northern View and get a few things—my pajamas, toothbrush—you know."

He shrugged. "All right. But it's against my better judgment. The guy that's after you is no one to fool around with."

CHAPTER II. — WITH THE KILLER'S COMPLIMENTS

"NOW suppose you come clean," Chick said to her as the cab rolled north to Central Park. "What's this all about? How come two attempts were made on your life, one on top of the other? Who wants to see you pushing up lilies?"

Anabelle Shannon was staring straight ahead, with one hand pressing hard against her breast.

"Sure!" he said bitterly. "Just leave you alone. It doesn't concern me at all! I'm supposed to stick with you, and protect you against something I don't know a thing about—and get killed with you, maybe. Outside of that, it doesn't concern me!"

"Sure; I'm afraid. Who wouldn't be—with cabs that come bouncing out of nowhere to crunch you down to powdered bones! And how do I know that the guy back of it isn't going to try again—and again? He's bound to get you sometime. And that puts me on the same boat!"

"Very well, then. If you're afraid, you can quit. All I wanted was for you to take me home, anyway."

The cab had pulled up in front of the Northern View Hotel. Central Park South was quiet at this time of night. There was no one about except a sandwich man carrying front-and-back signboards advertising an all-night barber shop on Columbus Circle. Then the hotel doorman appeared, hurrying out of the lobby, where he apparently had been catching forty winks.

Anabelle Shannon pushed open the door of the cab while the doorman was still in the lobby. She stepped out without waiting either for the doorman or Chick to help her. Fire was flashing from her eyes as she flared at Chick: "I'm not going to the Parkside. I don't need you any more. And I never want to see you—"

Chick Lester came flying out of the cab like a halfback making the last yard against a solid wall of opposition. His shoulder struck Anabelle in the stomach and sent her crashing backward to the sidewalk. At the same instant, something whistled through the air directly over the spot where Anabelle had been standing, and sponged against the body of the cab just above Chick's head.

Chick rolled over once, and came to his knees with the automatic in his hand spitting flaming streaks of lead at the sandwich man.

The sandwich man had a long tube at his mouth, and he was swinging the tube to aim once more at Anabelle, when Chick's first shot crashed through the wooden sign and sent him staggering backward. Chick fired twice more, because the man still had the tube at his mouth. The third shot struck the blowgun and squashed the man's face into pulp. The shots were echoing back from Central Park, across the street, as Lester came to his feet and ran to where Anabelle lay.

She was doubled up with pain from the blow she had received in the stomach, and her face was white. She looked as if she were going to retch.

Chick helped her to her feet, with the aid of the doorman, who was talking and yelling incoherently at the same time.

"Gor blimey, the guy was blowin' darts at her! Looka that—there's the dart that missed her!"

Anabelle had both hands at her stomach. "You—hit me—that—hard—on purpose—you snake!" she managed to gasp.

CHICK said disgustedly, "You dumb bunny! If that dart had hit you, you would have died like the hat-check girl!"

He let go his hold on her arm, and she almost fell over, but the doorman held her up on the other side. Chick glanced over at the dead sandwich man, and then went to the cab and picked up the dart which had fallen to the ground.

He was examining it when the cab driver said timidly, "Excuse me, mister. But who's payin' the cab fare?"

Chick thrust a hand in his pocket and handed the man a dollar bill. He turned in time to see a cop come running down the street, and a prowl car rounding into Central Park South from Sixth Avenue.

It took him fifteen minutes to explain to the cops what had happened. They were incredulous.

"Nuts, mister," said the sergeant from the prowl car. "Guys don't go around New York blowing darts at people. It just ain't done!"

"Well," said Chick, "here's the dart." He led them over to the dead body of the sandwich man. "And here's what's left of the tube."

ABE'S TONSORIAL PARLOR
OPEN ALL NIGHT

SHAVE, HAIRCUT, SHAMPOO, MANICURE
HOT & COLD SHOWERS

HAVE YOU GOT THAT HANGOVER FEELING?
LET US FIX YOU UP BEFORE YOU GO HOME!

"Nice work," said the sergeant, "if you can get it. You shoot pretty good, Mister Lester. This listens to me like an Arabian Nights' tale. I suppose you're gonna tell me the dart is poisoned?"

Chick grinned. He stuck the dart out at the sergeant. "Want to test it? Just scratch yourself with it—"

"Hey! Nix!" The sergeant backed away. Chick took out his handkerchief and wrapped the dart carefully. He handed it to the sergeant. "You can have it analyzed in the police laboratory. Also, you may be able to identify this dead guy. He may just have picked up the job with the barber shop, posing as a bum."

"Okay, Mister Lester. That's all well and good. But you haven't told us yet who is the dame that was with you."

He broke off, with a tensing of the muscles around his jaw. Anabelle Shannon was gone!

QUITE a crowd had gathered around them by this time, and the two uniformed cops were busy keeping them back from the body of the dead sandwich man, so they hadn't kept an eye on her.

"Maybe she went upstairs," said Chick. He started for the door, but one of the elevator boys, who had come out to see what was going on, shook his head.

"She didn't go up, mister. I seen her get in that cab at the curb. The cab turned into Central Park."

"Nope. She got in and bent over and kind of whispered to him. The guy drove right off."

Chick gave the boy a bill, and dug his hands into his pockets. He glared at the sergeant. "She's gone! That dizzy dame has gone and driven off somewhere in the city. And the next time they try to knock her off, I won't be around!"

"You know," said the sergeant, "this kind of smells to me. You ain't yet told me who she is."

"Oh, nuts!" Chick exclaimed. "What's the use of trying to cover up? These elevator boys would tell you, anyway. She's Anabelle Shannon—the dizziest, nuttiest skirt in these United States. Someone is trying damned hard to kill her, and she goes and gets temperamental at a time like this!"

A bellboy came out of the hotel and shouted, "Is there a Mister Lester out here? Mr. Chick Lester?"

"There's a call for you on the switchboard. Party said you were out here in the crowd. Said you'd give me a buck for paging you."

"Okay." said Chick. He peeled off a dollar bill. "That's Shannon, all right," he told the sergeant. "She's come to her senses and is calling to tell me where she went."

Chick scowled. He gave the sergeant a hopeless look, shrugged, and went inside with the bell-hop. He took the call on one of the extension phones at the desk.

"How do you do, Mister Lester," said a smooth, well-controlled voice. "It is very unfortunate that you shot the sandwich man. He is a full-blooded Porto Bello Indian. It cost me five hundred dollars to bring him into the United States."

Chick gripped the phone tightly. "Who are you? Are you the yellow-livered murderous skunk that's been going after Anabelle Shannon?"

"Now, now, Mister Lester," the suave voice at the other end said reprovingly. "This is no time to indulge in personalities. I merely want to help you."

Chick laughed harshly. He was waving wildly to the switchboard operator as he held on to the phone, trying to make her understand that he wanted the call traced. "How do you want to help me—by greasing the skids to hell for me?"

"Not exactly, Mister Lester. I merely want you to stop interfering with my efforts to kill Miss Shannon. Really, you have been a nuisance. You are a young man of very quick perceptions, and quicker action. I should like to have you step out of the picture. I'll make it worth your while."

CHICK'S eyes narrowed. "Sure, sure. I understand. You want to kill Miss Shannon, and you don't want me butting in. That's reasonable. Suppose we meet some place and talk it over. How about getting together right now?"

The man at the other end laughed good-naturedly. "You think I'm a lunatic, Mister Lester."

"Oh, no," Chick said earnestly. "Far from it. I think you're a wonderful guy. Brainy. I bet we could get along fine together. Suppose I meet you at Childs Restaurant—"

"Wait, Mr. Lester. Please forget any ideas you may have about my being a lunatic. I assure you, I am extremely sane. I have a purpose in wanting Miss Shannon's life. If I were insane, I could not control the many men and women who do my bidding. Please consider carefully: I have guaranteed that Miss Shannon shall be dead before midnight tomorrow."

"I'm sorry. That is a professional secret which I cannot disclose. But I can tell you that her death is worth one million dollars to me. Step out of the way—leave me a free hand to kill her—and I will make it worth your while to the tune of a hundred thousand dollars. Doesn't that sound worth your while?"

He had already succeeded in getting the switchboard girl to understand what he wanted, and he could see her frantically talking into her mouthpiece, while Sergeant Gluck stood over her shoulder, motioning to Chick to keep the unknown caller on the wire as long as possible.

