The Island of Death

THE ISLAND OF DEATH

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THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE

The Phantom Detective’s Thrill-Packed Campaign Against the Lawless Perpetrators of a Gigantic, Sinister plot for the Criminal Domination and Control of the Pacific Taken from the Case-Book of Richard Curtis Van Loan By G. WAYMAN JONES Author of “The Emperor of Death,” “The Crime of Fu Kee Wong,” etc.

Rath, the importer, a group of men stood around his private bar, drinking and convivial. Rath, himself, formed the centre of a group which contained the red-sashed Japanese consul whose favor the host needed in a business way, Messman, secretary to the Governor of

CHAPTER 1

MASKED MENACE

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HE PARTY was gay, alcoholic and attended by the elite of San Francisco. High up in the apartment of George 2

THE ISLAND OF DEATH

Hundreds of figures below ran madly about, shouting the alarm as mysterious lights from above revealed the secrets of the Island of Death the Philippines, and a number of other men prominent in Oriental trade and politics. Then, of a sudden, the door from the hall was flung open and the gaiety, the festive air in the room froze to an awed silence, for standing on the threshold, a wicked automatic in his hand, stood a tall figure. Over the upper half of his face was a black silk mask. For a moment he stood there in silence, covering the room with his weapon, as the occupants stared back at him, amazement and

fear written indelibly in their eyes. One of them spoke in awed accents. “God. It’s the Phantom!” There was a low murmur of astonishment in the room. The masked man strode across the floor and locked the door which led to the apartment proper. Then he turned to his victims again. “Mr. Sen,” he said to the Japanese, “in your pocket you have certain papers. You know to what I am referring. You will give them to me.” 3

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE The Japanese stared at him through narrowed eyes. For a moment it seemed that he was about to refuse the request. But there was something compelling about the gaze which steadily surveyed him through the eyeholes of the black mask.

move toward a coat pocket. Then Messman’s hand appeared again holding a weapon. Swiftly his own finger constricted on the trigger of the automatic. A single shot reverberated throughout the room. Then the door slammed and he found himself outside in the hall. Now there was no time to lock the door. He heard the trample of many feet within and he knew that the whole pack was charging toward the door. Rath’s excited voice urged them on. They could overpower him by sheer numbers if he remained.

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LANDLY and with the impassivity of his race he reached into his pocket and handed the masked man a thick sheaf of papers. The latter bowed. “Thank you,” he said politely. “Now I shall leave, apologizing to you gentlemen for this disturbance.” George Rath thrust himself before the speaker, fire blazing from his eyes. He realized that his business depended on the good will of Japan, and now that this affront had been offered to its representative in his home, his indignation overwhelmed him. “Sir,” he said. “I have heard of you. I have heard praiseworthy things of you. But I have never heard that you would invade a man’s home and rob his guests. This is an outrage. I shall report it to the police.” The masked man regarded him gravely for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But in my business, extra-legal methods are at times necessary.” He put his hand behind him and groped for the doorknob. Then he realized as his finger-tips touched it, that it was moving. Someone was coming in through the door behind him! He realized full well that he had no time to turn around. Perhaps the intruder was armed. He was conscious of something behind his back. He turned his head slightly and swiftly. From the corner of his eye he saw a dark shape about to spring at him. There was time for him to do nothing but duck. He ducked. A small lithe figure catapulted itself over his head and landed sprawling on the floor before him. As he straightened up again he saw that it was a uniformed hall-boy. As the boy lay prone upon the floor, the breath knocked out of him, he held a yellow telegram in his hand. Before him, the masked man saw a hand

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E sprang into the automatic elevator, slammed the door and pressed a button. The car started upwards just as the door of the apartment flung itself open and spewed a dozen raging men out in the hall. He heard Rath’s voice rise above the tumult. “He’s heading for the roof! Out over the next building! Cut him off.” There was a concerted rush toward the stairs. The Phantom heard the clatter of feet as the victims of the holdup raced upward to cut off the retreat of the masked man. Hastily he jammed the stop button when the elevator was half-way between floors. It was the work of a frantic instant to whip off his mask and thrust his revolver in his pocket. Then he pressed another button and the elevator shot downward again, even as his pursuers gained the roof. He stopped the car, then, for a moment, listened intently. He heard footsteps and clamor below as well as above. They must have descended in the other elevators and spread the alarm through the lobby. Above, he heard others descending the rear stairs. He took the elevator to the fifth floor, leaped out, closed the door, and raced down the stairs as if he was the advance guard of the men who were coming down from above. Seeing Rath below him he yelled: “Downstairs. He’s going down. Get him.” Rath, looking up, recognized Richard Van Loan, one of his guests, clad in immaculate evening clothes and apparently leading the searchers from above. He rushed down, followed by the others. These met the posse from below at the third

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THE ISLAND OF DEATH floor. They all waited for a moment by the elevator. There was no sound of it moving. Someone detached himself from the mob and started up the stairs again. As Van Loan reached the fifth floor, he gave a shout. “Here’s the elevator.”

stood on the threshold, regarding him. The masked man entered the room. The door was closed and locked behind him. The coolie turned and spoke to his visitor in perfect English. “Well,” he said excitedly, “did you get them?” The other nodded. “Yes,” he said with a chuckle. “There was the devil to pay, though. Old Rath is yelling to high heaven. Tonight’s work will probably cost him a fortune in Japanese imports.” “It’s worth it,” said the coolie. “If we hadn’t smashed this scheme, the whole country would be endangered. These papers, however, should smash the deal effectively enough. Of course, the Japanese Government will deny all knowledge of them, but the very fact that they’re in our possession will prevent them from going on with the deal.”

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HE whole horde charged up. Someone opened the elevator door. It was empty. George Rath shrugged his shoulders. “He must have stopped at the fifth floor, run down three flights and let himself out the window on the stairway shaft and let himself down into the court,” he said. “It’s a damned outrage.” Still chattering excitedly, they returned to the apartment. Van Loan found himself at the bar, the centre of an excited group who discussed into the small hours of the morning the episode of the masked man who had held up the Japanese Consul. Gravely over his glass Van Loan nodded his head as they drank to the ill fortune of the Phantom, but a keen observer might have noticed that deep in his black eyes there was a mocking twinkle.

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HE masked man thrust his hand into his breast pocket and handed the coolie the papers that he had taken from the Japanese Consul earlier in the evening. “Thanks,” he said, as he took the papers eagerly from the other’s hand. “I don’t know what we would have done without the Phantom’s aid in this matter. It was a ticklish situation, being up against a foreign government where the slightest error would cause international complications.” The masked man nodded. “Well,” he said. “It’s all over now. Good night and good luck.” He turned to the door and left the room, little realizing that in less than a full minute he would understand that instead of his work being finished it was merely beginning. No sooner had he stepped into the street than a single staccato sound came to his ears. Instinctively, and without thought, he recognized the report as that of a revolver. He did not hesitate a moment. He whirled on his heel. His hand descended to his hip pocket and withdrew an automatic. Then he ran swiftly back through the door from which he had come. This time he did not knock on the panels of the coolie’s room. Instead he burst through the doorway revolver in hand.

CHAPTER II

THE COOLIE

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HREE HOURS later a tall silk-hatted, masked figure drove a slim black coupe through the deserted streets of San Francisco. The car’s headlights cut through the gray fogginess of the night, passed speedily through the business section and emerged eventually into the ramshackle crowded Chinatown section. The coupe stopped suddenly before a dirty, narrow tenement house in the very heart of the Chinese settlement. The masked man peered from the window of the car, then, evidently finding the deserted street safe for his entering the building unobserved, he stepped from the car and disappeared through the doorway. He walked to the rear of the building and rapped seven times on a thin wooden door. Slowly the door opened, revealing a shabbily furnished room. A coolie of the lowest class 5

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE

For a moment he stood there in silence, covering the room with his weapon. They stared back at him, amazement and fear in their eyes. He paused for a moment on the threshold. The coolie lay still in a pool of blood on the floor. Half way through the window was a little Japanese clutching a revolver in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other. Behind him stood a second yellow man with a gun. Another shot reverberated through the room, and a steel slug buried itself in the wall above the masked man’s head. The automatic in his hand spoke once, and the revolver dropped from the second Jap’s hand. In the meantime, his comrade sprang like a cat from the casement and disappeared into the yard below. Van Loan, ignoring the man he had

wounded, raced to the window in time to see the Jap with the papers turn the corner of the alley that led to the street and disappear around the corner. Realizing the utter futility of attempting to follow the other through the maze of Chinatown’s streets, he turned his attention to the wounded man who stood clutching his shoulder and moaning painfully. He asked the yellow man no questions, knowing full well that he would receive no answers for his pains. Instead, he ran dexterous fingers through the man’s clothes as he searched him. He discovered a knife and some odd papers. On one of them was an address which he mentally noted. Then, taking a police whistle from his pocket, he 6

THE ISLAND OF DEATH

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stood by the window and blew a long piercing blast

HE people of the neighborhood, had they been observant—which they were not— could have told you that it seemed now to be a boarding house for foreigners. Short yellow men moved in and out of the house all day, and when night came across the river and mantled the city, their numbers welled. The night after the brutal murder of the Secret Service operative, an inconspicuous yellow man strolled casually on the drive, stopped on the side of the street opposite the house and seated himself on a bench on the Bay front. His eyes were riveted on the door opposite, and for a long time he did not move them from that spot. As he sat there, other members of his race came briskly to the house across the street, rapped sharply on the door, then disappeared within. The yellow man on the bench watched them closely, his ears strained through the night until he memorized the knock. Now, he knew. Four staccato raps had been used by each person who had entered the house. Now he boldly rose and crossed the street. His yellow knuckles rapped sharply four times upon the panel. The door opened slightly and a wizened saffron face peered out at him. Thin lips opened and said something in Japanese. The stranger hesitated. Then the keeper of the door said again in his native language: “What is the password?” The newcomer burst into voluble Japanese, but apparently, though he uttered a great many words, none of them was the syllable which the door keeper was demanding. The door swung slowly to. Swiftly the stranger thrust a foot in the jamb. Without warning, the wizened door keeper unleashed a vicious foot which struck the other on the shin. The second man, taking the kick as if he liked it, hurled his right fist through the air in a savage arc. It landed flush on the point of the other’s jaw. The man went down. Swiftly he was picked up. Something gleaming surrounded his wrists. A gag was thrust into his mouth. Then he was

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N less than three minutes, two uniformed policemen rushed into the room, revolvers in their hands. They looked from the prostrate, bloody figure on the floor to the masked man who held a gun up against the Jap. “What’s going on here?” asked one of the policemen. “Who blew that whistle?” “I did, Officer,” said the masked man. He took a step forward. His hand withdrew something from his pocket. He held it out to the officers. The policemen stared at a small gold badge in the palm of his hand. Superinscribed upon it in platinum was a delicately carved mask. The eyes of the policemen opened wide. “The Phantom!” exclaimed one of them. Van Loan nodded. “Take this man to Headquarters,” he said. “Charge him with murder. You’ll hear from me later.” “Murder of whom?” asked one of the policemen. “This coolie? What’s his name?” “No,” said Van Loan gravely. “Not with the killing of any coolie, but of the coldblooded murder of Number 608 of the United States Secret Service.” CHAPTER III

HOUSE OF NIPPON

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NLIKE THEIR racial brothers and interminable enemies, the men of Nippon have no quarter of their own in San Francisco. Instead their ranks are scattered about the city. Geographically, they have been assimilated by a hundred other races, but in their hearts they remain clannish and loyal. In the centre of a block of residential buildings facing the bay there stood a large four story house. In its day it had undoubtedly been the home of wealth, and even now that it had acquired the grime of years and the wear of time, there remained something aristocratic about it. 7

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE unceremoniously placed in small alley that ran along the side of the house leading to the servant’s entrance. The stranger, brushing off his hands, boldly entered the building, carefully closing the door behind him.

would die first. And death is what he deserves if only for permitting the police fools to capture him.” “True,” said a voice. “But the plans are recovered.” The hunchback chuckled. “Fear not,’ he said again, “The plans have already been destroyed. The gods alone can read them now. And the master himself, the august Matsiami, himself, always attends to our affairs. Already he arranges the kidnapping of those he needs.” “Will he slay them?” asked some one. The hunchback shook his head. “What need of that? The great one can steal men’s brains; he can make them serve him, why then should he slay?” “Only the gods can steal men’s minds,” said a doubting voice. “What?” shrilled the hunchback. “And is not Matsiami a god? Will he not succeed in his plans to give Nippon a power, a strength which the white nations have denied her?” There was an unutterable scorn in his questions; but the resultant silence indicated that come doubt yet remained in the minds of his auditors. Apparently this angered the hunchback. He rose to his feet. “Look, you,” he said. He gestured toward the door, then said in English: “Rath, come here!” To the amazement of the little watching man, a figure stirred in a far corner of the room that was crowded with sleepy drugged forms. It detached itself from the mob and approached the speaker with an abject, nervous manner. “Ha,” said the hunchback. “On your knees white man, on your knees before a son of Nippon.” The white man blinked dull eyes, then without protest, he genuflected before the yellow hunchback. “If you so order it, I must,” said the white man.

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E found himself in an impressive, dimly lit foyer. Before him a flight of stairs led upward, while at the rear another flight led to the basement. He hesitated for a moment, then hearing voices floating up from below, he stepped to the latter flight and descended the steps. As he reached the end of the stairs, his eyes beheld a strange sight, yet one that was not altogether unexpected. A large room opened out. Around its edges were double-decked bunks. Some of these had curtains drawn about them. Those that did not revealed the sleeping figures of Japanese, huddled up, long opium pipes held tightly in their hands. Without hesitation, the newcomer threw himself down on a near-by bunk. An attendant approached him with a pipe. Apparently the fact of his having passed by the doorkeeper was enough to allay any suspicions of the former. The stranger took the pipe from the looserobed Jap, threw him some silver, then drew at the stem of the pipe. It was noteworthy but unnoticed that the acrid smoke did not reach his throat before it was expelled.

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HE attendant turned away and left his latest customer to such solitary solace as his own dreams might bring. Still and inert, the yellow man lay there. From time to time he stirred long enough to glance at the wrist watch on his yellow wrist. Voices floated to him from an adjacent table. He strained his ears to listen. At first he could not hear plainly the rapid Japanese that came to his ears. With his sense of hearing tensed to its maximum, he let his head sag forward as if in drugged sleep. Now he could hear distinctly, and through his eyelids he made out the speaker as a hunchbacked son of Nippon of repulsive ugliness. “Fear not,” said the hunchback. “True, Yamo blundered but he will not betray us. He

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HE hunchback’s companions crowded around eagerly, their eyes shining at this humiliation of a white man before one of their number. “And why must you?” demanded the hunchback.

