Death from Nowhere (25 page)

“About one third of any group of persons can be hypnotized into the deep or somnambulist stage. Another third can be put into a light sleep, and the remaining third get a straight zero rating as hypnotic subjects. With hypnotism you could make a person think he saw your astral double appear beside you; you could convince him that he saw a dagger float in midair.

“But he'd have to be one of the one-third that are good subjects and he'd have to cooperate in the experiment. Shivara can't be using a method like that because he'll pop out with his miracles for anyone at almost any time. And he never fails.

“Miss Allison saw him work and she's completely non-hypnotic. I know because I've tried her. And, though it's hard to tell without a trial, I don't think Inspector Church would do so well as a subject either. You can take it from me that hypnotism is out.”

Don nodded. “That's what I thought too. But I wanted to hear a psychologist say it. I was beginning to be afraid that maybe my reading on the subject was out of date.”

Woody had an objection too. “Even if it were hypnotism,” he said, “it wouldn't explain Richards' death when Shivara was in the living room with you. The dagger really killed Richards. I didn't just think it did. Don, look! There's Pat!”

“Pat? Where?”

“The car at the curb just ahead. They didn't go to the theater after—”

Don Diavolo pulled to a stop alongside the car Woody had pointed out. Pat, seeing them said, “Hello, boys. If you're looking for a mislaid Hindu, he just went in that house three doors down, the one with the doctor's card in the window. Is he sick?”

Woody and Don threw questions at her both together. Woody wanted to know, “Why aren't you at the theater?” and Don asked, “Where's Mickey?”

“We figured that if we kept an eye on the Sayre mansion we might get more excitement for our money. We were right. Mickey's at the corner drugstore phoning to give you our latest bulletins from the front.”

“Good,” Don said. “You're relieved of active duty. Stick here until we come out. If you move a foot, I'll have Karl fix that guillotine so that it really does work!”

His last words floated back over his shoulder as he ran madly toward the doctor's house.

C
HAPTER
XII

Rogue Hunt

D
R
. B
ENT
, already on the way, had reached the front steps before Diavolo and Woody caught up with him. Karl was not far behind.

“Not too much noise as we go in,” Don cautioned. “He's armed. We're not. We've got to stall him until Kramer and that squad car arrives. Where—”

Don stopped looking at the prone body of Miss Morton, Bent's secretary-nurse who lay on the entry-room floor. The doctor knelt quickly at her side. Don said, “Where is VanRyn?”

Dr. Bent pointed to a door beyond. “Through there. Turn right. The bedroom's at the end of the hall.”

Don opened the door cautiously and looked out. He saw twenty-five feet of corridor and the closed bedroom door at the end.

In Woody's ear he whispered, “He'll hear us before we make it and have his gun out. This calls for a line-back through center. You run interference again, and hit that door hard enough to take it off its hinges in case it's locked. I'll follow through behind you and try to make a tackle before he can start shooting.”

“And be sure you knock the guy for a goal,” Woody said. “Hike!”

The ex-All American back went into motion with the quick start that had won him fame on the gridiron. The magician, whose own quickness of foot nearly equaled his sleight of hand, plunged after him. Karl Hartz himself wasn't exactly slow.

The triple threat thundered down the narrow hallway and Woody's broad shoulder smashed into the door with a smack that would have been good for a first down in any ball game.

The door, unlocked after all, slammed open. Woody, meeting less resistance than he expected, fell and ploughed heavily across the carpet.

Don Diavolo saw the figure on the bed and the dark, turbaned form beside it in a split instant before his feet parted company with the floor. His body arched in a long curve above Woody.

He glimpsed the gun rising in Shivara's hand as he sailed through space, then felt the solid thump as he connected. The force of the impact bent Shivara in the middle like a hinge. Both men caromed off the side of the bed and bounced against the floor.

Don, underneath on the first bounce, twisted his body with a quick heave of his shoulders and came down on top the second time around. His fingers clamped around the wrist of Shivara's gun hand.

He grinned — for exactly one quarter of a second.