"I don't even know you," Chick said into the phone. "How could I trust you to pay me off?"

"My name," said the other, "is not known to you. You may call me Doctor Sardo. As for your money, you must accept my promise. Now—I have no more time. Your efforts to trace this call may be successful at any moment. Do you accept?"

"That, my friend," said Doctor Sardo very coldly, "is a prevarication. The Parkside Hotel is at Seventy-second Street. Miss Shannon's cab went downtown, not uptown." The doctor's voice became cold and ominous. "I am afraid, Mr. Lester, that you are not amenable to reason. I regret that I shall have to dispose of you. Good-bye, Mister Lester."

The phone clicked dead, and Sergeant Gluck, at the switchboard, tore his hair as he saw Chick hang up. "Why didn't you hold him another minute? We would have traced the call!"

"Can't be helped," said Chick. "He was wise, anyway. At least, I got his name—or the name he calls himself by. Doctor Sardo."

"Hell," said Sergeant Gluck. "That's little enough to go on. Lemme call downtown. Inspector Nason of Homicide will want in on this. Maybe they got a line on this Sardo guy at headquarters."

WHILE he put in his call to head-quarters, Chick Lester went around the lobby asking everybody if they had seen or heard anything to indicate where Anabelle Shannon had gone. Nobody could give him a lead.

Gluck came away from the phone looking bewildered. "The inspector is coming up personal to talk to you. They identified the hat-check girl and the taxi guy that you shot over at the Blue Ribbon. The girl's name is Vixie Walters. The cabby's name is Mike Smits."

"What the hell," Chick said disgustedly. "It should have been easy enough to identify them."

"It's not just their names, Lester. It's their records. Listen—the girl escaped from the Women's State Hospital for the Violent Insane about two months ago. She just got the job at the Blue Ribbon yesterday. The cabby, Mike Smits, was arrested on a charge of manslaughter four months ago. He pleaded insanity, and was committed to King's Park Hospital for the Insane, but he managed to escape from the train."

Chick Lester gasped. "Both of them were nuts! Sardo is using murderous maniacs to do his killing for him!"

"How do I know?" groaned Chick. "Shannon won't talk. All I know is that she's in the middle of a two million dollar picture for American National Studios, and she suddenly got a yen to come to New York. Dan Metzger let her go because they're shooting some scenes where they don't need her. She got here this morning and immediately phoned Metzger that she was in danger of being killed, so Metzger phoned me to take care of her. I've been piloting her around all evening."

He stopped, looking intently at a handsome man who was coming into the lobby in a hurry. "I know that guy!" he said quickly to Gluck. "He's Ronald Rodes, Shannon's ex-fiancé. He was her leading man in two pictures, and then they got engaged. Then Rodes started drinking heavily, and lost his contract with American National. He went on the skids fast, and Anabelle broke off the engagement. Rodes has been playing vaudeville since then."

"Oh, yeah!" said Gluck brightly, just as Rodes came up to them. Ronald Rodes was well built, with wide shoulders and narrow hips. He had wavy black hair and a square chin. He was the kind of man whom women flock to see in the movies, but his face at close range could be seen to be lined and shadowed by dissipation. He disregarded Sergeant Gluck entirely, and seized Chick Lester by the shoulder.

"Lester! Where's Anabelle? I just heard on the radio about what's been happening, and I rushed over. God, I'm still crazy about that girl!"

"And where was you for the last couple of hours? Do you know anybody named Sardo?"

Rodes scowled at Gluck, and Gluck pushed around in front of him. "Look, mister, no high-hat goes here. This is the law. There's been murder attempted, and some people are dead. You talk and give up a straight story—or you go in the can!"

Rodes drew himself up haughtily. "To answer your questions—I've been at the Actor's Club most of the evening. And I never heard of anybody named Sardo. ... I hope that satisfies you."

He swung back to Chick. "Where's Anabelle. Lester? Is she safe? By God, if you don't tell me I'll choke it out of you!"

Chick smiled faintly. "Funny. Someone else was just asking me where Anabelle is. And he said he'd kill me for not telling."

"I think." Sergeant Gluck said heavily to Rodes, "that I'll just take you in custody till the Inspector gets here." He took out his handcuffs. "Let's have your wrists—"

A UNIFORMED messenger boy pushed through the revolving doors into the lobby. "Mr. Lester?" he yelled. "Mr. Chick Lester?"

The messenger thrust the package into his hand, and pushed the receipt book up under his nose. "Sign here."

Chick scrawled his name, and started to fumble for a tip, but the boy didn't wait. He pocketed the receipt book and turned and went out.

Ronald Rodes' voice broke in on him, talking to Sergeant Gluck: "Good God, sergeant, you can't hold me! Let me out of here!"

That was followed by a dull blow, and Chick swung around to see Sergeant Gluck staggering back from a nasty upper-cut which Rodes had clipped to his jaw. Rodes turned, with wild desperation written on his dissipated features, and dashed past the desk toward the side exit of the hotel. Chick started after him with the package in his hand, and collided with Gluck, who was making a wild leap in the same direction.

Rodes disappeared through the side door, and Gluck's clumsy effort spun the package out of Chick's hand and sent it flying along the tiled floor to end up against the bowl of the potted palm beside the front door.

It was lucky that there was nobody near that door at the moment, because the package exploded when it struck, with a terrific detonation, which sent bits of metal flying in every direction. The force of the air pressure sent Chick and the sergeant crashing backward into the desk, and the noise of the explosion shattered against Chick's eardrums.

"Boy!" he said to Gluck. "That was a lucky bump you gave me. If I'd been holding it when it exploded, I'd be nothing but a fond memory right now."

Gluck took out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. "No wonder that Rodes guy was so anxious to get outta here! Those babies play rough."

CHAPTER III. — THE RAZOR IS SHARP

IT was almost two o'clock in the morning before Chick Lester got through explaining everything to the police. First, he had to explain to a precinct lieutenant who arrived with a squad of reserves to keep order on Central Park South. Then he had to go over it again with a captain of detectives who came to take charge of the headquarters men. And then he was compelled to tell the story all over to Inspector Nason, in charge of Homicide.

A city-wide alarm was put on the short wave for Anabelle Shannon and Ronald Rodes.

Chick finally managed to get away from the Northern View, and walked across to Columbus Circle. He found Abe's Tonsorial Parlor without any difficulty. It was just off the Circle, on the ground floor of a dowdy loft building. The two other street-floor stores in the structure were occupied respectively, by a second-hand book shop and by a greasy lunchroom. The barber shop was wedged in between them.

There were two barbers on duty when Chick came in, but no customers in the chairs. The only other outsider present was a plainclothes detective who was questioning the proprietor about the sandwich man.

Abe the Barber was a square-headed, gold-toothed Hungarian, with a barrel chest that almost burst the seams of his dirty white barber's jacket. He was gesticulating volubly with his hands.

"I tellink you, meestar," he said to the detective, "I no gotch no sandwiches. Dees ees barber shops. No coffee pots. No sandwiches. Go next door."

The detective sighed and started all over again. He saw Chick come in, and started to say something, but Chick shook his head warningly. He knew the detective, whose name was Harry Stevens. Stevens caught on, and gave no sign of recognizing Chick. He went to work on Abe once more.

"Listen, you dumb monkey. I don't want no sandwiches. I want to know about the man that carries the sign advertising the store. You know—haircut, shave, shampoo, hot and cold showers—"

"Ho, sure!" Abe exclaimed, flashing his gold bridge work. "You vanna get does vorks. You seet down—"

"No!" Stevens roared. He glanced helplessly at Chick, who had removed his coat and seated himself in the second chair. "Make it a shave," he said to the second barber. "A close shave."

Harry Stevens was sweating over Abe. "Look. You got a man who carries a sign for you. You know—a sign on the front and the back. Advertising."

The light of understanding came into Abe's face. "I gotcha. You mean dose bum vich carry sign." He shrugged. "I no seeink heem seence ten o'clock. He suppose come back getch paid. No comink back."

"I thought so," said Stevens. "The guy just got the job so he'd have an excuse for hanging around the Northern View. Don't you go home yet, Abe. The Inspector may want to talk to you. Stick around for a while."

