Death from Nowhere (3 page)

She scowled at him. “You're Don Diavolo, aren't you?”

He admitted it. “Yes. I was afraid you might know that.”

“The Hagenbaugh Shows,” she said icily, “do not need any magicians at the moment. If you care to fill out this employment card” — she shoved it at him — “Mr. Hagenbaugh will get in touch with you when any openings occur.”

“Now listen, Blondie,” Diavolo said, “you know darned well that I'm not looking for a job with any circus. And I resent the inference that I'd even consider working for a tank-town grifter like R.J. Climb down off your high horse like a good girl and tell him I'm here, will you?”

“He's busy,” she snapped. “He's in conference. He said he wasn't to be interrupted on any account. He isn't seeing anyone else today. Stop back in the morning.”

“Tomorrow's the Fourth of July. You'll be closed.”

Miss Skinner returned to her typing. “Yes,” she said, “I know.”

Don Diavolo looked at her for a moment. “No,” he said. “That won't do at all. I'm seeing him now. And that's an ultimatum! If you won't announce me, we'll dispense with the formality. So nice to have met you.”

He started toward the door marked
Private.

The girl stopped typing and put her hand on the phone. “Go ahead,” she said. “Bust in on him. I can have a police car here in two minutes.”

“Oh, I wouldn't do that.” The magician shook his head. “Since he told you not to let me in, he's changed his mind. I know, I'm a mindreader. Listen.”

Diavolo stopped, came back, reached across to the interoffice communicator on her desk, and flipped up a switch. Then, rapidly, he talked at the apparatus. “Hello, R.J., Don Diavolo broadcasting. This cute but smart secretary of yours must have her signals mixed. She says you can't see me.”

The girl grinned at Diavolo calmly. Her eyes said, “Now you've done it!” But when she heard the answering voice from the communicator she stared at the machine as if it were something she had never seen before. Her blue eyes were suddenly round and incredulous.

The voice said, “Don't mind her. Come right in!”

Don spread his hands. “You see?” he said. Then he quickly strode toward Hagenbaugh's door and turned the knob. Blondie watched him dazedly.

Don was thinking, “Ventriloquism is certainly a handy accomplishment. I hope I can get out of the lion's den as easily.” Then his confidence took a body blow. The stunt hadn't worked so well after all. Hagenbaugh's door was locked!

That tore it. He couldn't very well pick the lock with the girl watching him. There wasn't much he could do except stall for a moment and figure out a retreat. He knocked loudly on the door and called, “Say what is this, a game? I thought you asked me to—”

And at that instant Don Diavolo heard the key on the other side turn over in the lock. Quickly Diavolo grasped the knob again and pushed the door open. He stepped through hastily and slammed it behind him before the girl could hear the bellow of rage that Don fully expected would come from R. J. as soon as he saw who his visitor was.

Don Diavolo was ready to welcome that bellow; he planned to answer it with decisive action.

But it was the magician's turn to get a surprise. It wasn't the circus owner who had unlocked the door. He was on the other side of the room, sitting quietly behind his desk. There was something odd too about the way he slumped forward.…

Suddenly the scene before Diavolo's eyes exploded in a brilliant whirling shower of bright sparks. They glowed hotly for a brief moment and then abruptly snuffed out all together. Don Diavolo fell forward into the deep aching void of blackness that took their place.

Falling, he knew that someone behind the door had blackjacked him!

C
HAPTER
III

Trapped with Death

T
HE
secretary scowled suspiciously at the closed door. There was certainly no predicting the way her boss acted today. He had told her in no uncertain terms that he didn't want to see Don Diavolo under any circumstances. And now— She worried at the problem for a moment and then gave it up. She ran a sheet of paper into her machine and returned to her typing.

Ten minutes later the phone call came. “Broadway 6-8240?” an operator asked. “Lakewego, New York, calling.”

Then an angry irascible voice came over the wire, a man's voice. “Hello, hello! I want to talk to Hagenbaugh.”

Miss Skinner said, “I'll see if he's in. Who's calling, please?”