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THE ISLAND OF DEATH “Because those are the great one’s orders,” said Rath. “He told me to obey you in everything.” The hunchback glanced triumphantly around at his fellows. “You believe now he said. “The master steals the white men’s minds. This dog it in my power.” He bent forward, muttered a single filthy word in his native tongue, then spat deliberately and contemptuously in the kneeling man’s face. Rath took the insult without moving. He smiled inanely up at his torturer, a fatuous expression on his face. The others, encouraged by the fact that the white man took no offense at the hunchback’s gesture, leaned closer to the kneeling man and followed suit. Epithets were flung at him. Through it all Rath made no move to defend himself. He was a horrifying abject figure as he kneeled there, a spineless imitation of a man.

“Who are you?” he cried. “What have you to do with the great one or his secret? I know you not!” “Ask him whom we serve,” said the stranger. “Ask him who I am.” He turned to the blank-eyed white man. “Rise to your feet, sir,” he continued in Japanese. “This fool shall do you no harm.” Electrified, the hunchback turned upon him with a shout of triumph. “You spoke to him in our native tongue,” he cried. “How did you know he would understand you? If you are privy to the master’s secrets you would know that he had been ordered to forget his knowledge of our language. You are a spy—a traitor!” The knife flashed in his hand as his arm swung upward. The stranger moved swiftly as the gleaming steel hurtled downward through the air. Then suddenly his leg shot upward, and the toe of his shoe came into hard contact with the hunchback’s descending wrist.

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T was then, that for one of the few times in his life, the stranger who still lay face down in the opium bunk, permitted his wrath and natural indignation to control the actions which usually obeyed the cooler dictates of his brain. Some terrible emotion seemed to grip him as he witnessed the humiliation of the white man. A flaming wrath burned away the coolness of his mind. He waited not to weigh the consequences, he waited not to consider the cost to himself. Instead, in a single lightning-like bound he flung himself down from the bunk. With two panther-like strides he was between the hunchback and the white man. Then the crack of his fist on the other’s face came like a pistol shot. Hastily he spoke. “Dog,” he cried in Japanese, “is it thus you betray the secrets of the master? Down on your knees and pray that I keep the story of your boasting folly to myself.” Belatedly the stranger was bluffing, but even yet he might get away with it. The hunchback shook the sleeve of his voluminous shirt, and a cruel appearing knife slipped down into his hand. Yet the man hesitated, the snarling anger in his face arrested by his adversary’s words.

CHAPTER IV

THE FIGHT

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HE KNIFE flew from the jolted hand, described an erratic curve, and stabbed viciously into the wood of the wall. The hunchback’s arm swung up, and so great was the force of the other’s kick that he fell backwards on the floor, and rolled over, groaning in agony. For perhaps five seconds the room was still, gripped in a tense enveloping silence, as if the inmates hardly comprehended the significance of what had happened. Then in that strange fateful silence, the faint slithering of slippered feet was heard coming down the hall. A kimonoed Japanese thrust his head in the door. His inherent impassivity was evidently disturbed. “The gate-keeper is gone,” he announced in Japanese. He pointed a bony yellow finger at the stranger. “You came in last. Where is the gate-keeper?” There was another second of silence. The accused stranger lifted the white man to his

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THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE feet and thrust him out of harm’s way in case trouble should develop. Then there rose a chorus of angry snarls, as in the slow minds of the Orientals suspicion slowly grew to certainty. The hunchback came to his feet and fanned the gradual flame in their hearts. “He’s a spy!” he shrieked. “Kill him.”

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HE Japanese stranger faced his compatriots redoubtably enough, for he knew well that they would be upon him like a pack of angry wolves at the first sign of flinching. For a moment his steady, clear eyes held them as a lion tamer holds his charges in thrall. Then the hunchback again cried a challenge. “Kill him,” he shouted again. “Kill him or the master will hold us responsible.” Evidently, the thought of the “master’s” wrath was a potent prod to the Japs. That remark ended the tense truce. With a low murmur of rage, the mob drew knives and closed in. The stranger picked up a heavy chair and swung it like a club about his head. It hurtled through the air and struck the hunchback on the temple. He dropped like an ox. The chair swept about in a wide arc keeping a clear space about its wielder. But then a yellow hand shot out and, aided by sheer luck, managed to clutch a leg of the swinging chair. Then, from another angle, a second man’s knife darted in like a steel snake. The needle point actually tore the lone fighter’s coat. He relinquished his hold on the chair and sprang backwards. Whipping a revolver from his pocket and using it as a club, the gallant fighter literally hammered his way through the grunting, snarling mob. Once he was aware of a stinging pain in the fleshy part of his thigh. Blood stained his trouser leg. At last, he stood with his back up against the wall, at least safe from attack in the rear. His revolver was held firmly in his hand leveled at the mob before him. Behind him was a deep black curtain. A knife whirled through the air, passed less than six inches over his shoulder and stuck quivering in the wall. A bottle sailed through space and struck him squarely in the

“It’s the arch-fiend himself!” Van exclaimed. “Matsiami!” 10

THE ISLAND OF DEATH chest. It pushed him backwards. His shoulder struck the curtain heavily.

gave vent to a gasp of surprise and alarm. There was a single pool of light in a room which otherwise was shadowy and unreal. Furniture of dull black ebony, dark curtains hanging from the four walls, formed a strange contrast to the pale white face which stared across the table top toward the door. The face, ghostly white and fixed like that of a mummy, was that of a white man. His eyes febrilely brilliant, stared unwinking at the new comer with no sign of recognition or alarm. And then, as if to complete the atmosphere of terror that was contained in the room, a tall black-robed figure stirred in the shadows and stepped toward the table. He was a tremendous Japanese, a towering yellow giant with pitch-black hair and eyes the shade of ebony at night. He stared for a long silent moment at the intruder inside the door. “So,” he said at last, “you have come.”

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OMETHING in the wall gave. It moved outward. The single fighting Jap felt it move and pushed his shoulder harder up against it. A moment later, he had disappeared through a sudden aperture in the wall. He found himself at the foot of a wooden flight of stairs. But the sight of this intruder penetrating even further into the house gave the now conscious hunch back a new courage. Disregarding the peril to himself, he charged through the opening in the wall and flung himself at the man he had called traitor. This time, an automatic gleamed dully in his hand. Two shots ripped the air simultaneously. One steel slug buried itself in the woodwork of the stairs, the other ripped through yellow flesh, and the hunchback with a cry of pain rolled over in the dust at the bottom of the stairway.

CHAPTER V

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HEN, the mob, seeing the hunchback fallen, became inculcated with a terrible desire to crush the traitor who had felled him. With a wild shout the whole pack of them charged. Twice, thrice the lone warrior’s revolver sent its searing message of steel into the yellow ranks. Two—three men, fell wounded mortally. Then, alarmed by the plight of the wounded, the group hesitated momentarily. The stranger wasted no part of that single moment. He turned and raced like a madman up the stairs, the smoking revolver still in his hand. He gained the top of the stairs and found himself in a long passage way. There was no apparent exit from it. Behind him he heard voices and the patter of feet as the mob below once more took up the pursuit and came clattering up the steps after him. At the end of the passageway was a closed door. He did not hesitate. He raced to the end of the hall, flung the door wide open and literally hurled himself into the room. He slammed the door behind him and leaned, panting, against the panels. Then, as his eyes swept the chamber, he

MATSIAMI

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HE STRANGER stared beyond the implacable face of the white man and met that pair of terrible eyes which bored into his own. “Did you expect me?” he asked in Japanese. The other man nodded. “You may put down your gun,” he said. “One word from me and that door will be broken down and you shall be killed.” The intruder shrugged his shoulders. “The gun is empty,” he said. “But, Matsiami, your danger does not end there.” He tossed the gun on the table, then again his eyes traveled to the white man who sat as if under a terrible spell, hypnotized. The huge Jap took a bottle from a sideboard. He poured a liberal portion of a thick green fluid into a glass and handed it to the newcomer. “Drink with me,” he said. “Sit down. Relax. Let us talk.” The stranger sank, panting, into a near-by chain. A faint smile twisted his lips.

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THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE “I’ll sit,” he said. “But never mind your insidious poisons, Matsiami. I know too much of them to taste them.” The huge man towered over him. “You know too much,” he said. “Too much to live. You knew enough to come here. That alone is too much. You may know more. But your knowledge shall do you no good.” As he spoke a subtle change seemed to come over the man in the chair. It seemed somehow that his muscles unfolded themselves, that his stature increased, that instead of being a little insignificant man, he had suddenly evolved to a six-foot giant. His eyes lost their abstract air and a fighting gleam entered them. He replied to the other in a soft voice, soft—yet in it was an indomitable courage. “And why not, Matsiami?” he asked quietly. Matsiami grinned evilly. “Because you shall die before you leave this house,” he said. “I have ordained it.” The other smiled quietly. “You say you expected me,” he said. “You say you know who I am. Do you know so little of me to think that I came unprepared?”

frustration for the underworld of five continents—“Underestimated the ability,” he said again—“of the Phantom!”

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UT somehow his words seemed to cause no worry to the Japanese. Matsiami, the yellow giant, stood perfectly still gazing at him, as if by the sheer force of his will he could tear the disguise from the white man. For a long moment they looked at each other. Their wills clashed almost audibly. It was quite apparent that these were no two ordinary men. Matsiami spoke slowly. “I care not for the police,” he said. “My plans are made. And I shall live to carry them out for my country. The man, Rath, I think, perhaps betrayed me when he permitted our Consul to be robbed in his house. I brought him here for punishment. This man here I need for a different purpose.” He nodded in the direction of the white man at the table. “Now,” he said suddenly, “look at me.” The Phantom permitted his eyes to meet the other’s. For a moment he was off his guard, not suspecting the motive of the Japanese. Suddenly the blood pounded through his temples, his pulses picked up a beat he was aware of a strange dizzy sensation falling over him in waves. In the nick of time he realized what was happening to him. Those black, snapping oriental eyes were essaying to do the work that the green liquid on the table had been supposed to do. Matsiami had fallen back on his powers of hypnosis to reduce the Phantom to his will. And, owing to the fact that the detective had been unaware of what was happening, the Japanese had almost succeeded. Now he eyed the other coldly, and the pair of them fought a silent invisible tug of war. The Phantom continually drove the chaos from his mind and marshaled his thoughts on orderly things. On the other side of the room, Matsiami stared at him, his brows wrinkled, the perspiration on his forehead giving evidence of the tremendous strain under which he labored.

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FLICKER of apprehension crossed the other’s face. The stranger rose to his feet. Now he was almost as tall as the other. He stood straight and erect, the sag was gone from his shoulders, his unprepossessing appearance dropped from him like a discarded mask. And as if he desired to discard everything that he had been for the past hour, he spoke this time in English. “Matsiami,” he said, “outside this house there are fifty of the best men in the police department. By now they are already battering down your front door. In another moment you shall be a prisoner. I’m afraid that you have underestimated the ability of—” For a moment he hesitated, then realizing that the necessity for disguise was gone, knowing full well that the Japanese knew who he was, he identified himself, uttering the two words which spelled terror and 12

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HEN, from without, there came the sound of pounding feet in the corridor. Oriental yells mixed themselves with Occidental oaths. In the next tense moment a rush of men came hurtling down the passageway outside, the door knob was rattled impatiently. The thud of a heavy shoulder came against the panel. A voice called from outside: “Are you there, Phantom? We’ve rounded up the whole mob of them. You’re safe enough now.” Matsiami’s expression did not change. He simply repeated two words in English. “Safe enough,” he said. Then from the folds of his black robe he with drew a revolver. The weapon screamed its dire message toward the man who said he was the Phantom. Even as the stabbing flame left its barrel, the latter dropped to the floor. Then, in the next moment, the room was plunged into a blinding darkness, as the door gave, and half a dozen policemen came hurtling into the room. A dozen flashlights illuminated the room. Police Inspector Reeves anxiously bent over the fallen figure of the strange Japanese. “Are you all right?” he asked. Van Loan rose. He nodded. “I’m all right,” he said grimly. “But I think you’ll find that our man has gone.” Reeves held up his flashlight and glanced around the room. “How? He didn’t get out the door. How could he leave here?” “The point is that he’s gone. A man like Matsiami has a hundred ways of making escapes. Probably these walls are merely the entrances to a hundred secret passages.” Reeves was walking about the room, examining the walls with his flash. At last he gave a sudden exclamation. “Here. Look!” They crowded around him. Beneath the black curtain that hung on the walls was a huge gap, an aperture which apparently led into nothing save Stygian darkness. On a crooked nail at its side was a piece of black cloth. “That’s where he went.” said Reeves.

“See, his clothing caught on that nail. But there’s little use in trying to follow him now. He’s had ten minutes start. That’s plenty for him.” “Well,” said the white man whose face was stained to resemble a Japanese. “I might have known that Matsiami wouldn’t be this easy. All we seem to have accomplished is the rescue of this white man.”

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HE Inspector shot a hasty glance around the room. Still seated at the table, a fatuous, glazed smile on his face, was Matsiami’s captive. “God,” said the Inspector. “It’s Rawlins, the gas expert” For a long time the man in disguise considered this. At last he said: “That rather complicates things. If Matsiami went to the trouble to kidnap a gas expert, I’m just beginning to understand what he’s driving at. Well, we’ve done all we can tonight. I’ll leave now and get in touch with you tomorrow. Good night.” “Good night,” said the Inspector respectfully, as the other passed over the door. The policemen who crowded the hall touched their caps as the Phantom strode from the room, but he was far too intent upon his own thoughts to notice their gesture of homage. CHAPTER VI

SIX SCIENTISTS KIDNAPPED

B

EFORE A MIRROR in the bedroom of a luxurious apartment in the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, sat the Japanese who, earlier in the evening, had been an unwelcome guest of Matsiami, the, master. Deft hands rubbed a special preparation of cold cream over his face, and as he wiped it off with a fresh white towel, the yellow pigment disappeared from his skin, and in a few moments, a clean-cut rather longish face showed in the mirror. Finally, when he had removed the last vestige of the disguise that had served him that night, he rose to his feet, stretched, and wondered if, perhaps, he had not committed a

13

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE blunder. Then he walked into the living room of the apartment, selected a specially made cigar from a cabinet, lighted it, and remained for a long time in a dark brooding silence. In the office downstairs, they would have told you that this apartment was temporarily leased by one Richard Curtis Van Loan, of New York City, a young clubman of independent wealth and excellent family background. There, having run the entire gamut of their knowledge, they would have stopped, as would everyone else who counted Van Loan as an acquaintance.

Now, as he sat alone with his thoughts, he wondered if perhaps he had blundered. That night perhaps he should not have been so precipitate about storming Matsiami’s headquarters single-handed. Perhaps, he should not have been so eager to visit that house, the address of which had been found upon the person of the man who had slain Operative Number 608 of the United States Secret Service. But the thought of the enormity of the plot had forced him to it. He had been a little skeptical regarding Washington’s concern in the matter at first. He had hardly believed them when, through Frank Havens, they had sent him the message that Matsiami planned to hold and control the entire Pacific—that the Japanese giant, a fanatical patriot, had resolved to seize the Philippines, and every other base in the Pacific for his native country.