Chick Lester was stretched out in the chair now, and the second barber was lathering his face. Chick looked through the lather, and noticed the fellow eyeing him queerly. He was a small, dark chap, wiry, with no expression on his dead-pan face. He saw Chick looking at him, and calmly put the brush away, and opened the razor.

THE fellow honed the blade a couple of times, then started on the right side of Chick's face. Chick could tell at once that he was an experienced barber. His touch was sure and light.

He finished the right side and turned Chick's head around to get at the left. In so doing, he got Chick's face in a position so he could see the rest of the shop.

Abe the Barber was fiddling with the radio. In a moment he had it on the short wave, and they were getting the police announcer's voice:

"All Precinct Commanders: Call all reserves to duty immediately. Hold them in readiness for further orders. All patrolmen in training, and second and third grade patrolmen will be formed into squads of six men under command of members of your precinct detective details. They will conduct street-to-street inquiries for the missing Anabelle Shannon, believed to be in danger of death...."

CHICK listened while the razor scraped his cheek and descended to his throat. He saw that Abe the Barber was listening with intentness, as if he understood everything that was being said—although his conversation with Stevens certainly wouldn't have indicated it.

He felt the razor jerk over the skin of his throat, but the man steadied his hand at once, and went on without answering. Abe the Barber scowled, and shut off the radio with a decisive click.

Chick felt his barber's hand tremble just a little, and the razor nicked him. Abe the Barber seemed to come to attention at the appearance of this man, like a soldier on parade.

The new arrival threw a quick look around the shop, out of black and luster-less eyes. He saw Chick in the chair, and the eyes blinked once, then opened and stared. A little pin-point of fire danced in each of them for an instant, and then they were veiled. The stranger turned away from Chick, and began to talk swiftly to Abe the Barber in a foreign language that might have been Hungarian, but which was Greek to Chick Lester. He ended on a rising inflection, as if asking a question. And Abe immediately picked up the ball and began to hurl back a stream of Hungarian, throwing significant glances sideways at Chick as he talked.

Chick's barber had ceased shaving him, and stood with the razor poised over his throat, watching Abe and the newcomer. At last Abe finished.

The cadaverous man smiled queerly. When he smiled he reminded Chick of one of the giant puppets he had seen in the Pharmacy Building at the World's Fair, in the puppet show where they pictured the sorcerers of the middle ages performing their obscene incantations.

Then the stranger said a few words very softly in the same foreign language, and turned to go.

Those words had not been spoken to Abe, but to Chick's barber. Chick tore his eyes from the stranger's departing back just in time to glance up and see the burning gaze of the barber fixed upon his exposed throat. The razor was coming down slowly, with the edge at an angle which would cut in right under the chin!

CHICK yelled, "Hey!" and thrust himself upright in the chair. His sudden motion brought his throat clear of the razor. The blade sliced into the cloth of his vest instead of his jugular vein.

He erupted out of the chair like a spurting volcano. His left hand caught the barber's razor-wrist, and his right came up to clutch the fellow around the back of the neck. He pushed up on the hand holding the razor, and pulled down with his hook-hold on the barber's neck. The result was that the barber's face came down against Chick's chest, while his arm went backward in a bone-breaking grip.

The two of them went sliding across the floor against the rear partition, with Chick hanging on like a bulldog, and the barber fighting madly to get his locked arm free for just one good slash with the razor.

Out of the corner of his eye, Chick got a glimpse of Abe dancing over them, with another opened razor, waiting for a chance to slice down.

Chick was underneath, and at the moment the dark-skinned barber was his best protection against Abe. The wiry fellow must have realized that, and he must have realized also that he stood very little chance of getting his own right hand free. So he changed his tactics, and tried to heave over and put Chick on top.

Chick let go his grip on the fellow's neck, and concentrated both hands on the knife-wrist. He allowed himself to be jockeyed on top, and then, gauging his timing to a nicety, he lashed out with his left foot. He heard a bellow of pain behind him, and knew he had connected with Abe's shin. For a minute he'd be free to concentrate on his antagonist.

He bore down with a wickedly crushing grip on the fellow's wrist, and elicited a grunt of pain. The fellow dropped the razor, but Chick didn't let go. He followed through, putting all his weight on that wrist. A bone crunched, and the dark-haired barber screamed.

Chick heard a rush of feet behind him, and knew that Abe was coming in again for the death-blow. He twisted his head and saw Abe's gold bridge flashing in a fearful snarl as he swung the razor down in a deadly slashing blow which was calculated to slice off half of Chick Lester's skull.

Chick heaved over, and yanked the dark-haired barber on top of him just as the razor came down. Abe yelled, but couldn't stop his swing. The blade cut deep into the neck of the dark-haired barber, and blood geysered out.

Abe the Barber growled murderously in his throat, and pulled the razor out of the dead man's neck. He swung around from the hips and came after Chick again, with the blade held up high in front of his face for a backhanded slash.

Chick skipped away from him, swept off the white sheet which was still tucked under his collar, and which had taken up most of the dead man's blood. He flipped the sheet up across his left arm, like a matador confronting a bull, and tried to catch the razor blade in it. But Abe knew all about that. He changed his position abruptly, lowering his hand and shifting the razor for an upward, hamstringing blow.

Chick said, "Nuts!" and flipped the cloth up over Abe's head. It covered his eyes for a second, and Abe started threshing about in a desperate effort to free himself, at the same time swinging wildly with the razor so as to keep Chick at arm's length.

Chick said, "Nuts!" again, and stepped around him with a beautiful exhibition of fast footwork. He brought his right up in a sweet rabbit-punch that clicked with precision, and Abe the Barber stopped yanking at the sheet. He dropped the razor, and sank down very slowly to a squatting position, and then he gently toppled over and lay still.

Chick Lester massaged his knuckles, and looked in the mirror. Half of his face was shaven, and the other half had lather on it. But the lather was mixed with blood, making it look as if he had been smeared with a strawberry-and-whip-cream sundae.

He turned at the sound of squealing brakes outside, and saw that Detective Stevens had returned in a squad car with Inspector Nason. They came rushing into the barber shop. Nason skidded to a stop, staring at the mess of blood, the dead man and Abe the Barber.

"For the love of Pete, Lester," he barked. "What the hell have you been doing here?"

CHAPTER IV. — THE NUMBER IS DISCONNECTED

THEY had a lot of trouble bringing Abe the Barber out of the peaceful slumber into which Chick's rabbit-punch had put him. And when they did, he wasn't talking.

Inspector Nason shrugged. "I'll take him downtown and book him on a murder charge. There's no bail for that. Doctor Sardo won't be able to get him out."

"All right," said Chick. "I'll go up to my hotel and put on some fresh clothes. See you at headquarters."

He took a cab to the Parkside Hotel, on Riverside Drive above Seventy-second Street. As he was crossing the lobby to the elevator, the clerk hailed him.

FOR GOD'S SAKE WHAT IS HAPPENING TO SHANNON? WE ARE HOLDING UP FIVE MILLION DOLLAR PRODUCTION WHILE SHE TRAIPSES TO NEW YORK. IF SHE GETS KILLED WE HOLD THE BAG. WHAT AM I PAYING YOU FOR? I REPEAT WHAT AM I PAYING YOU FOR?

The clerk leaned over the counter confidentially. "The young lady said to tell you, sir, that she is registered in room 704—next to yours."

"Yes, sir. She signed the register as Mary Smith. Very pretty. She looks vaguely familiar to me. Seems like I recall seeing her in the movies. But you can trust me, Mister Lester. I'm like a clam."

He hurried into the elevator and went up to the seventh. He knocked at the door of 704, and a very frightened voice asked, "Who is it?"

She opened the door, and he stormed in. He stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at her. "Well, what kind of a run-around are you giving me? Here the whole damned police department of the city is looking for you. And where do I find you? Safe and sound—in my own hotel!"

She was still dressed in her gorgeous silver-trimmed evening gown, with the sable cloak around her shoulders.

Her eyes widened. "Doctor Sardo! Why would I be afraid of him? He's a good friend of mine."

A crafty look came into Chick's eyes. "Oh! So he's a good friend of yours. He wouldn't do you any harm, would he?"

"I've phoned him. He's on his way over here now. I'm sure he'll be able to do more for me than you've done."

CHICK LESTER drew a deep breath, and held it. He lowered himself slowly to the bed, facing her. He swallowed hard, and then said, "Now just let me get this straight, Anabelle. You say you phoned Doctor Sardo, and told him you were here?"