“Colonel Van Orman, and you'd better put him on or there'll be trouble! I've stood for all I'm going to from that fat, pot-bellied, two-faced, tinhorn chiseler. If he thinks his advance crew can get away with—”

Blondie was used to this sort of thing. Coolly she said, “Just a moment, please.” Then she rang the phone in the inner office. The colonel still fumed in her ear. He was certainly hopping mad about something.

But her boss didn't answer. The girl rang the phone again. Still no answer. Blondie frowned. Then she switched on the interoffice communicator and said, “Mr. Hagenbaugh. Sorry to interrupt you but the phone call is from Colonel Van Orman. It sounds important.”

The answering silence that came from the machine's speaker made the girl turn in her seat to face the door, her eyes widening. She tried once more, “Mr. Hagenbaugh!”

Then she stood up, hesitated a half a second with a frown gathering on her brow, and marched across and turned the doorknob. It turned all right. The door even gave a fraction of an inch, but it wouldn't open. It wasn't locked, but there seemed to be something jammed against it on the inside that prevented it from budging.

Blondie was alarmed now. The silence, the closed door, Don Diavolo, and before that, the very odd—

The girl suddenly wheeled and jumped for the phone. Colonel Van Orman's connection was suddenly broken off. She had forgotten him completely. Frantically she dialed. “Operator! Operator! Give me the police. Quick!”

Don Diavolo still slept, his limp form stretched on the floor of the inner office. Nothing penetrated that sleep, until finally, far off beyond the confused roaring in his ears and the fiery flashes of pain that had begun to bounce back and forth within his skull, he heard a long drawn banshee howl that rose ominously as it drew nearer.

“Police siren,” Don thought hazily. “Interesting. Wonder where they're going? Wonder what all this racket is where my head should be. Wonder …” He dropped off to sleep again.

But this second nap was short. Another sound came and brought him out of it with a jerk, like the sudden shock of an ice cold shower.

It was a voice that said, “Okay, boys. Break it in!” He knew that voice. It belonged to Inspector Church.

Diavolo's eyes opened just as something thudded heavily against the door. Don looked in the direction. What he saw sent an Arctic shiver racing down his backbone. It nearly made him forget the hot pounding ache that was within his head.

There was a chair tipped back against that door. Two of its legs dug into the thick beige carpet. Its top was jammed beneath the doorknob.

It trembled and gave perceptibly as Church's man again threw his weight against the door.

Don pulled himself up on to his feet and stood there, swaying uncertainly. His head turned, his dark sharp eyes searching for some evidence of his mysterious assailant. Except for the motionless Hagenbaugh behind his desk, there was no one else in the room — and only one possible hiding place, the three-leaf folding screen at the room's end.

Diavolo moved toward it cautiously. Behind it he found nothing but a half open window and a twenty-story sheer drop to the setback on floor fourteen. Don put his head out. The smooth stone facing of the building's side would not have given foothold to a fly.

Five floors below, a window washer leaned nonchalantly back above the street, held by the two straps that ran from his belt to the hooks in the window sash.

Diavolo hailed him. “Ahoy, sailor! Did you happen to see anybody leave by this window in the last few minutes?”

The workman looked up. “Why, yes, Mac, come to think of it, I did. A whole parade of elephants. Pink ones. Were they yours?”

Don Diavolo pulled in his head and turned. Another heavy crash shook the door.

There were two windows behind the desk, both locked on the inside, and both, as Don knew, looking out on an even greater drop, the full thirty-four floors to Broadway.

All this time the magician had known that there could be only one reason for Hagenbaugh's strange stillness. He went over now and touched the man's hand.

The circus owner was a fat hippopotamus of a man with thin graying hair. His cigar, still smoldering on the desk top where it had fallen, sent up a smell of burned varnish. Running down along the right side of his face and neck were five long parallel red scratches. Hagenbaugh's hand was cold.

The chair gave another inch as the Inspector's man flung himself once more against the door outside.

Don Diavolo

Woody

Mickey

Pat Collins (we think)