B

UT what they did not know—what none of them save Van Loan’s dearest friend, Frank Havens, the publisher, knew—was that this pleasant, genial young man who apparently did not have an enemy in the world was—The Phantom! He had eschewed the easy life to which he had been born to embark upon a career of adventure, where life and death were engaged in a diurnal cast of the dice—winner take all. Born to society and wealth, the World War had taught him the utter futility of the pampered life he had led in his youth. On a flaming western front he had learned, and liked, the daily thrill of meeting death in the sky where he had flown his roaring plane. After the mad excitement of the war, peacetime sanity was impossible; and he had eagerly accepted Frank Havens’ suggestion that he continue to fight—though this time instead of combating an honorable foeman in the clouds he was to struggle against the treacherous forces of crime. He had learned, as a soldier, the necessity of entering battle thoroughly prepared. That was why, before he had embarked on his new career, he had completely mastered all angles of it. He studied laboriously all the concomitants of the art of crime detection. His knowledge of languages and dialect was only surpassed by a professor of foreign tongues. His histrionic ability, his gifts and talents in the matter of various disguises were not surpassed by any actor. He had developed an incipient gift of mimicry to the point where he could imitate a voice to perfection even though he had heard it but once.

T

HE story had seemed rather too much for Van to swallow. But now that he had met Matsiami, he was convinced. The man was one of those geniuses who dedicates his great mental talents to evil and becomes a menace to the whole civilized world. So it was that he had agreed to aid Washington by obtaining the papers containing full details of the plan from the Japanese Consul who was supposed to hand them over to Matsiami after examining them. He had supposed that his work was ended when that had been accomplished, but he had discovered that that was merely a beginning. Matsiami had gone—vanished. Rath had been returned to his home, still stupefied, under the influence of the drug. Rawlins, the gas expert, was in the hands of the police; and the city doctors were working day and night essaying to bring him out of the horrible coma, out of the mental slavery to Matsiami which had been induced by the Jap’s sinister poisons. Richard Van Loan sighed and lighted another cigarette. Now that the Japanese had made a clean escape, he had not the slightest idea where or how he could pick up his trail again. The whole Pacific was in danger as long as he lived, as long as his plans ripened and grew to

14

THE ISLAND OF DEATH

T

fruition. And if he was successful in his present venture, God only knew where the arrogant Nipponese Empire would stop. Flushed with their first success, they might well continue until they had crushed the. whole civilized world, until they had thoroughly established their own nation as the greatest power of the modern universe. However, there was little to be gained by further thought that night. Dawn was beginning to whiten the eastern sky, and Van felt the activity of the day begin to take its toll. His muscles ached with weariness, and slumber made his eyelids heavy.

HE Inspector offered him a chair and a cigar, then, frankly worried, related to him the events of the day. “We had five phone calls within three hours,” said the Inspector. “It seems the scientists’ convention was over late last night. Five men, Ricci, the electrical wizard, Penwall, the munitions maker, Stern, the airplane man, Roberts, the expert on ordnance, and Wells, noted for his discoveries in the battleship armor plate line. All of them have vanished, and there’s not a single clue.” Van considered this for a moment, then he said, apparently irrelevantly, “Where’s Rawlins?” “Rawlins?” Reeves raised his eye brows. “We’ve got him all right. But why do you ask?” Van smiled quietly. “What is Rawlins’ profession?” he asked. Reeves stared at him, then pounded the desk with his fist. “God,” he exclaimed. “You don’t think—” “I certainly do,” said Van. “Rawlins, as we both know, is famed for his researches into poison gas. We found him in Matsiami’s hands. Now five other men noted for their work in war materials have disappeared. What’s the logical explanation of that?” “My God,” said Reeves slowly. “You mean Matsiami’s got them all!”

I

T was characteristic of the man that he could drop everything else for the time being and sleep with an easy mind, renewing his strength and mental alertness, preparing for a new day of struggle against the forces of evil and crime. Late the next afternoon he awoke, and, after leaving the hotel, telephoned police headquarters from a booth. The excited voice of Inspector Reeves, who had conducted last night’s raid on the Japanese headquarters, came to him over the phone. “Thank God, you’ve called. Hell’s broken loose. Matsiami’s disappeared entirely, and five big-shots who were attending the scientists’ convention have vanished. Can you get down here right away?” “As soon as it’s dark,” said Van, as he hung up. He left the booth, troubled by black apprehension. But through the cloud of anxiety which enveloped him he saw more clearly than before, Matsiami’s plans. Perhaps this was the break that he needed to pick up once again the lost trail of the Japanese menace. As dusk swept down over the city, he set out for police headquarters. He was wearing the inevitable black silk mask over his features, and the upturned heavy collar of an ulster hid his face from casual observers as he drove through the streets. He ran up the steps of the police station, and a moment later he was in Reeves’ private office.

V

AN shrugged. “It’s logical to suppose so,” he said. “You’ll probably find out that Rawlins, for some reason, did not attend the convention meeting last night. That would account for the fact that Matsiami was forced to kidnap him at a different time. Let me see Rawlins—alone.” Reeves, too astounded by the other’s theory to talk further, willingly gave the orders that admitted Van to the gas expert’s presence. The door of the room closed behind him. Van studied the blank features of the man sitting in the chair opposite him. His eyes were dull and glazed, unintelligent to such a degree that if Van had not known the man’s reputation he would certainly have taken him for a complete moron.

15

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE He crossed the room and laid a fraternal hand on the man’s shoulder. “Rawlins,” he said kindly, “I’d like to talk to you.” The scientist looked up and grinned foolishly. Yet he remained silent “Listen, Rawlins,” said Van, “did you attend the convention last night?” Rawlins stared at him stupidly.

“No,” he answered, “I did not go. I had to visit a sick friend instead. I started to go there. Then I—” Be broke off. “Did you see your friend?” asked Van eagerly. Rawlins shook his head. “I don’t remember,” he mumbled. “I started out to visit him. I can’t remember if I

“It does mean death, Matsiami— Your death!” “Convention?” he repeated. “Convention?” “Yes,” said Van patiently. “The scientists’ convention that you came to San Francisco for. You remember. Did you go there?” Rawlins considered this for a moment. Then he shook his head.

saw him or not. I don’t remember. It hurts my head to try to remember.” He looked up pathetically at his questioner. “Please don’t make me think. It hurts my head.”

V

AN’S eyes lit up with hope. Perhaps here was a clue, after all. As he had thought, Rawlins had not attended the

16

THE ISLAND OF DEATH convention. That accounted for his not being kidnapped with the others. Then, as he stood there, lost in thought, the scientist half rose in his chair. He hesitated for a moment, then came to his feet. He walked to the door, tried the handle, then turned desperate eyes to Van. “I can’t get out,” he said. “I have to get out I have to.” “Why do you have to get out, Rawlins?” asked Van. “I have to go somewhere. The Mirador. I must go. It is ordered.” Van’s heart pounded excitedly. “The Mirador? What is the Mirador?” Rawlins looked at him wearily. He answered impatiently as one talking to a child. “The Mirador,” he repeated petulantly. “The boat. At the dock. I have to be there. It may sail without me.” Something clicked in Van’s brain. He knew that the scientist was under the sinister influence of Matsiami’s brain. This babbling of the Mirador, of the place he had to go, was undoubtedly a mental message from the Japanese. Van walked to the door, a sense of elation in his heart. “You wait a little while, Rawlins,” he said. “I’ll see that you get out of here all right.” He left the room and returned to Reeves. “What’s the Mirador?” he asked abruptly. “It’s a ship, I know. Did you ever hear anything about it?” Reeves glanced up. “The Mirador?” he repeated. “Why, that’s Ricci’s private yacht. The one on which he conducts most of his experiments. Why?” For a moment Van was on the verge of telling him. Then, on second thought, he held his peace. He was not ready for police interference yet. He could accomplish more alone. Besides, it would take strategy to release these men from the thrall of Matsiami’s mind. The police could make no arrests if, in obedience to the Jap’s wishes, the kidnapped men denied that they had been kidnapped. No, he decided at that moment that he would play this hand out alone, pit his wits

against that of the Japanese. He would visit the Mirador first, to see if his suspicions were correct. Then be would act. “I just wondered,” be said carelessly to Reeves. “Well, I’m going to take a look around. I’ll call you up later.” But as a matter of cold hard fact it was over a month before he spoke to the police inspector again.

CHAPTER VII

A

EXPOSED

TALL, distinguished-appearing man, clad in immaculate clothes, emerged from a taxi cab on the Oakland water front. Despite his intelligent appearance, a close observer might have noticed that the elderly man wore a dazed, dull expression in the depths of his eyes. It was as if they lacked clearness, lucidity, as if the brain, naturally alert, had been dulled by some external influence. As he walked toward the trim white yacht which was tied up to the dock, Van Loan was painfully aware of two salient facts. He knew that his disguise was perfect. He knew further that he could simulate Rawlins’ voice and mannerisms to a degree which would defy detection. Those facts he mentally registered on the credit side of the ledger. As for the debit—well, he knew what a tremendous risk be was running. Despite the fact that he had stumbled on this clue of the yacht, he did not yet know all that it might portend. He was walking into it blindly, of necessity. If he passed up this chance to make contact once again with Matsiami, he might lose him altogether. It was now or never, and Van had decided to gamble all on a single throw of the dice. Be walked up the gangplank like a man in a trance. At the edge of the dock, a small Jap hailed him in broken English. “You want somebody?” Van nodded. “I come at the master’s command,” he intoned sonorously in Rawlins’ voice. “Where is he?”

17

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE

A

VAGUE malignant gleam of humor flashed into the Oriental’s mind as he gazed at the proud white man who had been utterly subjected to his master’s will. “Come with me,” he said, and led the way down the deck, through a door, into the stern of the vessel. He stopped before a stateroom and rapped deferentially. A gruff voice said in Japanese: “Come in.” The little Jap flung open the door and roughly thrust Van across the threshold. Seated at a broad desk, Matsiami looked up and grinned evilly. “So,” he said, “you have come, Rawlins. We’ve been waiting for you.” He turned to his henchman who still stood deferentially on the threshold. “Tell the captain to cast off. We can sail now. This is the last one.” Van’s pulse picked up a beat. He hadn’t quite counted on the Mirador’s pulling out so quickly. He had figured that he might be able to accomplish something to wreck the Japanese master’s machinations before they had got underway. But now, if the ship sailed at once, he was in something of a dilemma. However, he gave no sign of what flashed through his mind. He stood there with bowed head, deferentially before the huge Nipponese. The door slammed as the other man scurried off to do his chief’s bidding. Matsiami turned to Van with an angry frown on his face. “Rawlins,” he said, “where have you been? You should have received my mental message hours ago. You are late.”

emotions and held them tightly in control. “You will be more prompt in the future,” said Matsiami. “Do you understand? Here, drink this.” He turned to the desk, poured a rippling green fluid from a bottle into a glass and handed it to Van. Van took the glass in steady fingers. He stared at it, the dull glaze still in his eyes. But beneath his dazed exterior, his heart pounded and his brain clicked on all its cylinders. For he knew full well That in his hand he held the evil potion, the mysterious drug that rendered those who drank it utterly in the thrall of the mad Jap’s will. Even though his logical Occidental brain told him that such a thing was almost impossible, he knew enough of Oriental mysteries to deny his own reasoning. Besides, he had already witnessed the terrible things that the green drug had done to the luckless white men to whom it had been administered. Matsiami looked at him keenly beneath lowering brows. “Come,” he thundered. “Drink!” Still Van hesitated. If he should permit this vile potion to pass his lips, he would be powerless in the hands of this relentless monster. If, on the other hand, he should refuse to taste the stuff, he would be immediately exposed. Matsiami would know that if this white man before him refused to obey his commands he was no longer in thrall to the Jap’s will. That would cause an investigation which would expose the Phantom at once. Then Fate stalked into the room, bearing an ironic reprieve.

V

AN looked up at him and, simulating abject fear, said in a shaking tone: “Ah, master, I was delayed. I am sorry. I meant no harm.” Matsiami took a single step toward him. His yellow hand was raised in the air for a moment. Then it swung in a short arc, striking Van full in the face. The force of the blow staggered Van. And for a single second a maddening red rage swept over him. His fists clenched at his sides, and he had already taken a step forward to hammer down this arrogant Oriental, when his brain suddenly seized the reins of his

T

HIS time, the door opened without the formality of a knock. The little man who had escorted Van in burst excitedly into the chamber. He stared at Van, then switched his glance to Matsiami. He jabbered so swiftly in his native tongue that Van had difficulty in translating his words. “Another is here,” he finished breathlessly. Matsiami’s brow clouded. “Fool!” he snarled. “Another what?” Again the little Jap pointed at Van.

18

THE ISLAND OF DEATH “Him. Says he is Rawlins. Exactly the same as that man. Looks like him. Talks like him. Says his name is the same.” In the tense silence that ensued for a moment, Van was aware of the rumble of a turning screw. He was conscious of motion beneath his feet, as the deck quivered and the Mirador put out from the dock. However, outwardly, no change was apparent. His face was immobile and implacable. The eyes that still stared into the liquid green depths of the glass in his hand were lifeless and stupid. Matsiami crossed the room. Roughly he took hold of his henchman’s shoulders and shook him. The little man cowered. A whimper escaped his lips. “Fool,” cried Matsiami. “What nonsense are you talking? If there is another, bring him here!” In that instant Van saw his chance. For the fragment of a moment, the huge Nipponese’s back was turned away from him. With a single swift gesture, Van hurled the vile drink through the open porthole. When Matsiami turned around again, he was standing there, the glass raised to his lips. He lowered it and grinned stupidly at the other. However, Matsiami paid him scant attention. He fell back in his chair, staring at the open door, awaiting to see whom his man would bring back to him—the man who was “another.” Van replaced the glass on the desk. At that moment he was no less baffled than the master himself by the tidings of the little Jap. Who could have come, saying he was Rawlins? Surely it could not have been the scientist himself. He had been left safely enough in the hands of Reeves. Yet—

was absolutely no doubt about it any more. The man was Rawlins himself! Ito, the little man, stood in the doorway, his mouth agape, staring from Van to Rawlins. It was too much for his inadequate mind. And, for that matter, it was entirely too much for superior minds to his. Both Van and Matsiami were stunned into a momentary silence. That silence was broken by the rhythmic turning of the vessel’s screws. The deck vibrated monotonously. The lapping of the water against the hull of the ship beat softly into their ears. It was Matsiami who recovered first. “Get out!” he roared at Ito. “Get out and tell the captain to head full speed toward the point I showed him on the chart. Close the door.”