"I see. And would it be too much for me to ask when and where he gave it to you?"

She looked at him as if he were very obtuse indeed. "Doctor Sardo is a clairvoyant. When I arrived in New York this morning, I received a phone call from him. He introduced himself to me over the phone, and warned me that my life was in danger. I scoffed at him, of course, but he insisted that he had seen the danger signs for me in his crystal ball. He said that if I found his prophecy coming true, I was to get in touch with him, and he would endeavor to get the ethereal spirits to intervene. He gave me his phone number. So when I got here, and began to think about that poisoned nail, and the taxi driver, and the horrid little man with the blowgun, I decided to call him."

Chick was holding on to himself by a great effort. "And what is Doctor Sardo's telephone number?"

"Thanks!" said Chick. He sprang up from the bed and seized the phone. "Get me Spring 7-3100!" he rapped.

"Do?" he repeated harshly. "I'm going to get Inspector Nason to raid the place where Sardo has that phone. And I'm going to have a squad of men sent up here. Sardo knows where you are. It's a cinch he'll try for you again. By the way," he went on over his shoulder, "did you know that your old pal, Ronald Rodes, is in town?"

He heard her gasp behind him, but she said nothing. He jiggled the hook impatiently. "Hey!" he called into the instrument to the hotel switchboard operator. "I want Spring 7-3100."

"Disconnected!" he barked into the phone. "Are you crazy? That's Police Headquarters!"

"Well, well, well!" said the operator. "Just think of that!" And she hung up on him.

Chick Lester got a dazed look in his eyes. He jiggled the hook sharply. "Operator!"

CHICK was too dazed to try again. He put the phone back in the cradle, and turned and looked at Anabelle Shannon.

"The strain is beginning to tell on me," he said. "Whoever this Doctor Sardo is—he's got the Indian sign on me. Do you know—he's fixed it so I can't get Police Headquarters. The operator downstairs won't put the call through for me."

Anabelle Shannon was staring at him with the look of a sleepwalker. "Did—did you say that Ronald Rodes is in town?"

"Then Doctor Sardo was right. He told me his crystal ball showed that the danger would come from someone I had known well in the past."

Chick Lester said, "My God, can't you understand that Doctor Sardo is the guy that's trying to bump you off? He told me so himself on the phone!"

Chick threw up his hands. "Anything is possible tonight." He threw a baffled look at the telephone. "Maybe I'm the one that's nuts, after all. Maybe I didn't hear what I think I heard—"

"Ah!" exclaimed Anabelle. "There's Doctor Sardo!" She hurried to the door, and Chick grimly took out his automatic.

She disregarded him entirely. She stood squarely in front of the door, and turned the knob.

Chick said, "Damn!" and jumped across and grabbed her by the arm. He pushed her over toward a corner, and pulled open the door, holding the automatic in front of him.

A huge hulk of a man came charging into the room, with a short length of lead pipe in one hairy fist.

Chick had only a single distorted glimpse of the giant's red-rimmed eyes, distorted face and matted hair. Then he was smothered by the murderous rush. The giant didn't utter a single word. He just enveloped Chick with one arm, which felt like an elephant's leg, and started to swing the lead pipe down on Chick's head.

Lester's face was buried against the brute's chest, and the heavy arm around his waist pinned his own arms to his sides. His nostrils flared with the stench of the sweating, bestial body, and then the lead pipe came down on his skull.

It felt as if a ton of masonry were pouring over him. Vaguely he heard Anabelle Shannon scream three times shrilly. Rockets were bursting inside his head from the blow, and he didn't know what he was doing until he heard the muffled, coughing bark of his own automatic, buried somewhere in the giant's stomach.

He had not willed himself to shoot, but he was pulling the trigger with a sort of instinctive reflex action.

The lead pipe came down once more against his head, and Chick felt all the strength leaving him. He slumped in the giant's grip, and his index finger had no more power to pull the trigger. This was the end. His skull would be crushed in by more blows. Whatever was happening to Anabelle, he was powerless to stop.

Suddenly he felt himself falling. He was no longer being held by that monstrous giant. He tumbled flat on his face, and a heavy body thudded down on top of him, almost knocking the remaining breath from him.

Chick tried to heave that vast bulk off him, but he didn't have the strength. His head was spinning, and when he tried to open his eyes the pain that shot through it was almost unbearable. He sank down under the weight of the giant's body, and felt hot blood pouring over him. That would be from the slugs he had pumped into the brute's stomach.

He tried to think. There was something he had to do. Someone needed him. No, it was no good. It was too painful to think. Let it go. Sleep it off....

And then, from a very great distance, he heard Anabelle's voice: "Chick! Oh my God! Chick! Help me!"

THAT did it. Something snapped in his brain. Through the rushing tide of pain that rolled across his head like angry breakers, he snapped back into full consciousness. By a supreme effort of will, he heaved and threw the inert weight of the dead giant off him. He stumbled blindly to his knees, forced his eyes open.

Pain rocketed through his head and blood obscured his vision. What he managed to see brought him to his feet.

Anabelle was in the far corner of the room, behind the bed. She had picked up the floor lamp, and was using it desperately to fend off the attack of a creature that might have come straight out of a nightmare.

It was a man. But it was snarling and drooling like an animal. It had long buck teeth, and its lips were bleeding where it had bitten them in its murderous passion. It—or he—had a long straight knife. He was on the bed, poised in a half crouch, with the knife held low like a sword, and he was swaying from side to side in an effort to take Anabelle Shannon off guard.

She was standing behind the back frame of the bed, with the floor lamp in both hands like a lance, and poking it out desperately at the maniac, trying to fend him off.

The maniac stretched his free hand out to seize the end of the lamp, and she thrust at him with it. It missed, and he seized it, swept it out of her grip, and uttered a little drooling cry as he sprang in with the knife.

That much Chick saw. He raised the automatic and pulled the trigger. But all he got was an empty click. He must have emptied it into the giant.

The maniac lunged at Anabelle with the knife, and she screamed and ducked down behind the bed frame. He came after her, bouncing on the bed spring, and reached over to stab down at her.

Chick was weaving unsteadily on his feet. He clamped his teeth shut, and hurled the empty automatic. It struck the maniac between the shoulder blades, but there wasn't enough force in the throw to do him any harm. He turned around, saw Chick, and uttered a savage snarl. He bent his knees and took a flying leap from the bed toward Chick, with the knife flashing in his hand.

Chick dropped to the floor, and the maniac landed almost alongside him, with the knife swinging down. Chick rolled over, and the knife slashed his coat.

The maniac jumped up into the air, and landed on top of Chick in a crouch, like a beast of prey about to make a kill. Chick had no more strength. He could just barely raise an arm in a futile attempt to ward off the blow.

The maniac's face was directly over his, and he looked down at Chick with a mad, blood-lustful gloating. He smacked his lips in delighted anticipation, and lifted up the knife, poising it over Chick's throat. Then he swept it down in a powerful thrust.

The floor lamp came sailing through the air and hit the maniac squarely in the face. It carried him back, and broke the force of the thrust. He flailed the air.

Chick Lester gathered all his strength into one effort. He sat up and swung around onto his knees, facing the maniac, who had untangled himself from the floor lamp and was getting ready to come in again.

Chick waited for him to charge. The maniac glared for an instant over at Anabelle, who was desperately looking for something else to throw, and then he gurgled madly in his throat and lunged at Chick with the knife.

CHICK dropped back flat on the floor, bracing himself with his outstretched arms. He lifted up his left foot to meet the murderous charge. His foot connected with the maniac's stomach, and the killer's momentum carried him on and up into the air, riding on Chick's foot. Chick straightened his leg, and the maniac went hurtling over him to crash head first into the wall.

There was a terrible crunching sound, and the madman dropped to the floor like a dead weight, with his skull cracked.

Chick got unsteadily to his feet, and felt of his head. There was blood all over it, and his fingers touched an open spot where the lead pipe had ripped it.

Anabelle Shannon came over and helped to steady him. "Chick!" she gasped. "You're hurt!"

He grinned. "Not as bad as these two bozos. That was nice work, kid—throwing that floor lamp. What do you think of Doctor Sardo now?"

The phone started to ring, and Chick stumbled over to it and picked it up. His throat was tight, and his mouth was salty with blood, so he just said, "Huh?"