He stopped because he heard a voice say, “When you guys get through playing hopscotch, you can give me some attention.”

Don's head jerked around. Karl Hartz stood just inside the door with his hands in the air. He was staring into the business end of an enormous blue steel automatic. Behind it there was a little man whose hard bony face was every bit as ugly and threatening as the gun itself.

There was no argument as to who held the whip hand.

Don obeyed orders. He stood up and joined Karl and Woody against the wall. The Hindu pulled himself slowly to his feet, breathing heavily from the impact that had taken all his wind.

He gave Don one long dirty look and then wasted no more time on him. He took a gun from his pocket and turned to face the motionless figure of the man on the bed. Don's eyes gauged the distance to Shivara's back, rested for a moment on the steady hand that held the big automatic, calculated his chances, and got a result of zero.

He could only wait.

Shivara said, “And now, VanRyn, you'll decode the message inscribed on the dagger you took from the temple at Lahore. It led you to the true site of Alexander's treasure. Since you decoded it once, I have no doubt that I could do it again. But I have been unable thus far to obtain the knife.”

VanRyn's voice was weak, his face pale beneath his tan. “The inscription is nothing more than a Buddhist prayer to Vishnu, written in the Pali language and added by the Temple priests.”

“You lie,” Shivara said flatly. “That knife was once part of Alexander's hoard. The inscription, purposely garbled, tells exactly where the knife was found.

“You went directly from Lahore to Bahawalpur and thence into the Derawar desert. When your luggage was searched at Bombay, passages in your notebooks told us that you had found certain objects that could have come only from Susa and Persepolis. Because you could not bring your find out alone, you left it there.

“With a translation of that inscription and a radio-induction divining device similar to the one you used,
I
can find it again. I want—”

A shrill penetrating sound from outside brought Shivara to a sudden stop. Low at first, but rising rapidly, it came — the high whine of a police car's siren!

Shivara swung around. His gun pointed at Diavolo, and for a second that seemed as long as time itself he hesitated. Don braced himself to meet the shot he was sure would come.

Then the Hindu snarled. “You win — for the moment. But I don't think it will last. Once the Inspector arrests you, I shall be free to—”

The gunman cut in on him. “Are we going, or aren't we?”

Shivara nodded, turned and marched quickly down the corridor. His hired man followed, backing out. Then, after the Hindu, he quickly sidestepped through the door at the hall's end and slammed it behind him.

Don, Woody and Karl surged forward together down the corridor. Don shouted, “Hey, Doc! Watch it!”

Dr. Bent heard the cry, but Shivara's gun was already on him. A second later the other man stepped up and brought the butt of his gun down on the doctor's head in a neat efficient manner that spoke of long practice.

Diavolo yanked at the door and found it locked. Woody backed and threw himself against it. Then he shook his head. “No soap. It's at right angles to the corridor. I can't get enough of a start.”

Don dropped swiftly on one knee before the door, picklocks in hand. He fumbled hastily at the keyring that held them, failed to find the one he wanted, said “Damn!” and looked again.

He got it this time, a slender L-shaped piece of metal that he inserted quickly into the lock. He probed cautiously, handling the instrument with the swift, sure, but delicate precision of a surgeon using a scalpel. A good up-to-date lock company had taken considerable pains to make that particular model pick-proof and they had done a pretty fair job. A long minute passed before the magician finally gave a final careful twist and heard the bolt inside move over. He pushed the door in.

Woody raced through, hurdled Bent's body and vanished beyond the door.

Don turned to Karl who had started to follow, caught him by the arm and said, “No. You stay with VanRyn. Church doesn't want your scalp.”

He added a few more rapid words of explanation — words that made Karl's eyes bulge, and then was gone.

The siren outside that howled like an angry malevolent banshee was near now. Don sprinted after Woody in a mad pounding dash toward the big red Packard on the corner.

To the girl who stood on the sidewalk by the car, Woody said, “In with you, Pat! Church is on the warpath. And I'm wanted for murder!”