T

HE door slammed behind the departing Ito, and then Matsiami sat down again, and with eyes in which suspicion was fast replacing amazement, surveyed the two white men before him. But even to his keen eyes there was no difference between the two men. Carefully he stared at them. The real Rawlins, with a fatuous grin on his face, glanced about the room like an idiot. Van, despite the excited surge of the blood through his veins, attempted to emulate the scientist’s moronic expression. At last Matsiami spoke, slowly, between clenched teeth. “There is trickery here,” he said. “Some one shall die for this.” He rose to his feet and towered before the real Rawlins. “Who are you?” he roared. Rawlins flinched before him. “I am Rawlins, master,” he said in a tremulous tones. “I have come to obey your orders. What you desire, I shall do.” Matsiami turned slowly until his eyes bored into Van’s. The latter stared back blandly, unemotionally. “And,” said the Japanese, his voice quieter now, but veiling a sinister, unmistakable threat “And who are you?” Van grinned foolishly.

A

S the yellow man returned and ushered another figure into the stateroom, the two men already in the room were equally amazed and startled. Matsiami rose to his feet. A terrible frown crawled over his brow. His eyes narrowed and murder was mirrored there. Van’s pulse hammered at a steady hundred and twenty as his astonished eyes fell upon the features of the newcomer. There 19

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE “I am Rawlins, master,” he said. “I am here to obey you. I shall do what you command.”

possessed, seized the jeweled heft firmly in his hand.

T

HE gleaming blade touched his left arm. At first he was conscious of nothing more than a slight pin-prick Then, thoroughly aware that the implacable eyes of Matsiami were upon him, he thrust the knife in deeper. Blood covered his wrist, ran down to the deck, staining the expensive rug that covered it. A thousand devils of agony crawled up his arm. A stabbing pain ate into his brain. On the other side of the room, Rawlins committed the same self-torture, oblivious to all pain because of the numbness of the nerve centres of his brain. Yet, despite the fact that one of the men in that room was oblivious to pain, and one suffered all the agonies of Gethsemane, outwardly their features remained the same. Not a hint, not an inkling of the terrible torture he was undergoing, made itself apparent in Van’s face. Though every nerve, every muscle in his body cried out for surcease, his expression never changed from the dull dazed mask that had covered his eyes and countenance when he had first entered the room. Matsiami’s frown grew deeper, as he witnessed the failure of his plan. Evidently he was going to learn nothing this way. The knives were now imbedded a full half inch in the flesh. Blood deluged the wrists of his victims. “Enough!” he cried.

F

OR a moment the huge Japanese seemed puzzled, then a slow smile crawled over his face. His eyes lit up with a crafty, sadistic gleam. “So,” he muttered more to himself than to the others. “So, you both shall do what I command, eh?” From the top drawer of his desk he took two knives with glittering jeweled hafts. He held them both in his left hand. Then from somewhere he produced a revolver with his right. He handed a knife to each of the white men, then he covered them both with the revolver. “Now,” he said, “you both claim to be at my command. Good. Then I command you to cut into the flesh of your left wrists with those knives. Cut deep. I wish to see the blood run. Triumphantly he leaned back against the desk, and holding his pistol steadily in his hand, regarded the two bearded men before him. In a flash Van divined the cunning depths of the yellow man’s scheme. Matsiami realized that the true Rawlins was undoubtedly in his power. He realized, further, that the true Rawlins would do whatever the master commanded him. The imposter, of course, was free from his evil power, was not in subjection to the yellow man’s sinister, menacing mind. And there it was. The real Rawlins, conscious of nothing save a compelling urge to obey the master, would unhesitatingly gash himself at the latter’s command. But the imposter, Matsiami reasoned, would not have the courage to deliberately slash his own body. “Well,” he said mockingly, his snapping black eyes boring into the white men’s, over the muzzle of the gun. “Commence. Plunge the knife steadily, slowly into your own flesh. I, the master, command it.” Rawlins, without hesitation, held the knife steadily over the flesh of his left wrist. The knife descended, bit into the flesh. Van, steeling himself to the ordeal, summoning up every ounce of inherent courage that his heart

W

ITH a silent prayer of gratitude, Van withdrew the blade from his arm, and though it cost him a terrible effort he managed to achieve a smile in emulation of Rawlins as he looked at Matsiami. The latter spoke harshly. “Very well,” he said. “The one of you who is an imposter undoubtedly has courage. He passed that test well. Now we shall try another. Perhaps the traitor here has intelligence, knowledge as well as physical courage.” Van’s brain raced. What was behind this latest move of the Japanese, he did not know. Yet, he held himself alert, ready to cope with

20

THE ISLAND OF DEATH any contingency which might arise. Matsiami, the gun still in his hand, again reached into the desk. This time he produced two slips of paper and a pair of pencils. He walked silently to the white men, took the knives from their inert fingers, and handed each of them a piece of paper and a pencil. “Now,” he said. “Rawlins—whichever one of you he may be—you and you alone, other than myself, to whom you have confided your secret, know the properties of your latest gaseous invention. You will write on that paper the formula for the manufacture of the gas which is known as Oxygia.” Rawlins seized his pencil and laboriously commenced writing figures down on the paper. Van stood stock still, stunned by this turn of events. For now it was impossible for him to play the part any longer. True, he had heard of Rawlins’ latest invention, Oxygia. The papers had been full of it a short while ago. But the ingredients of the gas, the formula could be known to the inventor alone, and, perhaps, as Matsiami had said, to the mad Japanese. While he had been prepared to go to any lengths to keep up his pretense, Matsiami had now hit upon a device which he could not frustrate. A sharp mocking voice poured into his ears. “Ah, and why do you not write, my friend?” Van looked up at the speaker, then his gaze traveled across the room to the figure of Rawlins that was still busily engaged in scribbling figures upon the slip of paper. At last he finished his work, and handed the sheet to Matsiami.

stay it would for at least forty-eight hours. He tossed the pencil and paper on the desk. Blood from his wrist still dripped on the floor. Then he spoke in his natural voice. “No,” he said evenly. “That’s something I don’t happen to know. But I do know that you’ll never carry out this mad scheme of yours. Matsiami. Even if you dispose of me, there are many others who will ruin your plans.” Matsiami grinned evilly. “You were a fool,” he said, softly, “a fool to think that you could try such stunts with me. You have courage, and that is a quality I admire. Had you less of that, it might be less necessary to kill you. But a man of your caliber must die.” He lifted his revolver suggestively. Then, of a sudden, a mad, desperate plan flashed across Van’s brain. When men are about to die, they have nothing more to lose than their lives. Anything—even the thousand to one shots—can cost them no more than they already have hanging in the balance. That was the reason that Van decided to fling himself at the Jap. Should he succeed in overpowering him, perhaps by thrusting a revolver up against his head, he could force Matsiami to issue the orders which would send the ship back to its dock. Perhaps—it was a long chance. But death stared him in the eye anyway. He had nothing to lose.

F

ORGETTING the agony that rippled up his arm, he tensed himself, and flung his body through the small space that intervened between him and the Japanese. Even as he threw himself forward he saw the yellow finger constrict on the trigger of the revolver. The cordite blinded him momentarily as his hands clutched the other’s body. The bullet ate avidly into the wall on the other side of the room. Van’s fingers grasped the yellow throat before him and hung on with a bulldog grip. For a full minute both men, strong, relentless and fighting for their lives, hung there together like two pit bulldogs. Neither could turn the tide of battle their way. Then, with a sudden lurch, Matsiami jerked away. For a moment Van’s grip on his

T

HE Japanese glanced at it, crumpled it up, and thrust it in his pocket. Then he turned to Van once more. “That was correct,” he said. “Perhaps you, too, know the formula for Oxygia?” Van sighed wearily. The game was up now, and he knew it. The one thing for which he could still be grateful was that he had donned a disguise which would not come off easily. True, his beard could be detached with a struggle, but the dye he had applied to his fresh skin had been put there to stay—and 21

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE

With a gun in each hand, he ran from the shack, pursued by a score of Moros. A spear hurtled over his head throat was broken, and in that instant he had the full use of his vocal cords. “Get help,” he threw at Rawlins, who stood tremulously by the door, witnessing the struggle like a man in a dream. In immediate response to his master’s voice, the scientist flung open the door and uttered a piercing cry. Behind him Van

already heard the tramp of running feet in the corridor outside. Voices shouted at his back. Men poured into the room. He turned on his heel to face the yellow mob, resolved to sell his life as dearly as possible. If this was the end, all right; but he would at least go to his God in a manner that befitted the reputation that the world had 22

THE ISLAND OF DEATH bestowed upon the Phantom. His right fist shot out and caught a Japanese flush on the point of the jaw. His left drew back to deliver a blow to another ruffian who was charging down upon him with a knife. Then, from the corner of his eye, he was aware of a black object over his head. He turned quickly to cope with this new threat but too late. The black object hurtled through the air like a diving plummet. Something struck his temple with terrific force. Something flashed bright and garish before his eyes. Then a dark oblivion descended upon him. Consciousness and pain fled from his inert body.

burned out he had oriented himself. He was in the shaft alley of the ship. This thing that throbbed and pounded above him was the twisting propeller shaft of the vessel. He breathed deeply, and struck another match. The remainder of the box served to show him how completely he was trapped. There was but one entrance to the place and that was a small door at the side. It was made fast on the outside. He wasted no precious strength in trying to escape. Instead, he characteristically went about making the best of a bad situation.

H

E relaxed on the oily deck of his prison, seeking to seize a moment of complete rest and relaxation in order to replenish his reserve strength. Then, as he lay there, he considered the situation from all angles. First, he was amazed to find him self alive. Why the mad Matsiami had not made an end of him at once he did not know. The Japanese must know that he was the Phantom. Already, before, he had been warned of the detective, and now that he—Matsiami— had uncovered this latest ruse of his, no doubt could remain in the Japanese mind as to his true identity. However, he decided that this was nothing to worry about. He was still alive. And so much the better. But— A sharp click of the door outside quickly interrupted his reverie. He lay there tense and silent in the darkness, his eyes glued to the spot in the wall where he had seen the door.

CHAPTER VIII

MEN IN THRALL

T

HE prostrate figure of Richard Curtis Van Loan stirred uneasily. His eyes opened and met a darkness that was as black as the darkness of his own unconsciousness had been. In an instant he had recovered all his mental faculties. Deprived of the use of his eyes in the Stygian blackness, he fell back on his other senses. He was in a stuffy, evil-smelling chamber. A hammering throbbing in his head made thought an agony. A pounding, rumbling sound dinned itself into his ears. He sat up, aware of the fact that his clothes and hands were immersed in oily grease. His wrist was caked with dried blood and it pained him savagely. He explored his pockets and at last discovered a box of safety matches. The lucifer glared into dim light, and wonderingly Van examined his prison. In its faint glow he saw a long cave that stretched farther than he could see. The match burned down to his fingertips, then went out—and still he had not the slightest idea of where he was. Again he lit a match, and this time stared upward toward the roof of his prison. Overhead he saw a tremendous column that revolved rumblingly. Grease dripped from it down upon him. This time when the match

A

FLASHLIGHT ripped the darkness from his face, and the voice of Ito threw Japanese invective into his ears. “Dog of a spy, come out. The master wants to see you.” Behind the hand that held the torch, Van could see the cruel faces of the little Oriental, flanked by two more of his comrades. Van spoke no word. He would have preferred to have been left alone a little longer, to consider ways and means, to rest a while longer, but now be could not. Stiffly he rose to his feet and crawled through the little doorway. Ito, evidently, was

23

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE taking no chances on his prisoner making a getaway. At an order from him, his two fellows seized Van in a cruel grasp, twisting his arms behind his back, in jiu jitsu fashion, and shoving him roughly along the companionway that led above. A door was suddenly pushed open and Van was thrust inside a stateroom. His three guards stood about him in a semicircle, and from the evil, murderous glints in their eyes, it seemed as if they were anxious for their captive to make some move which would give them an excuse to tear him to pieces with the gleaming knives which they wore in their belts.

were fighting against. I want to show you how impregnable I really am.” Van smiled quietly. He still had a single card in the game that he was sure Matsiami knew nothing of. Still smiling, he played it. “Are you aware,” he said, “that by now the police have cabled descriptions of every one of the men you have kidnapped to every country in the world? They’re bound to be picked up sooner or later.” Matsiami chuckled. “You’re wrong,” he said, “for two reasons. First, my destination is not any country where those cables will do me any harm.” “But cables reach everywhere today.” Again Matsiami chuckled. “Not where I and those honorable men of science are bound,” he said confidently. “And where is that?”

S

ITTING before a bottle of old brandy, Van saw Matsiami. The big Japanese stared at him insolently. Van appraised him as he sat there, and the conclusion to which he came made him realize that to frustrate this coldly calculating genius, who had dedicated his brains to evil, was a task of the first magnitude. Matsiami smiled, but the threat in his eyes belied the expression on his lips. He waved the guards back, then spoke in English. “You are wondering, perhaps, that you still live?” For a moment Van did not answer. He was aware of an abrupt sense of weariness, as if it were futile to go on. Without waiting for an invitation he slumped down into a near-by, chair. He was a sorry looking figure at that moment. The beard which he had stuck on with triple proof spirit-gum to impersonate Rawlins had been half ripped off in his fight with the yellow men. His face was scratched and filthy with oil from the shaft alley. His clothes were ripped to shreds, and his left arm, covered with blood, was almost useless as it hung at his side. “I assume,” he said at last, “that you have kept me alive for some purpose of your own, rather than through any idea of showing mercy.” Matsiami regarded him quizzically. “Perhaps,” he said in his perfect English. “Say rather it was neither. It was more that before you die I want to show you what you

M

ATSIAMI clenched his fist and struck the table. “That,” he said dramatically, “is the Island of Death.” Van said nothing. He had not the slightest idea of the other’s meaning. True, he knew that there are dozens of uninhabited, uncharted small isles in the Pacific, and for the time being he assumed that Matsiami was alluding to one of these. For the moment he dismissed that angle of the conversation. “And your other reason?” he asked. “The other reason,” said the Japanese deliberately, “is that these men are not being kidnapped. They are coming with me of their own free will. This, as you know, is Ricci’s yacht. We are all his guests here.” Van sighed wearily. “You expect me to believe that?” Matsiami rose. “Come with me,” he said. “I shall prove it.” Instructing the three guards, in Japanese, to follow behind them, he took Van by the arm and led him from the stateroom. The little procession strode into the saloon where half a dozen men were having dinner. Van recognized them at once as the six missing men of science who had been torn from their native land to assist the madman of Nippon to realize his crazy dream.