At once he recognized the voice at the other end. "Hello, my little one. Have you done your work well with the knife? Is she dead?"

Chick was stuck. He couldn't impersonate the maniac any longer. "Big Bollio and Little Bollio—or whatever his name is—are right up here, Doctor Sardo," he said. "And I'm coming down for you—if you care to stick around!"

Doctor Sardo's voice came back through the phone in an exclamation of rage. Then it softened. "You are very hard to kill, Mister Lester. But I am a resourceful man. I have many more servants. I advise you to step out of the picture now. Leave Shannon to me, and you may still save your own life."

"Boy," said Chick, "I'm going to personally supervise your burial. And you better work fast, because I'm going to get a police guard for Shannon. Don't you want to come up here and try it yourself?"

"No, no, Mister Lester. I have better ways. And don't be too sure about getting the police guard. Good-bye for the immediate present, Mister Lester. You'll hear from me later."

Chick put down the phone and turned and found Anabelle sobbing on the bed, with her face buried in her arms.

He staggered over to where the dead giant lay, and managed to push the body over far enough to retrieve his automatic. His hands were fairly steady as he took out the empty clip and inserted a fresh one.

CHAPTER V. — LIGHTS OUT!

HE went over and lifted Anabelle gently from the bed. "Come on," he said. "We're going downstairs and see what's been going on."

She buried her face against his shoulder so as not to look at the bloody mess, and he led her out to the elevator. The cage was at his floor, with the door open. The night elevator operator lay on the floor of the elevator in a welter of blood. Big Bollio and Little Bollio must have forced him to take them up, and then finished him.

Chick held Anabelle close to him while he operated the lever and sent the cage downward. They came out into the lobby. It was empty. The clock above the clerk's desk showed 4 A. M. The night clerk was on the floor behind the desk. He wasn't dead, but he was unconscious, with a lump on the back of his head the size of an egg.

Chick led Anabelle around behind the desk, and into the switchboard room. He kept his automatic out and ready, in case Doctor Sardo had remained. But the room was vacant, except for the night switchboard operator, a plump little brunette, who was lying on the floor, bound and gagged.

Chick took the gag off, and she promptly fainted. He got some water and brought her around, and she told how she had heard the sound of a scuffle out at the desk, and how a tall, gaunt man had come in, with a black-haired insane-looking woman. The gaunt man had covered her with a gun, and tied her up, and the black-haired woman had taken her place at the switchboard.

"There's very little telephone traffic at this time of morning," she told Chick, "and your call was the only one that came through. I heard her telling you the number was disconnected. Then that terrible man who looked like a walking ghost plugged in and called your room and talked to you. He hung up in a terrible rage, and I thought he was going to kill me. But he must have forgotten me in his anger. He and the woman went away, and then you came down."

"All right," said Chick. "Plug in and call headquarters. Get Inspector Nason, quick. I may not last much longer."

His head was whirling like a weather-vane in a windstorm. He had a funny feeling at the pit of his stomach, and he was still feeling the warm blood trickling down his face from the wound in his scalp. But he held on to himself, and turned around to Anabelle Shannon.

"Baby," he said, "from now on you're going to walk around with a police guard like the Queen of England. And you're taking the next plane back to Hollywood."

"I'm sorry, Chick." said Anabelle Shannon. "I don't want a police guard. And I'm not going back to Hollywood—yet. There's—something I must do."

"Listen, Shannon," he growled. "Metzger wants you back. I'm not taking any more chances. You're holding out on me, and I'm not playing sucker any more. You'll go back—and you'll like it!"

She looked at him for a long minute, as if appraising his strength, his condition.

Then she said quietly, "Thanks for everything, Chick. I'm sorry you got hurt so badly. And I'm sorry I can't do as you ask. I know I'm in awful danger. But I've—got to go through with it!"

Chick guessed what she was going to do, and he reached out to make a grab for her, but she slipped back agilely, and ran out into the lobby.

"Hey!" he yelled, and went after her. He rounded the desk, stumbling over the clerk's inert figure, and saw her pushing through the revolving doors. She turned and waved to him with her handbag, and kept going.

Chick broke into a run, and suddenly he felt very weak. The throbbing in his head became intensified, and his stomach tightened into a knot. He stumbled, tried to catch his balance, but it was no good. He crashed to the floor. He wasn't entirely unconscious, but he just couldn't get back on his feet. There was no chance of catching Anabelle Shannon. She'd be too far away by now.

And Doctor Sardo.... Doctor Sardo might be waiting out there with more of his murderous maniacs. Frantically, Chick tried to get up. That last effort finished him. He lapsed into unconsciousness.

"HE'S coming round now," someone said. "My God, the guy can take it. Six stitches in his head...."

Chick opened his eyes. He was in a nice, light hospital room, and the sun was shafting in through the window to caress the foot of his bed.

Inspector Nason was there, and so was Dan Metzger, the big boss of American National Pictures.

Metzger was short and stocky, with a high forehead and a gleaming bald dome. His eyes were keen and brilliant, and his mouth was soft and sensitive—indicating a combination of natural characteristics which accounted for his phenomenal success in the motion picture industry.

"I flew in from Hollywood during the night. Chartered a plane when I got no answer to my telegram."

Chick pushed up on his elbows. His head was wrapped in bandages, but he didn't feel so bad physically.

"Eight o'clock," Inspector Nason told him. "We picked you up on the floor of the Parkside lobby, and brought you here."

Nason shook his head. "We can't locate her. The reserves are out. They're combing the city. But not a buzz. When she walked out of the Parkside, she seems to have disappeared into thin air."

Chick groaned. "She's in some kind of mess, and she won't confide in anyone. I hate to think of her wandering around—with Sardo after her!"

"Look here, Chick," said Metzger. "If Shannon gets killed, it'll ruin American National. We got five million dollars tied up in the biggest spectacle of the year, and we'll have to junk it if Shannon doesn't finish for us."

"To hell with your five million!" snapped Chick. "What about Shannon? She's the dizziest dame on two feet—but if anything happens to her, I'll break Doctor Sardo's neck with my own two hands!"

He swung around to Nason. "What about Ronald Rodes? Have you picked him up yet?"

The Inspector shook his head. "He's just as scarce as Shannon. I've sent his description out on the five-state teletype, in case he tries to skip town. And we've been checking over these lunatics that Sardo uses. Every one of them has a homicidal mania, and every one of them escaped from asylums in the last year. He must have helped them escape, and then kept them somewhere till he was ready to use them. According to the records of escapes from asylums in the past year, there are still nine or ten maniacs unaccounted for."

"Which means," Chick said tightly, "that Sardo has nine or ten more tools with which to try to kill Shannon!"

"But it's so damnably fantastic!" Inspector Nason snorted. "Why the hell does this Sardo want to kill Shannon!"

"He told me it was worth a million dollars to him," Chick muttered. He looked questioningly at Metzger. "Would you know anything about that? How could Shannon be worth that much to anybody—dead? Has she got money?"

Metzger shrugged. "At the four thousand a week I pay her, she has saved up a sizeable estate. I handle some of her investments, so I know. She even owns a thousand shares of American National Pictures."

"Her sister, Florence, gets practically all of it. Florence is only a year younger, and the two of them look pretty much alike. In fact, Florence used to act as Anabelle's stand-in up to a few months ago, when she got sick."

Chick sat up in bed. "Sick?" His eyes were glittering. "What's the matter with her?"

Metzger shrugged. "Nobody ever knew exactly. It was some family ailment. Florence started acting queer on the set one day, and she was taken home. Then Anabelle announced that she had been sent East to a sanitarium."

"Well, telephone Hollywood and find out! This may be the key to the whole thing. Me, I got to be doing things!"

"To hell with that! If I waste any more time around here, Shannon may not be in much shape for your damned picture. I have an idea Sardo may be close to his goal by this time!"

HE tried to stand, and got dizzy. Inspector Nason supported him, and he sat down on the bed again.

"You better rest a while longer," Nason said. "The police are doing everything possible...."

"No, no!" said Chick. "I got to be doing this myself. Anabelle doesn't want the police in this, for some reason. She'll let herself be killed rather than have the police. But she might trust me, in a jam."

The door of the hospital room opened, and a sleek young hospital interne came in, with a stethoscope hanging around his neck.

