Page 34 - Demo

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32 Black Mask
"He went up. I heard him go stum- mechanism. Killan threw his shoulder blin' in the elevator before I passed out." against the door and so did Butch. Their The shaft door at the end of the cor- combined assault did the trick. The door ridor wouldn't open. Fitz punched a went flat with them and Tracy and Fitz
button and a faint hum became audible from afoft.
"The car is still up above," Fitz mut- tered. "Did the sap actually waste time to pack a bag befor e he scrammed?"
They rode up in an uneasy silence to the penthouse. Lord's door was on the opposite side of a small foyer. Sergeant Kilian tried the knob gently, then rang the bell.
Almost instantly a voice cried from within, "Who is it? What do you want?" It was Lord's voice, shrill with fright.
He was evidently standing tensely just inside the door. Tracy motioned quietly toKillan and stepped·closer
This 15Jerry Tracy . I want to talk to you."
"About what?"
my broadcast tonight. Mr. "A1bourtdHillard s
ia sent me over to-" "Hillard sent you?''
sprang over their prone bodies.
Th ey were in an empty living-room
with wide French windows that faced on the darkness of a flat terrace. The scream that hal te d them in mid-stride didn't come from the terrace. It sounded from somewhere in the rear of the apartment. It was knife-like in its horror, and knife- like in the way it dwindled into silence.
Tra cy had heard that kind of ebbing scream only once before in his life. His scalp crawled at the memory. He had _a swift mental picture of a poor lunatic crouched tensely on a stone ledge at the peak of a Fifth Avenue skyscraper. The man had jumped with that same ebbing shriek as police had grabbed vainly to save him from suicide .
Tracy ra ced through ,the apartmen toward a rear bedroom. There was a half-filled suitca se on the floor. Clothing was scattered all over the bed. The win- dow was wide open.
Far below on th e roof of a fourth st ory
cutback was a small ma ss that didn 't move . He must hav e taken a desperate
h
cha:nce to escape along a ledge that ex-
tended dizzily toward another window. Ah f
"I
" No."
with you?"
"Yo ,
, ou re a liar. Hilliard's dead!
You've come racing over here with the cops. I didn't kill Hilliard I'm t
. t befr · no go- ing o e ramed for his murder If
try to come in here you'll get
I handed that stupid body-guard an the steel hook used for the belts of win-
yours !"
"All we want is a sample of
you re really innocent you ,"
it in two minutes.'' ' can prove His face was as pale as Tracy's ut
Lord's answer was a bullet that s lit there was not a tremor in his big, •bony
the panel of the door an in sP . T 's F an inch1 rom In silence they descended in the pri
racy 's ear. Four more followed it in el d t the a eras mg us1 ade, but Kilian's ht- vate evator. They went aroun o
nmg grab at the first crash had light- front entrance of the building. There
Tracy backward to the floor. There was a hoar se cry from
Y nkedwas no alarm out front as yet. Chauf- ith . feurs in the taxi lin e sta red curiou sly ,
follo d by the ift hu
fo owe Y e sw1t t ud of retreat·
feet.
wit hin, sensing trouble but not saying anything. ing The £at over-roug ed woman at the
s red of his sleeve was hanging from dow cleaners.
fi "H e must have grabbed £or the hook d
your n- when he lost his balance " Kilian said. I I
· ts," T
you're ' .racy said quietly. "If "Guilty as hell" Fitz said quietly.
fourth floor rear had left her door con- Inspector Fitzgerald's gun sent smash- veniently open when she had rushed out
ing th under at th e lock of the door to the hall way to faint. Fitz and Killan But it failed to blow out the jammed climbed out to the roof of the cutback.