24

THE ISLAND OF DEATH “Pray continue your meal, gentlemen,” said Matsiami. “I have merely brought another guest. This soiled person, Ricci, charges me with having kidnapped you. I wish you would relieve his mind on that score.” Ricci, the wireless expert, lifted a tired, expressionless face to his inquisitor. “That’s ridiculous,” he said slowly, gravely, like a child reciting a poem. “You are my guest here, as are all the others. My wireless to San Francisco will explain all that.” Van was aware of a deluge of despair and futility sweeping over him. How could he fight for these men when they could not fight for themselves? Matsiami had them so in his thrall that they were absolutely powerless to comprehend, much less struggle against the awful peril that threatened them. “And you, Mr. Stern,” continued Matsiami, “you are quite contented to be with us?”

“Good,” said Matsiami, his eyes lighting up with suppressed excitement. And even as he spoke, the throbbing of the Mirador’s propeller ceased, and from somewhere there came the fainter sound of a distant mechanical hum. “There is your answer,” said Matsiami. “As you have already said, now that I have shown you how thoroughly I have worked my plans out, you shall die. A zeppelin has met us here. I, and my men, and my hostages, are leaving in it. You shall stay here.” Van gazed at him through narrowed lids. “You mean you’re scuttling her?” he asked softly, evenly. “Exactly.” Matsiami clapped his hands sharply in signal. At that moment a rope dropped itself over Van’s neck from behind. Half a dozen yellow men threw themselves upon him. Despite his weakened condition he struggled violently for a moment. But the yellow horde made short work of overpowering him. A moment later he lay bound on the floor. Ito, bending over him, thrust a napkin in his throat as a gag. Then Matsiami turned to the little group of men who were still eating, apparently oblivious to the struggle which had ensued, and curtly ordered them out on deck. Blindly, like sheep, they obeyed.

A

GAIN Van found himself gazing into the vacuous depths of a pair of eyes that belonged to a soul completely under the control of the Japanese’s mind. “Of course,” said Stern, “I’ve wanted to get off and discuss my new aviation plans with someone who understood, for a long time.” Van sighed and turned away. A terrible emotion welled up within him as he beheld these impotent brain-robbed men, in utter senile subjection to the yellow monster. He could not bear to look at it. “You are quite satisfied now?” said Matsiami. “Quite,” said Van evenly, meeting the other’s eye. “And now that you have indulged your conceit to the extent of showing me these things, you are about to kill me. Am I right?” “I should expect no less perspicacity from the Phantom,” said Matsiami mockingly. “I—”

CHAPTER IX

THE BOMB

I

N the doorway, Matsiami turned and stared sardonically at the bound figure of Van. “That your last moments be those of contentment,” he purred smoothly, “know that every man of the Mirador’s crew has been dosed with a sleeping draught. Know also that the bottom will be ripped from the ship by a time bomb exactly thirty minutes after my airship’s nose points east.” He made a low mocking bow and continued. “Thirty minutes, I said, oh eminent Phantom, and you may count those minutes carefully—for they are your last on this earth.”

T

HE appearance of Ito in the doorway interrupted him. “The signal lights of the airship have shown,” he said, bowing deferentially to his master. 25

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE He stepped quietly backward and closed the door behind him. His footsteps faded swiftly to silence; and Van, weary and exhausted, unconsciously followed the vicious suggestion, began to count the scant remaining minutes that remained to him. Fastened and beyond possibility of movement, it is small wonder that Van, for a moment, regarded the situation as hopeless. Gagged, almost choked, he sat there conscious of nothing save a despairing sensation of defeat and his own aching physical weariness. Never before in his entire variegated and checkered career had he been so close to the end. He was not afraid. No, he had gazed eye to eye with the Reaper too many times to know fear. But it seemed as if his fighting spirit had left him, as if his terrific strength had become enervated, sapped by the frightful ordeal he had been through. Then suddenly, he stiffened in his bonds. It seemed to his sharp ears that he heard some movement outside the cabin door. There was a click as the knob tuned. The door opened, and a bleary-eyed person in the blue uniform of a ship’s officer entered the room. The man looked as if he were doped. He stood on the threshold of the room, staring down at the bound figure on the floor, with dull, heavy eyes. He took a step forward staggered, then gripped the door jamb for support. Despite the fact that the man looked as if he could be of little help in his present condition, Van’s heart took a sudden leap. In that instant all of his old confidence, all his fire, all his gallant fighting spirit returned. While there was life there was hope. And, here, slim as it might be, was a chance. He jerked violently in his bonds to attract the other’s attention. The man stared at him dully, then essayed to walk toward him. The six foot journey across the deck, however, proved too much for him. He staggered, then fell almost at Van’s side.

whom Matsiami had administered his sleeping potion. Now either this specific dose had been inadequate or this specific man had unusual recuperative powers. It was obvious that he had not been entirely knocked out by the drug. And now in a half stupefied condition, he was wandering drunkenly about, hardly conscious of what he was doing. Now, however, as he continued to stare at Van, a gleam of intelligence shone from the dullness of his eyes. After what seemed an eternity to the detective, the officer reached forward and plucked the napkin from Van’s mouth. Then, as if exhausted by this effort he lay full length on the floor beside Van. Van, now able to talk, muttered a silent prayer. He addressed the other in tense vibrant accents. “Listen, man,” he said. “Pull yourself together if you want to live. Do you hear me?” The other looked at him dazedly. “Live?” he repeated thickly. “Is there danger?” “Terrible danger,” said Van. “Have you a knife? Cut these bonds of mine, and I’ll get you out of here. If we lose any time this ship will blow itself into a thousand pieces.” For a full minute the officer stared at Van, while the latter prayed that the urgency of his words would permeate the drug that gripped the other and filter into his mind. At last, with a vague impression of concern on his face, the officer fumbled in his pocket.

H

E produced a jack-knife, and after a fumbling struggle to open its blade, he slashed at Van’s bonds. A moment later the Phantom once again was free. First he lifted up the man who had released him. He slapped him sharply on both cheeks, then, picking up a pitcher of water that was on the table, flung it in the officer’s face. The latter glared at him angrily. “Say,” he roared. “What’s the idea? What’s the—” Hastily Van thrust a hand over his mouth. “Shh,” he cried. “I had to get you out of it somehow. You’d been doped. Time enough to explain later. Come to the hold at once. The ship’s scheduled to blow herself to atoms any moment now.”

V

AN rolled over on his side and regarded the officer with anxious eyes. It came to him abruptly what had happened. This man was undoubtedly one of the ship’s crew to 26

THE ISLAND OF DEATH

T

HE blows and the water had brought the officer out of it somewhat. He gripped Van’s hand tightly. “My name’s Bomers, second officer. What in God’s name is going on? Who are you?” “They call me the Phantom.” said Van gravely. “And as to what’s going on, I don’t know all of it. I’ll tell you as much as I do know later. There’s no time now. Come on, we’ve got to find that bomb or a score of helpless men will be blown to atoms.” The second officer needed no further explanation. The Phantom’s name, coupled with the fact that he was used to obeying orders, accustomed to rising to swift emergencies, drove him to immediate action. “It’s probably planted in the engine room,” said Bowers. “That’s the logical place for it.” Van nodded, and the pair of them made their way slowly through dimly lit corridors, down companionways. As they went, Van realized that every waking soul on the vessel was on deck, embarking on the dirigible. While below there were some twenty souls, slumbering peacefully, all unaware of the terrible death that was fast descending upon them. Creeping down the companionway that led to the engine room, Van suddenly noticed the small door that led to the shaft alley where he had been imprisoned. He seized Bomers’ arm. “In there,” he said. “That’s where it’s probably planted. If a bomb exploded in the shaft alley, it’d rip the whole hull out of the ship.” Bomers nodded. “Come on,” he whispered.

was taking no chances on some passing vessel noting the lights on the derelict and stopping to investigate. Then, as his hand touched the door, he felt the iron portal being opened toward him. He grabbed Bomers’ arm and pulled him back into the shadows. The pale beam of a weak flashlight lit up the opposite wall, and the voices of two men talking in Japanese came to their ears. “When the voice we have left behind speaks, it will kill many of our enemies,” said one. The other chuckled, yet he said with some concern, “and so shall we, if we do not make haste. The lights have already gone. That means—” “This,” said Richard Curtis Van Loan as his right fist shot through the air like a Bengal lance. His blow struck the speaker squarely on the point of the jaw. The little Jap, taken completely unawares, was lifted clean back into the dark tunnel. The thud of his skull hitting the steel of the bulkhead sounded like the impact of two billiard balls. But Van did not notice that. Inflamed to a terrible wrath by the wanton murder which they were so callously executing, he turned like a panther upon the second man. Bomers hesitated for a moment, then seeing that his ally needed no help, bent down and entered the shaft. Van and the second Jap crashed to the plates of the engine room deck like falling stones, but Van’s hands never loosened their grip on the yellow man’s throat.

T

HE fallen flashlight lit up the scene of a struggle that was both short and brutal. The clawing hands of the Oriental stabbed at Van’s face and eyes, but before they ever harmed their objective, Van had hammered the man to insensibility on the steel plates. He had risen, panting, when Bomers emerged from the alley. In his hand was an oblong iron object. Van gazed at it eagerly. “Get it?” he asked. Bomers nodded. “Yeah, there’s enough ammonal in this to sink a battleship. We’d better get it overboard quick.”

T

HE pair of them made their way down the ladder to the door which led to the shaft alley. Then suddenly, when they had almost reached their objective, every light in the ship was abruptly obliterated. Complete darkness shrouded the vessel. Van stood stock still for a moment. At first he was inclined to think that something had happened to the dynamo, but then he realized that this was no accident. Matsiami 27

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE Swiftly the pair of them made their way aloft again, bearing with them an iron death that would flame into terrible being in less than ten minutes now. Van heaved a sigh of relief as they came to a porthole and Bomers chucked the iron lethal weapon out into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. Then, breathing more freely when the deadly explosive rested at the bottom of the ocean, they were cautiously negotiating the main alleyway, when the beam from the flashlight which Van had appropriated from the Japs below cast its beams on the shadowy figure of an other of Matsiami’s men. Less than ten yards separated them; there was no possibility of unobserved retreat now. The Japanese glared at them savagely, and both Bomers and Van were preparing themselves for his onslaught when he jabbered something in Japanese which made Van seize Bomers’ arm in a tight grip. “Fools,” he hissed. “Think you the master has time to waste? But that your services are needed in the flying ship, we would have left you behind.” AN gasped, and instantly realized the misapprehension that the yellow man was laboring under. Blinded by the glare in his eyes he had mistaken these white men for his two comrades who had been detailed to plant the bomb below. “We had trouble locating the place,” replied Van in Japanese, mimicking the voice of the man he had knocked unconscious below. The other turned sourly away. “Hurry, fools,” he called over his shoulder. “And put out that light before you gain the deck. Its beam might be seen by a passing ship.” Evidently he was in a panic to be away, fearing that the ship would be split asunder beneath his very feet. Van switched off the light and whispered to Bomers. “He thinks we’re his comrades. I’m going to follow him and see if I can board that dirigible. You’d better stay here. You’ll be picked up by some ship in the morning, or can proceed under your own steam to port.” Bomers swore volubly in his ear.

V

Van lashed out in grim fury. His fists were swinging pistons, and the whole weight of his body was behind every blow. “The devil I will. I started this thing with you, and I’ll stick. If I can help wreck that Jap’s plans and his life, I’ll do it. You can’t get rid of me now.” And there in the darkness beset by unseen peril on all sides, two gallant adventurers shook hands warmly, and silently pledged a friendship that would last till death saw fit to part them. 28

THE ISLAND OF DEATH CHAPTER X

them like a mighty inverted pendulum. However, they retained their grip and made their way, perilously, hand over hand, at an angle of thirty degrees. It was a slow crablike progress that became the more acute as they approached their objective. Then, at last, there loomed before them, black against the blackness of the night, the after-car of the dirigible. As they pulled themselves aboard, they heard a succession of shouted orders from the forward car. The cables were suddenly released, and less than a second after they had climbed aboard the bucking airship, she thrust her nose into the east and with her engines pounding, made her way across the sky. Below them, tossing impotently on the surface of the wares, was the Mirador, left to whatever fate the gods had reserved for it.

A COMRADE

S

OON THEY emerged behind the man who had just spoken to them, onto the deck. The night outside was rendered doubly dark by the gigantic balloon of an airship that hovered some fifty feet above them, tugging uneasily at the long cables which held her fast to the ship. HE man in front of them turned abruptly and faced them in the darkness. “Here,” he said. “Help free these fastenings. Two, we unship here. Two, we abandon from the airship.” The two white men, keeping their faces well hidden, hastily cast off the two cables. Above, the huge unlighted airship tugged at her bonds like a frightened filly. “Up with you,” cried the Japanese. “Fast now, for the strain is overheavy for these two remaining strands. Fast now.” The Japanese’s last words in his life were exceedingly true ones—a fact to which the loss of his own life attested. Bomers and Van seized the writhing cables and started the difficult ascent. Behind them, the Japanese seized the latter half of the line Van was ascending. A tricky gust of wind swept across the silent sea, and the enormous gas bag bucked like an unruly elephant. She dipped once, then lifted her nose a full fifty feet in a tremendous rise that ripped the rail from the side of the ship. The rip of splintered wood and torn steel was mingled with the piercing death cry of a human being, and the Japanese lost his hold and plunged, like a plummet, into the depths of the ocean. To the dizzy minds of Van and Bomers, it seemed as if they had been shot into the middle of a tornado. The long rope ladder curled and twisted like a writhing snake, and the fierce gusts of wind created as the balloon lashed at its moorings became a thousand cold-breathed demons bent on tearing their hands from the dangling cable. Then the gas bag dropped down again. Below, the deck house of the ship swung past

T

T

HE wind-swept deck on which they found themselves was deserted—a circumstance for which Van found time to feel thoroughly grateful. Another brawl, now that he was completely exhausted by his climb, would have finished him. Then the solution to this lucky break occurred to him. “They’re busy for’ard,” he whispered to Bomers. “The bow cables have been holding the strain. They’re so busy cutting them loose they’ve paid no attention to these. They’ll probably be back here soon, though.” Bomers shrugged. “So what,” he asked, “will we do then?” “We won’t be here,” said Van grimly. He tapped an aluminum rod near his shoulder, one of the many that held the cars in position beneath the huge blunt-nosed envelope. “There’s a network of those things aloft,” he said. “We’ll climb them and stay in hiding.” “We’ll get frozen stiff during the night,” said Bomers, “and be spotted at dawn.” Van shook his head. “No,” he said. “I know something about these things. With luck we’ll soon be sitting pretty.”