The doctor came over to the bed. "Just let me look you over, and if you're all right, I'll discharge you. It'll only take a couple of minutes."

Chick looked up at the interne. He had a very thin face, and eyes that bulged a little. His hair was carefully slicked back, and parted in the middle.

"All right," Chick said, suddenly acquiescent. "If you want to look me over, go ahead."

"Ah," said the doctor. "That's better." He turned to Metzger and Inspector Nason. "If you two gentlemen will kindly step out—"

But Metzger broke in, "Come on, Inspector. We can wait in the hall. There's a couple of things I want to talk over with you."

The doctor's bulging eyes bulged just a little more. He rubbed his hands. "Ah, that's fine. Let's listen to your heart."

Chick obeyed, and the interne listened again, nodding in satisfaction. "Very good. Nice recovery. If you'll just turn over on your face, now."

He rolled over on the bed, and the doctor lifted his pajama jacket over his head.

For a fraction of a second there was deadly silence in the room. Chick, with his head partly covered, heard the barest sound of a click near the door, and the doctor's footsteps returning to the bed. He forced himself to lie rigid while he counted to five. And then, without raising his head or looking around, he set his body in motion and rolled over on the bed.

His timing was perfect. The heavy water pitcher from the night table smashed down into the pillow where Chick's head had just been. The doctor had it by the handle, and he had brought it down with such force that it broke, even against the soft, unresisting pillow. If Chick had been under it, his head would have split open all over again.

The doctor let go of the pitcher, and straightened up. He faced Chick, and bared his teeth in a crooked smile.

Chick said, "Yeah. Some fun. What happens now? I yell, and the Inspector comes in, and your goose is cooked. Are you another one of Doctor Sardo's madmen?"

THE interne's long face grew longer with rage. His eyes protruded grotesquely. "So you think I'm mad, eh? That's what they all think. I hate them all. I'd have been a great physician if they hadn't put me away. It's people like you I hate. That's why I'm going to kill you!"

"Go on and yell!" the doctor slobbered. "Didn't you hear me lock the door? You'll be dead before they break it down!"

He brought out his hand. It didn't have a gun. He was holding a surgical scalpel. The fine Swedish steel glittered in the sunlight. He started to come around the bed toward Chick.

"You sap!" Chick Lester hurried on desperately. "Maybe you can kill me with that thing. But you'll fry in the chair."

"Ah, no!" the doctor mouthed the words. "They've certified me insane. They don't execute insane people. They'll just put me back in Matteawan, and I'll wait there till Doctor Sardo helps me escape again. I have nothing to fear. This—is—an—unqualified—pleasure!"

"The pleasure is all yours!" Chick gasped as he ducked away from a vicious swipe of the scalpel, aimed at his stomach. He felt dizzy and weak, and he didn't think he was equal to the exertion of fighting. This madman was different from the others; he was educated and clever. His warped brain had turned that education and cleverness into a deadly instrument for Doctor Sardo.

The doctor lunged again. Chick jumped on the bed and rolled to the other side. His executioner followed him with leisurely steps.

"You'll tire very quickly, you know. You're weak from your other wounds. When you're all tired out and can't move fast, I'll just step in and—operate."

Chick picked up a chair and held it in front of him as a shield. He backed over to the door, and tried it. Outside, he heard voices raised in excited altercation.

A woman was saying, "I tell you, there's an impostor in the hospital. I ought to know. I'm the head nurse, and I know every doctor here. The one I saw wasn't on the staff, yet he wore a white coat!"

Chick looked over at the interne with the knife. He was coming forward slowly now, stalking around Chick, waiting for a chance to dart in around the chair. Chick thrust the chair at him, with the legs poking forward, and the interne leaped nimbly back.

Nason and several others began pounding at the door. Chick took one hand off the chair and felt around for the door catch, to open it.

The interne said regretfully. "It's too bad. I had hoped to carve you. It's much more satisfying. Now I'll just have to shoot you."

He switched the scalpel to his left hand, and reached his right into a hip pocket, bringing it out with a pearl-handled pistol.

Chick wouldn't have time to slip the catch on the door. Even if he got it open, he'd be plugged before help could come.

He said, "What the hell!" Holding the chair in front of him with both hands, he ran right into the pointing pistol.

The gun barked twice, but the chair deflected it. The interne was carried backward by the force of Chick's rush, and he lost his balance. He went staggering back, clawing for balance, and hit the window sill. Chick was almost on top of him, with the chair pushing against the interne's stomach. The chair shoved harder into the white-coated killer's stomach, and he went through the window.

The fellow's popping eyes almost jumped from their sockets, and his mouth opened wide. A dreadful scream tore from his throat. Then he was hurtling out into space, and Chick was grabbing at the window frame to keep from going over himself.

Chick looked down and saw the crushed figure in white, six stories below, with a crowd already hurrying to surround it. Gasping for breath, he turned and went over to the door.

Nason was hammering at it with the butt of his revolver. The commotion in the corridor stopped like magic when Chick got the door open.

Chick made a little weary gesture with his hand toward the window. "He took a walk." He went over to the clothes rack, resolutely. "And now, for the love of mud, let me get some clothes on and scram out of here. I've got things to do!"

CHAPTER VI. — MAD-HOUSE OF MURDER

WHEN he got dressed Chick didn't look very presentable, because his clothes were the same bloody ones in which he had been brought to the hospital. He had a nice clean face though, for he had been freshly shaved in the hospital.

Nason had gone down to look over the dead interne, and Metzger had left to phone Hollywood and find out where Florence Shannon was being treated. Just as Chick finished dressing, Metzger came back, with a slip of paper.

"This is all I could get," he said, exhibiting the notes he had made. "She was taken away from Hollywood in a private ambulance on May 22nd, and put in a special compartment on the train. She arrived in New York on the twenty-fifth, and was met there by another private ambulance, operated by the Nestor Ambulance Service. But I don't know where she was taken here in New York. It's nine o'clock here, but it's still only five in the morning in Hollywood, and the office isn't open yet."

"All right," said Chick. "Stay on the phone—right here in the hospital. I'll call you in a little while." He flipped open the phone book and found that the Nestor Ambulance Service was on Thirty-fourth Street.

"For God's sake, be careful," Metzger warned. "If you get Shannon out of this safely, I'll give you a nice fat bonus."

"To hell with the bonus!" Chick growled. "All I want is a chance for a private chat with Doctor Sardo!"

The driver looked him over queerly. "Sure you're all right, mister? I don't mind saying you look an awful mess."

They got to Thirty-fourth and Eighth in fifteen minutes, and Chick told the driver to wait.

The office of the Nestor Service was on the street floor. When he walked in, the woman at the desk almost fainted.

"Listen, madam," he said swiftly. "This is a matter of life and death. Get down your records and find out where Florence Shannon was taken by one of your ambulances on May 25th!"

She raised her eyebrows. "Just a minute. I'll call the manager and let you talk to him."

She left her desk and went to a door at the back. Chick could see a staircase leading to an upper floor, and behind the staircase there was another door to an open yard where the ambulances were garaged. At the rear was a glass-partitioned office, but she did not go there. Instead, she started to mount the stair-case.

Chick's eyes followed her, and he suddenly grew taut. Up at the head of the stairs, he had seen a shadowy figure flitting past, and he thought for an instant that he recognized the face.

The woman was gone almost ten minutes. Chick fidgeted, and was just about deciding to go up after her, when she appeared and came down the stairs. She had a paper in her hand.

She came to the desk, and smiled at him, and when she smiled her face became queerly distorted. Her hair was coal black, contrasting sharply with a chalk-white face.

She handed it to him, and he was about to take it when he saw that she had a queer, tense look in her face. She was watching him, he realized, like a scientist studying an impaled bug.

INSTEAD of taking the paper, he seized her wrist, and twisted it over. She tried to jerk away, but he held on tight, lifted up her hand. The paper was blank on both sides. And between her third and fourth fingers, under the paper, she was holding a pin about three inches long, with a round black knob for a head. She had been holding it in such a way that if Chick had taken the paper, he could not have avoided pricking himself on it. The pin itself was white, but the point was discolored with a reddish liquid.

The woman's face became contorted with rage. She brought her other hand around and clawed at his face. He caught the other wrist too, and tried to hold her, but she fought like a wildcat. Their bodies were close together, and she was biting and scratching and kicking, all at the same time.