She hesitated and started to object, “But wait—”

Woody said, “No. Mickey will have to take a bus. We haven't got time—” He took her arm and swung her aboard as Don kicked desperately at the starter.

The big car jerked forward and swerved around the corner just as the howling siren rose in a last shriek and the Inspector's big black Lincoln shot into the street behind them.

Three of the red car's occupants breathed audible sighs of relief. But then the girl spoke and Woody knew that once again he had failed in the nearly impossible task of distinguishing between the twins. This was not Pat, but Mickey!

“Pat,” she said. “Where is she? I was in the drugstore phoning. When I came out she was gone!”

Don Diavolo, hearing that, knew without benefit of any crystal ball that Patricia Collins had left her post because she could not help it — because Shivara and the gunman had taken her!

Every squad car in town would be searching for Shivara by now, but they would be looking just as hard for Woody and Don. They would be very lucky indeed if they could go as much as half a dozen blocks in the big Packard whose flaming red paint job was known to every cop on the force.

A half dozen blocks — if they only could get that far and if Don's hunch that he knew where Shivara would go was right …

Don turned another corner and the car leaped forward.

C
HAPTER
XIII

The Great Indian Rope Trick

“W
OODY
,” Don said, “You bail out as we go past the front door. I'll cut around into Sixtieth Street and watch the service entrance and that library window. If he's here, maybe we can trip him up on the way out.”

Don braked the car long enough for Woody to drop safely off and then pulled hard on the wheel and skidded around into the side street.

“You're staying here, Mickey,” he commanded as the car screeched to a stop. “The landing party may get a warm reception. I hope so. Because if Shivara isn't here, we're sunk.”

But Shivara was there. Don went in the service door and through the kitchen. A white-faced butler peered from behind a cellar door.

“The Hindu's in there with a gun,” he quavered. “He's locking Mr. Sayre, the lieutenant and the detectives in the collection room.”

Just as Don reached to arm himself with a carving knife he heard the running footsteps coming toward him. The butler's head popped back into his hole faster than a groundhog who has just seen his shadow.

Diavolo flattened himself against the wall. As Shivara ran out, Don thrust out his foot and caught the Hindu's leg. The man stumbled, swerved, half righted himself and brought up his gun. But Don was already on him. The magician's right arm hooked around Shivara's throat and Don let himself fall in a jiu-jitsu roll that sent his antagonist spinning.

The gun exploded once and then Diavolo's right hand reached it and with a quick twist tore it from the slenderer man's grasp. Don rolled over on to his feet.

Shivara looked up into the round muzzle of the gun and said, “
Om vajra
—”

Don fired, just above the Hindu's head at the tall stack of dishes on a table. They showered down around him.

“No, you don't. One more word like that out of you and I'm going to find out if those powers of concentration of yours are strong enough to shed bullets. You shouldn't have come back after that dagger. Get up! We're going in and release Brophy; you're going to hand over the dagger, and then—”

Don jumped as the door behind him swung open with a crash. His finger tightened on the trigger.

“Oh, it's you,” he said as Woody tumbled in with the Horseshoe Kid behind him. “You're late. The party is over.”

“I'm not so sure of that,” Shivara's voice said suddenly. “Unless you put that gun down at once and let me leave, you will not see your young assistant, Miss Collins, again. I rather thought she might prove useful.”

Diavolo hesitated a bare second, hoped Shivara hadn't noticed it, and said confidently, “That's his last card, Woody. But what he thinks is an ace is only the joker. Go get Brophy.”

Woody went out and Don, still careful to keep the gun centered on Shivara's wishbone, crossed the kitchen to a window. His left hand picked up a plate and sailed it at the window pane.

“Pat!” he called through the gaping jagged hole that appeared in the glass. “Come in here!”

Shivara blinked and Don said nothing more until Mickey appeared.

“You see,” he said then. “You can't drive a bargain like that. You've nothing to bargain with. We've got Pat. And that ugly-looking pal of yours got a bullet where you'll get one if you don't behave.”