B

OMERS agreed with a gesture, and the pair of them resumed the upward

29

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE journey. The former soon discovered to his relief that the journey through the rigid stays was an infinitely easier trip than the writhing cable. Then, to the seaman’s amazement, Van stopped in his climb and fumbled with the cloth at the inside of the gas bag. The detective ripped open a piece of the silk and actually climbed into the bag itself. Bomers, surprise reflected in his eyes, followed. “These balloons,” Van explained when they were comfortably and warmly settled, “have outer coverings. Sometimes the silk tears and the mechanics use these series of ladders to climb up inside and make repairs.” Bomers grunted his approval, then he said: “But what’s it all about, and what are you doing on this case? Of course, I’ve heard of the Phantom, but I never knew you looked like this.” Van laughed heartily for the first time in twenty four hours. “I don’t,” he said tersely, and then went on to explain to his new ally the entire circumstances that had involved him in this affair. Bomers heard him out in a grave silence. “Then,” he observed at last, though with no apprehension in his tones, “we are in something of a tough spot.” “We sure are,” Van agreed. “Perhaps,” said Bomers, “when the men on the Mirador come to—they can use wireless for help. Someone could pick up this balloon when it lands.” “But who,” said Van despairingly, “who, save perhaps Matsiami, knows where it’s going to land?” “You have no clue to that?” Van shook his head. “No. Except that he did tell me his destination was the Island of Death. But that means nothing to me.” Island of Death?” repeated Bomers excitedly. “I know where that is. It’s in the Bonin Islands.”

“They sure are,” said Bomers. “And no white man ever came out of there alive. I’ve heard some weird stories about ‘em. All sailors have. Even if a ship puts in there in distress, every man aboard is arrested” “Why?” “Because the naval treaties state that Japan must not fortify her Pacific possessions. I understand the Bonin Islands are armed and fortified like Gibraltar. But Japan won’t admit it. No white man, no foreigner at all, is allowed there.” For a long time Van considered this information in silence. “So,” he mused quietly. “That is the Island of Death.” “That’s it,” said Bomers. Then, after a pause, he added, “And it’s well named.” How long they remained cramped up in their hiding place they never knew. Time passed on leaden wings. Though for a long time they slept, grateful for the rest. Bomers needed rest to aid him to recover from the effects of the drug which poisoned his system, and Van, enervated and exhausted, was physically thankful for repose. But then, hours later when they awoke, another very fundamental problem confronted them—food. “Well,” said Bomers at last, after they had discussed ways and means. “I think I’d prefer to die from a Japanese bullet rather than sit up here enmeshed by a piece of silk and slowly starve to death.” “You’re right,” said Van. “Let’s maneuver around and see what we can find.”

C

AUTIOUSLY they crawled from their hiding place, and worked their way toward the airship’s stern. There, below them, was a wide expanse of ocean. Somehow it seemed bluer, more clear than it had been before. “You go back to our little nest,” Van said grimly. “I’m going to forage.” Despite Bomers’ protests that he should accompany Van, the latter insisted that for them both to go would merely double the risk without offering them any additional benefits. Finally, Bomers returned to their hiding place, while Van slowly made his way down the light ladder to a railed balcony.

I

T was Van’s turn to be surprised. “The Bonin Islands,” he said. “Aren’t they Japanese possessions in the Pacific?” 30

THE ISLAND OF DEATH The aft balcony and gallery he noted were deserted, but he knew full well that the airship was adequately guarded and that trouble in the form of knives and bullets might burst out at him any moment The habitable part of the ship which he was now approaching was a huge box-like affair some eighty feet in length. On its flat roof were little deck-houses, which undoubtedly housed the officers and men on duty; and below was a narrow alleyway dividing the car, so as to leave rows of doors on each side of it. It was toward the latter that he made his way. Creeping silently down the passage, he saw one door half open. He bent down and peered inside. Fortunately, the room was empty, and on a long table which ran down its centre were the remnants of a splendid meal. In less than ten seconds Van’s pockets were bulging with purloined food. In another five, he had left the room and was again creeping down the passageway, when luck that thus far had served him amazingly well, evolved to dire misfortune. He was barely beyond the last door, when it suddenly opened and a heavy figure almost trod on his heels. Realizing the impossibility of seeking cover, Van scudded hastily along the catwalk like a frightened animal. Even as he slithered upward to his hiding place he heard footsteps behind him. He slipped into the little compartment at Bomers’ side. “Someone saw me,” he whispered. “I think he’s followed me up here.”

CHAPTER XI

THE PHANTOM’S TERMS

H

E WON’T dare fire in here,” whispered Van. “If he did he’d send the whole ship blazing to the bottom of the ocean. Stand back, Bomers, I’ve got a marvelous idea.” Tensed and ready for what he intended to do, Van stood well back in his hiding place. He had opened the flap, and his eyes were glued to the bottom of the opening as he waited for Matsiami’s head to appear. Then, the moment he caught sight of the top of the Japanese’s black head, he sprang like a tiger. His left hand shot out and grasped Matsiami’s right wrist, rendering his automatic impotent. His right swung in a short vicious arc, and caught the Nipponese full on the point of the jaw. Despite Van’s weakened condition, all his weight, all his strength was behind that blow. Matsiami collapsed like an ox. Van, exercising all his strength, tugged at the body, and with Bomers’ aid, they managed to drag the master into their hiding place. Van hastily appropriated his gun. Then he closed the flap again, and turned triumphantly to Bomers. “Well,” he said, “that’s that. This certainly improves our position.” Bomers regarded their prisoner distastefully. “So that’s the yellow dog,” he commented. “Why not throw him overboard and have done with it?” Van shook his head. “Not now,” he said. “He’s too valuable. He’s a hostage now. Do you realize what this stroke of luck wins for us? We have their leader in our power. We can force the release of the scientists that have been kidnapped, and make them put into the first civilized port.” They hungrily gulped the food from Van’s pocket while they waited for their prisoner to regain consciousness. At last, as they were devouring the last crumb, Matsiami opened his eyes. He stared up at them, a stupefied astonishment veiling his cruel eyes.

H

IS fear was quickly confirmed. Through a tiny aperture in the silk they saw a bulky dark figure ascending the ladder. In his hand was a blue-black automatic. For a second he hesitated, then with a sudden movement he came up the ladder, swiftly and agilely despite his great size. Then for the first time Van got a good look at him. “So.” he said to Bomers. “It’s the arch fiend himself—Matsiami.” 31

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE

B

“What means this?” he demanded. “It means,” said Van coolly, “that you lose, Matsiami. From now on you will do as we order. To clear up any misunderstanding, you may as well know that the Mirador did not sink. She’s probably in port by now. Now what we want you to do is—” He broke off abruptly, as he saw Matsiami’s gaze riveted at a point beyond his left shoulder. The yellow man’s serpent-like eyes were fixed upon those of Bomers, and the second officer stood there like a man in a trance, staring back at the Jap, dazedly.

OMERS, who had been peering through the peephole, suddenly grasped Van’s arm. “They’ve missed him,” he said. “Here, give me that gun. I’ll look after him. Take a look down there.” Van handed over his weapon to the seaman and peeped down below. Ito, the little Jap, stood there trembling before a blueuniformed officer that he addressed as Yigo. “No, sir,” he was saying. “I have not seen the master. I swear I don’t know. I—” Yigo slapped him sharply across the face. “Then where is he, dog? I’ve searched the whole ship for him. I’ve—” Then he tuned a startled face upwards, as a voice seemed to float down from the gas bag. “The master is up here. His release depends on you.” Yigo’s astonishment was too great to permit him even an ejaculation. He stared at the white man’s face which had thrust itself so precipitately out of the silken meshing, as if it were an apparition. Ito, recognizing the face, uttered a cry of alarm. “It is the traitor,” he said, “the traitor who we left upon the Mirador. How comes he here?” By now a number of Matsiami’s men had gathered on the deck below. All of them turned their surprised faces up toward the point where a dirty, bedraggled, weary white man stared down at them. “And what,” said Yigo, “do you know of the master? Come down here that we may talk to you!” Van smiled grimly. “Ah, no, Yigo,” he replied in Japanese. “We’ve got Matsiami up here. This weapon I hold can account for nine lives. The tenth round will bore a hole in that gas bag and send us all to destruction unless you yield to my demands.” A score of yellow men from the deck below stared helplessly at the white man. They fully realized that a single shot from his weapon into the billowing bag above would be the death warrant for all aboard the ship. “Who are you?” asked Yigo helplessly. “They call me the Phantom,” said Van

H

ASTILY, Van grabbed Bomers by the nape of the neck and jerked his head around. He spoke to him sharply. “What’s the matter?” asked the seaman. “Plenty,” said Van. “Keep your eyes off that swine. He almost had you hypnotized then. Be careful.” “Good God,” said Bomers in horror. “But what about you?” “He can’t touch me that way,” said Van. “I know too much about the hypnotic art for that.” “Now, Matsiami,” continued Van. “I’m going to give you an ultimatum. You’re going to order your men below to turn this ship around and head for the first civilized port outside Japan. Do you get that?” The yellow man smiled up at his captor. Van noticed that even now that he was in distress, the man’s demeanor lost nothing of its arrogance, of its mockery, its contempt “And if I refuse?” “If you refuse,” said Van steadily, “I’ll fire this revolver into that gas bag above and blow us all to hell. Now what do you say?” Matsiami shook his head. “I refuse to listen to your terms. I prefer death to dishonor. I shall give no orders of the sort you mention.” “Very well,” said Van. “But perhaps your men will think differently. “Well put it up to them. Perhaps they’d prefer to land somewhere safely, than go to their deaths for your sake.” Matsiami shrugged his shoulders indifferently. “Perhaps,” he said. 32

THE ISLAND OF DEATH quietly. “But that is beside the point. My terms are these. You will, at once, put this ship about and head for the nearest port outside of Japan. Is that clear?”

yellow man’s power, must wreck his fiendishly laid plans, though his own life and that of half a dozen innocent white men, who were aboard, was part of the price. He even resented the delay. He resented the long stare which Yigo bestowed on his master. And, had he realized the true meaning of that interchange of glances, he would have sent a bullet crashing through Yigo’s brain, and then emptied the remaining shots in the weapon at the gas bag overhead.

Y

IGO seemed to consider this for a moment. Then he said: “To die, oh, white man, is one thing, to die dishonorably is another. I have the master’s orders and until he changes them himself, I can do nothing but obey him.” Van’s eyes met his, and for a moment silence held them as the white man and yellow stared at each other. Van knew enough about high born Japanese to understand that physical peril alone would not bend these men to his will. When honor is involved, the Nipponese rise to peculiar heights. Perhaps, Van reflected, if Yigo saw Matsiami, perhaps spoke to him, they would agree to obey. “Yigo,” he ordered. “Drop your weapons. Command your men to stay where they are. Then come up here and see your master.” Yigo nodded, dropped the revolver from his holster, snapped an order at his men, and approached the ladder. Swiftly he climbed up toward the white men.

CHAPTER XII

THE DESERTED ISLAND

A

LL RIGHT, Yigo, get back to your men,” said Van. “Matsiami boasts that his words are final. Very well; so are mine. In two minutes we shall all die together.” Yigo hesitated for a moment on the ladder. “Youth acts in haste,” he quoted slowly. “Age in leisure. The word of the master is sacred, but perhaps his life is more sacred yet. Wait—let me call my men, let me consult with them.” A sudden hope beat in Van’s heart. Perhaps, when the men of Matsiami heard that their lives hung in the balance, it would tax their loyalty to their leader to the extent where they would be willing to capitulate. “Very well,” he said. “But hasten.” Yigo clambered down the ladder to the deck. By now the full complement of the ship’s inhabitants, with the exception of the white scientists, were gathered below. Yigo addressed them calmly. Van listened to his words carefully, suspecting that perhaps a trick was being planned, but the little captain merely made an impartial statement of the circumstances. Then he inquired what was the mind of his subordinates. The outcome of the harangue was rather as Van had expected. The officers, and men ranking high in Matsiami’s esteem, were loyal to a man. Unanimously they voted for death and honor. The rabble of the crew, however, were of

A

MOMENT later, the captain of the dirigible, confronted by an automatic, was staring at the figure of Matsiami. “You have heard, oh, master,” he intoned. “What the white men demand. What are your orders?” Matsiami’s answer was cold, cutting and decisive. “I have none,” he said. “I have already given my orders, and I shall not deviate from them, even though death stares over our shoulders.” “All right,” said Van and a terrible resolve gripped him. “Yigo, you can go back to your crew and tell them that they’ll meet their master again in hell.” And in that moment Richard Curtis Van Loan was neither joking nor boasting. He realized that Matsiami’s words were final and that his blindly loyal men would carry them out to the letter. But he knew that he must break the 33

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE a different mind. They were loyal enough, said one of them, but nevertheless they preferred their lives to anything else. Above, the automatic still held steadily in his hand, Van stood anxiously watching the mob below, the men who would determine whether he was to live or die. He tuned his head slightly and saw Bomers, standing grave-faced at his side. Yet there was no fear in the sailor’s face, and even in that tense moment, Van found time to be grateful that he had found such a redoubtable ally as the second officer. Then suddenly, Yigo held up his hand to quiet the argument among his men. He turned to Van and shouted an unprintable epithet in Japanese.

He landed some three feet in front of Yigo, as a grin of victory still wreathed the captain’s repulsive countenance. Then, as though the metal deck had been made of resilient rubber, he rebounded straight at the captain, and lashed out in grim fury. As his fist cracked against the Oriental’s jaw, he cried out over his shoulder to Bomers. “Make for the stern. Unclip two of those bundles hanging outboard there. They’re parachutes. It’s our only chance.”

G

IVING Yigo no chance to recover from his first dynamic surprise attack, Van waded in—a veritable tornado of wrath and fight. His fists were swinging pistons and the whole weight of his body was behind every blow. Crack! Yigo fell for the second time, and now he did not rise. Two of his men leaped in to deal with this mad white man. Again Van’s fists rammed themselves into yellow faces. One of the men tried to shield himself from the devastating attack but the sledgehammer blows crashed through his guard. The Oriental’s hand swept down to his belt, and a knife gleamed in his hand, but a fierce kick sent the weapon whirling off into space. The whole lightning onslaught had occupied less than ten seconds of time. But it had served its purpose: to give Bomers a minute to perform his part. It had also blocked the path of the men above for a moment, a fact upon which Van had counted.

Y

IGO advanced a step, shouting the threat. It seemed that, for the moment, the danger in which he had been placed had driven him to a desperate, uncalculating fury. Van’s arm shoved itself through the silk trapdoor, and the automatic was pointed at the yellow man below. “Stand back,” he cried. “Or you are a dead man. Stand back, I say!” Then, at that moment, his wrist was grasped in a grip of steel from above, wrenched until he was almost pulled from his insecure position in the interior of the big sausage, and the gun torn from his hand. Too late he realized the trickery that had been evolved by the Orientals; too late he understood that, while the man below had trapped him into brandishing his weapon, another intrepid ruffian, from above, had crawled perilously along the base of the envelope and disarmed him. And then to complete the disaster, which had occurred so unexpectedly, an alarmed shout from Bomers warned him that more of the enemy had cut their way through the other side of the envelope and were now filing into the white men’s haven. Yet, in an instant, Van’s mind rebounded from the shock of the attack. He ripped his wrist loose from the yellow fingers which held it, then he literally flung himself through the trap and leaped to the deck in a desperate suicidal jump.