Chick tried to push her away. The pin fell from her fingers, and came to rest between their straining chests, with the point against the woman. She didn't notice it, and kept on struggling, stretching her neck to try to bite Chick's face.

The pin went through the material of her dress and pierced the skin. Almost at once, the woman became rigid. A dreadful look appeared in her eyes. Her mouth fell open, and stayed that way, as if in a seizure of lockjaw. Her body arched backward. A cry like that of a hamstrung animal pulsed through her lips.

Chick let go of her. She toppled over against the desk, and lay still and stiff in death.

Chick wiped perspiration from his forehead. He looked down at the rigid body, and gulped. Her face, in death, was like nothing human. Madness and depravity were reflected in every feature, as if some diabolical sculptor had applied his mad genius to carving a stone image of all that is obscene in the world.

Chick turned away from her, took out his automatic. He went up the stairs two at a time, sloughing off all the weakness of his hurt and wounded body in the sudden realization that this shot in the dark had landed him right in the middle of the showdown. He was as sure of it as if this were a motion picture whose script he had read beforehand. He knew that the sinister pattern of madness and murder was going to play out its kaleidoscopic course in the next few minutes. With the sureness of instinct, he knew that he would clash with Doctor Sardo here. And the only thing he prayed for was that Anabelle Shannon might yet be alive....

Chick raced up the rest of the way, and hit the landing at top speed. There was nobody here. He was in a hall, with doors on either side. But the doors were all closed. There wasn't a sound in the place.

For a moment Chick wondered whether it wouldn't be smarter for him to go back down and get the police. He'd need help. He couldn't go through this whole place by himself.

He was half turning around to go down, when one of the doors on the right was suddenly flung open. A struggling, squirming group came lunging through into the hall—two men and a woman.

The faces of the men were brutish, half-maniacal. One of them was abnormally tall, with dangling arms that reached almost to his knees. The other had a head that was almost twice as big as it should have been, and a mouth that seemed to be altogether devoid of teeth, yet which slobbered and foamed like a beast's. His two gnarled hands were twisting and yanking at the woman's hair, holding her back while she clawed and fought. The tall one had a length of cord in his hands, and he was trying to pass it around the woman's throat—with the evident intention of strangling her.

The woman had her back to Chick. She was fighting madly, inching farther and farther into the hallway, and holding her hair so that the big-headed man should not pull it out by the roots.

Chick got only a split-second's impression of that scene. The tall one was just bringing the cord in place to slip around her neck. Then the woman kicked at Big-head's shins, and he squealed and let go of her hair. She ducked and ran toward Chick.

SHE was hardly recognizable. Her face was changed. There was madness and terror in it, and her eyes were somehow of a different color. Most of the clothes were gone from her, and what was left was hanging in shreds. Her white limbs flashed as she raced toward Chick, with the two madmen close behind her.

She saw Chick and ran into his arms. He grimly raised his automatic, pointing it at the two madmen.

Anabelle Shannon threw both her arms around Chick, dragging his own arms down to his sides and pinning them there with a desperate, passionate strength. She locked her wrists behind his back and pressed her body against his with all her power.

Then she called out to the two madmen, "All right, Gus, grab him quick. Hurry up, Vincie, get the rope around his neck. I can't hold him long!"

Chick silently cursed himself for a fool. He hadn't realized it until she spoke. This wasn't Anabelle Shannon!

It was too late now to do anything about it. Gus and Vincie were upon him, and Gus was getting a grip on his arms, while Vincie danced around for a chance to slip the rope in place. The woman who looked like Anabelle Shannon let go and leaned against the wall, watching with mad amusement in her eyes. Her struggle in the doorway with Gus and Vincie had been only an act, to take Chick Lester off guard.

Gus was in back of Chick now, and he held both of Chick's wrists in a bear grip, while the tall and gangling Vincie had his rope in a loop and was holding it above Chick's head, trying to drop it around his neck.

Chick couldn't free his wrists. He backed suddenly into Gus, just as Vincie's loop came down. The loop missed, and Vincie looked annoyed.

Several of the doors along the hall had opened now, and Chick got a quick view of queer and distorted faces watching the fight with evident relish. In one doorway he saw the gaunt and cadaverous man who had ordered his execution in the barber shop.

He caught quick, flashing glimpses of all these things as he struggled with Gus. Gus had his wrists locked together, and was bearing down on them, so that Chick was being pulled backward, with his head up. This made it easier for Vincie to drop the loop over his head.

Vincie's eyes were hot with the mad anticipation of murder. He stretched his long, prehensile arms out as far as possible, and slipped the noose over Chick's squirming head. It settled on his neck.

CHICK put all his waning strength into one powerful kick that caught Vincie in the groin and brought a scream to his lips.

With the cord still around his neck, Chick started to fall backward against Gus, who tried to sidestep. He tripped on something, and fell heavily to the floor, with Lester on top of him.

In the doorway of his office, the cadaverous man rapped out staccato orders to the other lunatics, who had been watching the fight with detached interest.

"Get him, boys!" he bawled. "And no noise. The Shannon girl is coming here any minute now, and we don't want to scare her off!"

Almost before the cadaverous man ceased speaking, the slavering band of lunatics leaped in, with hoarse grunts and weird jabberings. There were seven or eight of them, and they piled on, clawing, scratching, gouging and biting. Chick was snowed under.

They had him down then, and were raining blows upon him in an effort to finish him off. Chick squirmed under the onslaught, covering his head with one arm and trying to push himself up out of the murderous maelstrom with the other. His left hand, groping on the floor for purchase, encountered the butt of the automatic which had been forced out of his hand when Gus had grabbed him.

A mad surge of hope thrilled through him. Anabelle Shannon wasn't dead. Somehow, she was being lured here. He still had a chance to stave off the maniacal doom which threatened her.

He gripped the butt of the automatic, and twisted it around upward. He couldn't tell exactly where it was pointing, but the bodies were thick and smelly all about and on top of him, and he couldn't help hitting someone.

The shot was almost entirely muffled by the struggling bodies packed on top of him, but he heard the thud of the slug as it smashed home in human flesh. His lips twisted with grim satisfaction as he pulled the trigger again and again.

The blows which had been raining down on him suddenly ceased. One of the lunatics squealed. Somebody else yelped with pain.

The pressure began to lift from off his back as the madmen jumped up and fled to avoid the scorching slugs. A body remained limply across the small of his back, and he heaved over, threw it off.

Groggily, he staggered to his feet. The madmen had retreated to their doorways. The gaunt, cadaverous man had produced a long-barreled revolver, which he was resting on one arm and aiming at Chick's heart.

At Chick's left, up against the wall, stood the woman who looked like Anabelle Shannon. She was making no attempt to hide her nakedness, and she was laughing and giggling as if at a huge joke.

Chick stared at the cadaverous man's revolver. There wasn't a chance to beat that gun.

He shrugged, let the automatic fall to the floor. "You win. Doctor Sardo—so far."

CHAPTER VII. — "DOCTOR SARDO ALWAYS WINS!"

DOCTOR SARDO smiled a vinegary smile. "Of course I win, my young friend. Doctor Sardo always wins." He kept his eyes on Chick, and slapped out orders at the lunatics, who were creeping out into the hall again.

There were three bodies on the floor at Chick's feet, and Sardo instructed some of the lunatics to remove them into one of the rooms.

"Gus and Vincie," he ordered, "go downstairs and see what happened to our receptionist. Clear the office downstairs, so that when Shannon comes, she'll suspect nothing. Hurry."

Gus and Vincie threw vindictive looks at Chick. "Don't shoot him, Doctor Sardo," Vincie begged. "Save him for me. I like to use my little cord."

He turned his attention to Chick. "Now, Mr. Lester, if you'll just step in here—"

Chick grinned. "Why should I? And be saved for Vincie's cord? To hell with you! Shoot me now. A good loud shot from that gun of yours ought to bring the cops."

Sardo kept the gun steady, with the barrel resting across his forearm. "But you would be dead, Mr. Lester. What good would it do you?"

"It would save Anabelle Shannon," he said simply. "I hardly believe it possible, but I'm falling in love with that dizzy dame."

Suddenly a voice from the head of the stairs exclaimed, "Chick! Do you really love me?"

Chick Lester went icy with apprehension. He whirled, and there stood Anabelle Shannon. She had just come up the stairs, and Ronald Rodes was behind her.