A

S the remainder of the crew recovered from their paralyzed amazement, Van swerved around swiftly on his heel and ran like a madman along the narrow catwalk, less than eighteen inches wide. He glanced below just once, and his heart picked up hope as his eyes saw a dull brown patch thrusting itself out of the ocean below. As long as land was near-by, they would have an infinitely better chance of life when they jumped. He reached the stern deck twenty feet ahead of the raging, snarling mob behind him. Bomers was already there, poised on the extreme edge of the deck. Two bulky objects were in his arms.

34

THE ISLAND OF DEATH

B

Van wasted no time in words. Instead he hastily slipped his arms through the two metal rings of the parachute. A final backward glance showed him that the raging Japs were close on his heels behind. “All right” he yelled at Bomers. “Jump!” Bomers tensed his muscles and sprang blindly into space. An instant later, Van followed. A thrown knife ripped his coat as his body hurled itself over the rail into the ether. He dropped two hundred feet, plunging into the atmosphere like a plummet. Subconsciously he was aware that from below both earth and ocean rushed up to meet him. Then he felt the air being forced back into his lungs as he breathed. His fingers fumbled at the rip cord of the chute. He jerked it hard. Something billowed out behind him. A terrific wrench jerked at his shoulders, and his descent was suddenly checked. Then his body described a parabola, and he slowly floated down. A glance upward showed him the unshapely bundle had opened out correctly into a huge umbrella-shaped affair which was soaring gently through the air. Then he lowered his gaze and looked around for Bomers. Some two hundred feet below him he saw the other chute. Above, his own parachute obscured the sky from his vision. He could not see the airship. However, he reflected it would certainly take some minutes to turn the unwieldy bird about. Then a gust of wind seized him and tossed him playfully to one side, as though he had been made of papier mache. The brown earth that he had sighted from the plane was some hundred yards to his right now. Below him the Pacific sparkled in the golden sunlight. Down, down he went. Till at last, with a terrific splash, he was hurtled precipitately into the water. Spluttering and gasping for breath he came to the surface. After a difficult struggle he managed to detach the parachute from his shoulders. Then with long easy strokes, he swam to the shore.

OMERS, panting but unharmed, met him on a straggling strip of beach. Van shook himself free of the water, and grinned at his companion. “Well,” he said rather ruefully. “That’s that. We got out of Matsiami’s clutches, all right. But, by the same token, he got out of ours.” Bomers threw himself down on the beach and stretched out beneath the noonday sun. “Perhaps,” he remarked slowly, “we didn’t and he didn’t.” Van glanced at him inquiringly. “What do you mean?” “I mean,” said Bomers, “that we’re on a deserted island. It’s a cinch Matsiami knows every piece of land around here. I estimate that we’re hot very far from the Island of Death. If he wants us he can come back and get us.” Van nodded. “That’s true enough,” he said, “and for the life of me, I don’t know which I’d prefer.” “I’d prefer he came,” said Bomers. “With him we’ve got a fighting chance. Stranded here it’s slow starvation.” Van nodded. “You mean this is the side that would be observed by passing vessels, and Japan does not want outsiders to see her fortifications?” “That’s it,” said Bomers. Tacitly that seemed to terminate the conversation.

F

OR a long time the pair of them lay there in the sun, letting the warm rays dry their drenched clothes. Van closed his eyes, and relaxed, taking a much needed rest after his hectic experiences on the airship. But if he rested physically, mentally he kept busy enough. If this was, indeed, near the Island of Death, not only was he far from being on Matsiami’s trail again, he was practically in the yellow master’s clutches. He reflected bitterly that he had almost cut short the Oriental’s career in that moment on the airship when he had held him hostage. But he had again been outwitted by Matsiami. And now he found himself upon one of the very islands where the Japanese madman made his headquarters. Still, a career of danger had inured Van to taking life as it came. He still had with him, two of his most

35

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE important stocks in trade. Packed compactly in his inner pocket was his makeup box, and in his trousers was the black silk mask which branded him to the world as the Phantom. The sun belted clown upon the beach bringing a warm sense of comfort, to him. His aching muscles released. His weary body poisoned the alertness of his mind. His eyes became heavy. His brain refused to respond to the tax he put upon it. Without being aware of it, he slipped into a deep slumber.

engine. It spluttered for a moment, then missed. The black shadow of the ship swooped down, obscuring a hundred stars as it did so. A red flame shot from its exhaust. ‘They’re coming down,” said Van. “Engine trouble. Stand by for a fight if they see us.”

T

HE sound of the pounding motor of the airplane stopped completely, and in its place there came a soft swishing sound as a pair of pontoons struck the water. The dark shadow skidded toward the two men, who waited tensely on the beach. Then almost at the shore it stopped. A voice said in English: “Well, thank God, it happened here. What’s wrong?” Bomers grabbed Van’s arm. “They’re Americans,” he whispered. “No Jap can talk English like that.” Van nodded. He listened eagerly for more conversation. “We’ll drag her up on the beach,” said the voice again. And this time it seemed to Van that the tone had a vaguely familiar ring to it. “You can stand by the ship until I send some mechanics over.” “Okay, boss,” said another. The two figures clambered out of the cockpit and jumped unhesitatingly into the water. There, they shoved the seaplane nearer to the beach. Bomers edged closer to Van and whispered: “What shall we do?” Van thought for a moment undoubtedly these two men were white, but whether or not they were friends or enemies he had no means of knowing. However, it was worth gambling on. He stepped boldly out into the moonlight. Immediately upon catching sight of him the nearest figure whipped an automatic from his pocket. “Who are you?’ he demanded. “We are two stranded white men,” Van replied innocently. “can you let us have some food and water?” “White men!” Astonishment and a vague alarm were echoed in the speaker’s voice. Then suddenly, a flashlight clicked into life, and a beam of illumination threw itself into their faces. The second man, dressed in pilot’s clothes, whistled under his breath.

CHAPTER XIII

A DESPERATE PLAN

H

OW LONG he slept, Van never knew. The watch on his wrist had long since ceased to function. It was Bomers’ excited shouts in his ear that brought him back to consciousness. Van opened his eyes to darkness. A silvery South Sea night enveloped them. Overhead a million stars pierced the sable heavens with dots of platinum light. To the east a full moon flooded the rippling sea with an eerie illumination. Bomers shook his shoulder and cried tensely: “Listen!” Van sat up, all drowsiness falling from him as he came at once to instantaneous wakefulness. Dinning into his ears through the night came a pounding monotonous sound that was familiar. “A plane,” he said. “Heading in from the sea.” “That’s what I thought,” said Bomers. “Look. You can see her now.” For a fleeting second a dark shadowy object like a distorted bird was silhouetted against the face of the moon. Undoubtedly it was a plane, flying without lights, coming like a derelict in from the sea. In a tense silence, the pair of them stared into the heavens. The steady droning of the ship sounded nearer and nearer now. The plane was heading straight for the island. Then Van’s keen ear detected a sudden break in the monotonous hum of the purring 36

THE ISLAND OF DEATH “Do you know where you are?” he asked. Van was about to deny all knowledge of their whereabouts, but before he could speak, Bomers committed a tactical error. “We’re near the Island of Death, aren’t we?” he replied. “In the Bonin group.” The man with the gun laughed dryly. “How do you know that?” Bomers now realized his mistake. He remained silent. Van essayed to retrieve the error. “We simply guessed it from figuring the probable position,” he said. “Well,” said the other, “if you know of the Island of Death, you also probably know that no white man ever got near there.” Van tried a shrewd shot in the dark. “What about yourselves?” he said. “You don’t appear worried by your destination.” The man with the gun snarled. “You appear to know too much,” he said. “Entirely too much. Keep your hands up, both of you. Ralph, get some rope out of the ship and tie them up. Keep them here till I send someone back to take them prisoners. There’s something here I don’t like.” The pilot splashed through the water to the plane, and as he delved into the cockpit, it occurred to Van again that there was something about the speaker’s voice which he had heard before. He racked his brain to place it, but some faulty quirk in his memory refused to function. The pilot returned to the beach, a length of rope flung over his shoulder. Van and Bomers stood side by side, their hands extended above their heads. The man called Ralph approached with the rope. He laid a hand on Van’s shoulder; and in that instant, the detectives decided to act.

at the man with the gun. Two sharp reports echoed through the darkness. The pilot, surprised by Van’s attack, dropped at the detective’s second blow. Van turned to the others. A few feet before him a pair of dark figures merged into one as they struggled on the treacherous sands. Bomers held the other’s right wrist in a grip of iron, rendering his weapon impotent. Snarling curses escaped the other’s man’s lips. Van sprang into the fray, and made short shrift of their captor. Between the two of them they had him lying on the beach in an instant, his weapon held by Van. “Get the flashlight,” said the detective.

B

OMERS retrieved the article from the beach, and, pressing the button, turned the beam of light full on the face of the prostrate man on the sands. He tried to turn his face away, to avoid the revealing light of the torch. But Van roughly jerked his head around so that the light struck it. Then he gave vent to a gasp of surprise. For the man who lay beneath his grip, snarling and glaring murderously at him was the under-secretary to the Governor of the Philippines, the man he had met at Rath’s party ere he had taken the trail of the Japanese menace! In that single instant a number of things were made indelibly plain to Van. Now it was evident enough as to how Matsiami had received foreknowledge of a number of things. Now he knew why Matsiami had expected him in his New York headquarters. Now he understood why the Japanese had anticipated the moves of the Phantom and the police. This renegade white man, who was betraying his race and his country for thirty pieces of silver, aroused a terrible contempt in Van. Yet, despite his emotions, his brain worked swiftly enough. Already he was evolving a plan in the light of these new developments, which once again would give him the upper hand over Matsiami and his nefarious machinations. He turned swiftly to Bomers.

C

APTURE now meant certain death. It was sure enough now, that whoever these two men were, they were working hand in hand with the yellow master. With a sudden jerk of his body, Van wrenched himself free from the pilot’s hand. At the same moment he swung his right fist and yelled to Bomers: “At ‘em, man!” The seaman needed no second bidding. Like a panther springing to the kill, he leaped 37

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE

Van’s automatic spoke once, and the revolver fell from the Jap’s hand.

T

“Get that rope over there. Tie them both up. I’ll join you in a moment.” While Bomers walked over to the fallen body of the pilot near whom lay the rope, Van steadily held the flashlight so that it played directly on the face of Messman. For fully thirty seconds he stood thus, his eyes studying every feature of the white traitor’s features. Then when Bomers returned, he walked away. “Wait with them here,” he said. “I’ll only be a moment.” He walked down the beach to a point where a rocky promontory jutted out into the ocean. There, he seated himself on the stone, and taking a small mirror from his pocket, propped it up in a rocky niche. The flashlight, still burning, he laid it down so adjusted that the light played on the mirror.

HEN, delving into his pocket, he produced a small water-tight rubber bag. This he opened. He smeared a special preparation of cold cream, made from his own formula, over his face. Then he wiped it clean again, and now the mirror showed the grimy stained face of Richard Curtis Van Loan. The dye which he had applied to impersonate Rawlins came off easily enough, now that it had been exposed to the elements for so long. Then he deftly applied a stick of grease paint to his face. A black pencil made his eyebrows more bushy. Small pieces of wax thrust in his nostrils distended and broadened his features. Then, at last, he surveyed himself in the mirror, well satisfied with his handiwork. Carefully he stowed his materials away again in the rubber bag. He extinguished the

38

THE ISLAND OF DEATH flashlight, thrust the mirror in his pocket, and walked back up the beach to the spot where Bomers, gun in hand, was standing guard over their captives. “Well,” the sailor greeted him, “what now?” Van grinned. “First,” he said, “you can shove those two handsome gentlemen in the rear cockpit. Then I’ll look over this ship. I can fix it. Then we’ll take a little trip.” “Trip?” said Bomers. “To where?” “To the Island of Death, to visit our old friend Matsiami.” Then Van took the flashlight from his pocket and turned the light on his own face. Stupefied with amazement, Bomers took a step backwards. He looked down at the bound figure of Messman. “My God!” he ejaculated. “I don’t see how—” Again he stopped his sentence before it was complete, so utterly baffled was he. Van chuckled. “It’s one of my specialties,” he said. “At this moment I look so much like Messman that his own mother wouldn’t know the difference. So I don’t expect that our Japanese friend will be able to tell. I’m going there now with Messman’s brief case. Matsiami will think that I’m he. From then on its on the knees of the gods, but we’ll hope for the best. When we arrive, you stand by until you hear from me, no matter what happens. In the event that the worst happens—if no word has come from me within forty-eight hours, jump in that ship and get out” “I’ll be safer there,” said Bomers with a grin. “I can fly.”

wide, and her wings took the air. A moment later she lifted herself off the deserted island, and headed into the night. Van flew her by dead reckoning, consulting the chart that was pinned to the instrument board. They made the trip in silence, the throbbing of the motor aborting their few attempts at conversation. Dawn, dim and gray, crawled across the sky, when Bomers suddenly clutched Van’s arm excitedly and pointed downward. Van glanced in that direction, to see three islands stretching forth beneath him. On the farthest one he could plainly see heavy fortifications. He cut the motor for a moment and glided down. “The Island of Death,” Bomers shouted in his ear. Van nodded and dived for the beach. It was long and looked firm, a perfect place for a landing. Three minutes later the wheels of the ship touched terra firma again. Van sprang from the plane and turned to Bomers. “Well,” he said, “I’m off. If anyone speaks to you, you just don’t talk Japanese. In the meantime wait here for me.” Bomers nodded, shook his head and cried: “Good luck.” With the brief case which he had taken from the cockpit of the plane tucked under his arm, Van made his way across the beach, through the brush beyond, to the center of the island. He had already examined the papers in Messman’s bag under the flashlight in order to become acquainted with their contents before facing Matsiami. He struggled through the impending brush in which there was no sign of life. Van paused to wonder if this really was the Island of Death. It seemed so deserted, so inanimate.