Doctor Sardo said suavely, "Ah. Miss Shannon, I'm glad you came. We can finish you off quickly now, together with your friend here."

She broke off as her glance fell upon the half-naked girl who was now cowering against the wall, close to Doctor Sardo.

"N-nothing, Anabelle," quavered Florence Shannon. "Ronald and I were—m-married last week, and Ronald said this man Lester was trying to kill you. So I s-said I'd help them get Lester."

Ronald Rodes, who had been standing just behind Anabelle, suddenly reached out and pinioned her arms against her sides.

"All right," Rodes called out gruffly to Doctor Sardo. "We've got 'em all. What are we waiting for?"

Chick Lester was standing in a half-crouch, gathering all his mental and physical faculties. He was beginning to see all the mad and senseless lines falling into shape to form the weirdest pattern of murder he had ever encountered.

ANABELLE SHANNON was trying ineffectually to twist around in the grip of Ronald Rodes.

"You beast!" she flashed over her shoulder at Rodes. "You told me you'd fix everything if I gave you fifty thousand dollars. You told me you'd free Florence—"

Rodes laughed. "Anabelle, you've saved up almost two million dollars out of your salary. I heard Metzger say so. Why should I take fifty grand, when I can get the whole thing?"

"I understand!" Chick Lester laughed harshly. "Rodes is Florence's husband. He couldn't marry you, so he married Florence. With you dead, Florence inherits your whole estate. And since she's an incompetent, her husband manages the money. Maybe he'll even finish off Florence, too, so he won't have to account for his expenditures—such as half of the two million to Doctor Sardo here, for the use of his lunatics. Don't you see, Anabelle, with these lunatics running wild, your murder would be ascribed to the lust of these madmen, and Rodes would never be suspected. He needed a good, wacky setup to divert suspicion from himself!"

Chick was looking at Anabelle as he talked, swiftly and desperately, in order to get in everything he wanted to say before Sardo started shooting. But his staccato sentences were really aimed at Florence, who was listening in a dazed, uncomprehending sort of way. Florence was certainly mentally deranged. And she had, in her half-witted manner, taken everything Sardo had told her at face value. If he could only make the deadly truth seep into her consciousness through the veil of madness that sat like a black cloak over her mind! But the time was so short!

The lunatics were closing in again, circling in back of Chick to get at him without stepping into the line of fire of Sardo's gun.

"Our bodies will be found somewhere in the city." Chick hurried on, with frantic emphasis. "We'll be brutally murdered, all three of us—Anabelle and myself, and you, too, Florence!"

Ronald Rodes tightened his grip on Anabelle's arms. He pushed her forward. "Come on," he rasped. "Let's finish this—"

The single word came like a horrible, wailing wrench of agony from the throat of the demented Florence Shannon.

She was standing close to Doctor Sardo, and looking at him with wide and terrible eyes. "Is it true—what that man has been saying? Are you going to kill Anabelle? Did Ronald only marry me to get the money?"

Sardo laughed deprecatingly. "Don't listen to him. Florence. He's crazier than all of us. Just you wait—"

"No! No!" she screamed. Somehow, all the madness seemed to fall away from her for one flashing, revealing instant of reason. "Oh, Anabelle, may God forgive me for what I've done! Maybe I can make it up this way...."

Her hands stretched out in clawing talons, and she leaped straight at Doctor Sardo!

SARDO cursed viciously, and swung the gun around to point at her. He pulled the trigger. The gun belched, and a slug blasted out of the muzzle with a lick of flame, smashing into the girl's breast. It brought her up short. A strange, glorious look, like that of a Christian martyr, transformed her face into a thing of heavenly beauty. She forced herself forward, with her hands stretched out toward Sardo, as if to offer him benediction.

He had not thought there was any fight left in him. But in some strange fashion the sight of what Florence had done seemed to pour power into his deadened muscles. His arms flailed out like twin scythes, smashing the encircling lunatics out of his path. His knees bent, then straightened, jackknifing him directly at Sardo. He hit the cadaverous master of madmen square in the midriff with the edge of his shoulder, and sent him hurtling back into the wall with a thudding smash of bone against wood that made his heart feel good.

His hand swept down, snatched up the revolver that Sardo had dropped. He twisted around on his knees, bringing the gun up and firing it in the same continuous motion.

The lunatics were almost upon him as the gun started to belch, and the hot slugs tore into them with blasting deadliness. They fell under the fusillade, piling on top of each other. The rush was brought up short. Those who were unwounded turned and ran, keening mad and frantic ululations of fear which rose to mingle with the thunderous reverberations of Chick's gunshots.

Their terror-stricken flight carried them to the head of the stairs, where Ronald Rodes was holding a struggling, biting Anabelle Shannon. The lunatics swept them both out of the way and fairly fell down the stairs in their efforts to escape the thundering slugs.

Chick launched himself across the hall. He reached Ronald Rodes just as he was lifting a bundled fist to smash down at Anabelle's face.

Chick uttered a wild and throbbing laugh as he caught Rodes' wrist in both his hands. He had thrown away the empty revolver. He bore down hard on the wrist, and Rodes let go his hold on Anabelle.

Chick twisted powerfully on the wrist, dragged Rodes backward. The man's face had gone suddenly white with pain.

Chick laughed again, leaning his whole weight on the twisted arm. He was too weak now to hold Rodes any other way, and besides, he didn't want to let go. He felt Ronald Rodes' elbow crack under the pressure with a sound like the snapping of fingers.

Rodes groaned terribly, and his body went limp. He plumped to the floor in a faint.

Chick was swaying on his feet. He looked at Anabelle Shannon, who had run across to the pitiful body of her sister. Florence was dead. But there was a beatific smile upon her lips.

Downstairs, they heard the gruff voices of policemen. Heavy footsteps were coming up the stairs.

ANABELLE saw Chick swaying, groping for something to support him, and she came running over. She put her arms around him, to hold him up.

There was a haze in front of his eyes. The wound in his head had opened up again, and he felt things going black. But he suddenly felt Anabelle's lips upon his, in a kiss such as no leading man in any of her pictures had ever received.

"Chick!" she said huskily. "Chick! I heard you tell Sardo you—loved me. Chick. I love you, too. I'll—never—fight with you again. I'll—be meek—and docile—and—"

"Hell," said Chick Lester. "That's no good. You wouldn't be Anabelle Shannon if you were meek and docile. Just—stay the way you—are. I—can—handle you—baby!"

And he slumped into unconsciousness, with a smile on his lips, as the hurrying cops reached the landing.

THE END

EMILE C. TEPPERMAN

DEATH SENDS HIS MANIACS

A SMASHING, AMAZING NOVEL OF WEIRD CRIME

First published in Strange Detective Mysteries, November 1939

This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2020
Version Date:2020-10-23
Produced by Matthias Kaether and Roy Glashan

All content added by RGL is proprietary and protected by copyright.

Click here for more books by this author

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. — BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

CHAPTER II. — WITH THE KILLER'S COMPLIMENTS

CHAPTER III. — THE RAZOR IS SHARP

CHAPTER IV. — THE NUMBER IS DISCONNECTED

CHAPTER V. — LIGHTS OUT!

CHAPTER VI. — MAD-HOUSE OF MURDER

CHAPTER VII. — "DOCTOR SARDO ALWAYS WINS!"

THE END

EMILE C. TEPPERMAN

DEATH SENDS HIS MANIACS

A SMASHING, AMAZING NOVEL OF WEIRD CRIME

First published in Strange Detective Mysteries, November 1939 This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2020 Version Date:2020-10-23 Produced by Matthias Kaether and Roy Glashan All content added by RGL is proprietary and protected by copyright. Click here for more books by this author

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. — BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

CHAPTER II. — WITH THE KILLER'S COMPLIMENTS

CHAPTER III. — THE RAZOR IS SHARP

CHAPTER IV. — THE NUMBER IS DISCONNECTED

CHAPTER V. — LIGHTS OUT!

CHAPTER VI. — MAD-HOUSE OF MURDER

CHAPTER VII. — "DOCTOR SARDO ALWAYS WINS!"

THE END

First published in Strange Detective Mysteries, November 1939

This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2020
Version Date:2020-10-23
Produced by Matthias Kaether and Roy Glashan

All content added by RGL is proprietary and protected by copyright.

Click here for more books by this author