CHAPTER XIV

GREEN LIQUID

H

T

HEN, of a sudden, he came to a clearing. Abruptly brush ceased behind him. He found himself standing on a modern macadam highway, staring ahead in utter amazement. For, before him, rendered ghostly and gray by the pallid light of the moon, he beheld a fortified city. Dun battlements of

ASTY diagnosis of the engine revealed a clogged gas line. It was the work of but a moment to fix it. Then, with their captives safely bound in the rear cockpit, Van and Bomers climbed in front. Van revved the motor to warm her up, then taxied the ship down the beach. The engine roared to life as he opened her up 39

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE

T

stone reared themselves impregnably to heaven. Tremendous guns thrust themselves from the silent walls. Turrets thrust themselves proudly skyward, as though challenging the world to crush them, to reduce their strength, to conquer them. There stood the fortress, a monument to the perfidy of Nippon. A standing symbol of the treachery, of the broken treaties that the Oriental Empire, mad with lust for power, had torn to pieces as effectively as a European power had done some fifteen years before. Grim-faced, Van marched on toward the very walls of the battlements. He approached a huge steel gate, when of a sudden an unseen speaker challenged him in Japanese. “Halt! Who are you?” Van stopped. “I am Messman. I come to see the master at once, on a matter of great importance.” He heard a whispered consultation on the ramparts. Then the sentry spoke again. “Why did you not land your plane in the usual place? Why do you slink through, the night like a spy?” “The plane has broken down. I was forced to land on the beach. Do not waste my time with idle questions. I must see the master. It will go hard with you, if he does not receive me at once.” There was no more hesitation. The tremendous steel gate swung slowly open. For a moment Van stood quite still. Then he took a single deep breath and entered. It occurred to him that he had perhaps just breathed the last air he would ever breathe as a free man. Inside, the fortress was appointed like a veritable Gibraltar. An officer stepped forward, bowed to him, and led him through. the neatly-kept streets of the garrison. They entered a palatial edifice at the far end of the fort. It was built in the Oriental manner, but upon entering Van saw that the interior was replete with all western improvements. The officer walked ahead of him and approached a khaki-clad officer who stood before two tremendous teakwood doors. He whispered something in his ear.

HE officer vanished, to reappear a moment later and bow to Van. “The master will see Mr. Messman,” he said in Japanese. At his words, the two teakwood doors slid silently open. Van entered the huge chamber which they revealed, then, as silently as they had opened, the doors closed behind him. Despite the fact that he was prepared for anything, Van could scarcely repress a gasp of admiring amazement as he stared at the prodigal luxury of the room he had entered. The walls were of ebony, black and mysterious, and the ceiling was a glowing mother-of-pearl in the soft indirect light of the room. A familiar voice brought Van out of his architectural contemplation. “You are late, Messman.”

V

AN looked up. Seated at a black desk at the end of the room, staring at him, was Matsiami. The Japanese was dressed in a flowing silk robe, and his eyes held a gleam of anticipation as he watched Van approach. “It was unavoidable, Excellency,” said Van in the voice of Messman. “We had trouble with the plane. We were forced to make a false landing on the beach.” “It is of no moment,” said Matsiami. “We deal with more important things. Tell me, are the Moros ready for revolt?” Van, not quite divining what was behind the question, decided to stall. “Well,” he began noncommittally, “perhaps they are. There are some of them who do not look with favor upon the proposition, though.” Again Matsiami waved his hand airily, as if dismissing the objectors. “That is of no moment, either,” he said. “My plans are now complete, and nothing can stand in our way.” Van opened his brief case. “There is news here,” he said. “Half of the American Pacific fleet will be at Manila next week. Perhaps we had better wait.” The information regarding the fleet he had already found in the brief case. And inasmuch as he gathered from the yellow man’s words that a revolt was to be attempted

40

THE ISLAND OF DEATH

T

in the Philippines, he had mentioned this in order to gain a delay. For the longer Matsiami waited, the better were Van’s chances to checkmate him. However, the information did not seem to disconcert the Japanese one whit. “So much the better,” he said, with an evil chuckle. “With the weapon I have now, the Moros shall win a victory. If, in so doing, they dispose of some American warships, so much the better.” Van stared at him, a puzzled expression on his brow and a great fear in his heart. If this yellow madman did not fear the fleet of the United States; if he spoke so confidently of having a weapon with which the impotent Moros could defy the United States Navy, he evidently had stumbled across some offensive weapon which would bring the whole world to his feet. Van listened intently as the Nipponese continued:

HE man’s arrogance almost took Van’s breath away. He realized that Matsiami’s delusions of grandeur were on such a large scale that he admitted no white man to be his equal—or for that matter, no man at all. Then, as he stood there, slowly digesting the enormity of the Japanese plan to bring the world to its knees, he noticed that Matsiami had his keen eyes fixed suspiciously on him. Hastily he followed the precise direction of the other’s gaze, and saw that the yellow man was starring intensely at the jagged scar on his wrist; at the red self-inflicted wound which he had been compelled to undergo in the stateroom of the Mirador. Too late, he became aware of his carelessness in not concealing his hand. However, now it was gone too far for that. He resolved to bluff it out. After all, it was logical enough to assume that more than one living man in the whole world had a jagged scar on his left wrist “How did you come by that?” said the Japanese. Van glanced down at his wrist as if he had only now become aware of what the other was staring at. “Oh, that,” he said deprecatingly. “I banged up my hand a bit when we made that forced landing on the beach.” “So,” said Matsiami slowly with an intonation that might have meant anything. Van, giving no hint of the apprehension within him, said nothing. “Another man has just such a scar,” said Matsiami. Van shrugged indifferently. “I suppose so,” he said. “What of it?” “Ah, but you do not understand. The other man that I am referring to is the Phantom.” Van looked innocently inquiring, but said nothing. The Japanese joined the silence. He did not speak for so long that Van thought, for a moment that the affair was ended, that Matsiami was pondering something else. But his next words disillusioned the detective. “You must forgive me, my friend,” said Matsiami. “But I am of a suspicious nature. Further more, I know how adept the Phantom

T

OMORROW, you will fly back to Manila. With you shall go the most modern weapon of warfare. We have perfected the Ray, that you knew we were working on. It can slay an army fifty miles away. “I shall send with you one of my men who understands its workings. We shall lead the Moros to their successful revolution. It is better that way, than that Japan should seize the islands herself. A revolution we cannot be held responsible for. “Then, later, the Moros shall request us to take possession. Once that is done, we are in absolute control of the Pacific, save for Australia. That should be easy enough to conquer, later on, with our war machines.” Staggered as he was by these revelations, Van kept his horrified astonishment from expressing itself as he nodded his head in apparent agreement with the other. “So,” he said at last, “the plan is nearly ready, eh? Soon we may even control the world.” Matsiami frowned. “Careful,” he warned. “I shall reward you as you deserve, but do not forget that you are of the white race. Do not presume to rank with us.” 41

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE is in the matter of disguise. Hence, I must ask you to do me a favor. It will bring you no harm—if things are as they should be.”

effect of the drug—such a small quantity of it—will wear off before morning, and you will be able to fly back to Manila. Come, now drink.” Still Van hesitated. There seemed to be no way out of this dilemma. There seemed— His cogitations were cut short by a staccato clapping together of Matsiami’s hands. The huge doors swung open and two Japanese armed with keen-edged swords entered the room. They took up their position on each side of Van. “Well,” said Matsiami again. “Will you drink—or die!” There was no alternative now. With a silent prayer that his own steel will would be powerful enough to fight the noxious poisons of the drug, Van stretched out a steady hand for the glass. With Matsiami’s eyes held steadily upon him, he lifted the vile stuff to his lips—well aware that the gaunt figure of Death himself gazed at him over the rim of that glass. In a single gulp he drank it down. He gasped and choked. One of the armed men took the glass from his hand. His throat burned and his stomach revolted at the vile stuff he had tasted. Matsiami was still regarding him with an amused stare. Van raised his eyes to those of the Japanese. He saw him as if through a psychic screen. A peculiar haze seemed to cloud his vision. The blood pounded through his pulse and temples. He was aware of a dry strangling sensation in his throat. His mouth was suddenly dry. As though from a great distance Matsiami’s voice came dimly into his ears. “Now tell me, who are you?”

H

E leaned forward over the desk and stared at Van. The latter, realizing that once again Matsiami had him in a tight spot, resolved to bluff. “See here,” he said. “I haven’t the slightest idea what you are talking about. You know me. You’ve known me for some time. Now how the devil can you think that I could possibly be the Phantom?” Matsiami shrugged. “What does it matter?” he said. “After all, why should I take chances, when I can prove your identity so easily without harm to you?” “How?” Van eyed the other keenly as he asked the question. “Very simply.” Matsiami’s yellow hand opened a drawer of the desk and withdrew from it a jade bottle filled with a sickly green liquid. He poured a small amount of this concoction into a glass. “Whether you are Messman or the Phantom, you are well aware of what this liquid is. Drink it, I beg of you. Then you will become a slave to my wishes. Then, despite your own desire to lie, you will tell me the truth. If you are as you appear there is no harm. If not—”

H

E left the sentence unfinished, but the implied threat in his words was unmistakable. He held out the glass containing the sinister liquid to Van. “Here,” he said. “Drink.” For a moment, Van stared at the horrible concoction in the glass and hesitated. He knew that to taste that terrible poison was worse than death. It was to condemn himself to a living slavery, to render his mind to complete subjection to Matsiami’s will. He essayed to temporize. “How can I be the Phantom?” he cried. “I don’t want to drink that stuff. You will remember that I have already seen its terrible effect.” Matsiami smiled and nodded. “True,” he said. “But have I not promised you that no harm will come to you? The

T

HE strangest thing about the drug, Van realized, was that his brain was quite lucid. He could think clearly. He knew where he was. He knew why the yellow man was asking this question. He knew full well that he was disguised as Messman. He knew full well that to admit his real identity was to sentence himself to a slow and torturing death. Yet as he opened his mouth to speak, to his infinite horror he heard himself saying slowly:

42

THE ISLAND OF DEATH “Master, I am the Phantom!” The moment he spoke, he realized what he had said. He fought desperately to speak again, to say he had been joking, to say that he really was Messman. But strive as he did, no words came. It was as if some physical defect was preventing him from uttering a word. He was completely in thrall to the vicious, evil drug that he had taken. Powerless, impotent in the hands of the enemy! Matsiami leaned forward over his desk, his little black eyes snapping viciously as he stared at the man who had sworn to wreck his meticulously laid plans. “And,” he said, “what have you done with Messman?” Again Van fought with every ounce of his will. It seemed as if the perfidious drug had cut the line of communication between his will and his brain. His thoughts were clear and logical, but he could not give utterance to them. His will had been perverted, distorted. In fact, it was the will of Matsiami.

white man’s eyes, and asked a question that had never as yet been answered. “And,” he said in a voice of thunder, “who are you? Who is the Phantom?” Again Van strove with all his heart and strength not to answer. His brain waged a mighty battle against the drug which rendered his will subject to the yellow man’s wishes. He opened his mouth despite himself. Words trembled on his tongue. Then, for the first time since he had tasted that terrible drink which robbed men of their very souls, a ray of hope flooded his heart. For no words came forth. He closed his mouth again. Sweat deluged his forehead, as his intellect and his emotions whirled in a mighty vortex within him. For years he had sworn to keep his identity secret. For years he had succeeded. Deep in his subconscious mind the thought had been planted and indelibly impressed upon him through the years: No one shall know who the Phantom is. Only death shall reveal the secret!

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CHAPTER XV

HOUGH Matsiami had taken his conscious will from him, the drug was not yet potent enough to remove the subconscious inhibition that had rooted there for so long. The yellow man frowned. He spoke again. “Tell me. Who is the Phantom?” For another full moment Van stood perfectly still. He fought a silent, desperate battle. True, his will, his mind were far superior to those of most men, yet to fight successfully against the rotten drug of the Orientals was something that no man had yet done successfully. Yet he did not speak; and then suddenly within him, there came a sudden peace, a tranquillity. He knew that he had won. His will had at last broken through the terrible fetter that bound it. He was no longer afraid. Death might peer over his shoulder, but he knew he had vanquished the most awful weapon that Matsiami possessed.

LOYALTY

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ESPITE everything, despite every effort of his attenuated will, Van heard himself addressing the yellow fiend as master, and relating to him how he had captured Messman and his pilot, and how, at this very moment, Bomers was standing guard over them both, awaiting word from the Phantom. Matsiami’s ebon eyes veritably crackled with excitement as he heard the Phantom involuntarily betray his friend. He leaned back in his seat and lighted a cigarette. “It is well,” he said. “I shall dispose of your friend and effect the release of Messman. And now, Mr. Phantom, before I send you to your death, there is one more question I should like to put to you. Van stood there helpless, staring into the relentless eyes of the yellow man who had sold his cunning brains to the forces of evil. Matsiami rose to his feet, and, standing with folded arms, looked straight into the helpless

H

E knew now that he would never answer that question. Perhaps, in the very

43

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE asking of it, Matsiami had defeated his own ends. For that was the one thing implanted so deeply in Van’s mind—to conceal his true identity—that even the evil green drug had failed to make him answer. And the victory gave him new confidence. He knew now that no matter what happened to him, he could die a man in complete possession of his faculties and not a dazed slave, as the other victims of the mad Japanese had become. He looked up and met the yellow man’s eyes steadily. Matsiami glared angrily at him, murder in his gaze. “Tell me,” he roared for the third time, “who is the Phantom?” Van smiled confidently. “That is one thing I shall never tell you, Matsiami,” he said. “Now you can do your worst.” Matsiami’s brow grew black. He tuned to the pair of men whose gleaming swords reflected sinisterly the subdued light of the room. For a moment Van thought his end had come at that moment, so enraged was the Japanese. “Take him away,” he roared. “Throw him in one of the cells. I’ll attend to him later.” Rough hands seized Van’s shoulders. He was dragged unceremoniously from the room. Down two flights of cold, stone stairs, he was escorted to a barred iron door. While one of his guards held him, the other produced a jangling bunch of keys and unlocked the impregnable portal. Van received a precipitate push, then the door closed behind him. Before he could orient himself, another yellow hand grasped his collar, dragged him to his feet and thrust him in an iron-barred cell at the side of a huge room. Another iron door banged shut in his face, leaving him panting and breathless, leaning up against the bars, collecting his scattered wits, and staring in astonishment at the strange scene which met his eyes. His cell was merely a corner of a tremendous room, fully two hundred feet square. In its center appeared to be a number of unwalled workshops. At the far end he recognized two long tables set up for electrical research. Next to that, a long bench

held all the appurtenances of a chemical laboratory. Then there was another layout that Van could not quite place.

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ILIGENTLY working in various parts of the room were men, or rather creatures, that had been men, before their brains had been stolen from them by Matsiami and his drugs. Van saw Ricci, the electrical wizard, stolidly bending over his table, tinkering with a fuse. He recognized Rawlins puttering about the chemical table. And now he saw that it was Stern, the aeronautical expert, who labored at the third workshop, and Wells, the battleship expert, who was at the next one. In the cells which ran around the room, close up against the walls, he saw a number of people. He was still staring bewilderedly at the weird scene, when he heard a feminine voice speak despondently in French. “You, too, cannot work while drugged, hein?” Van glanced up. In a cell at right angles to his there was a woman, more of a girl. She was handsome in an intelligent way, but her demeanor was of despairing resignation, though her gray eyes held a fighting defiant gleam in them. “What do you mean?” asked Van. “Did not Matsiami kidnap you?” she asked. Van nodded. “To work for him?” Van shook his head. A light was beginning to dawn on him. “Who are you?” he asked. “Marie Desplains.”

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ESPLAINS! The name clicked in his consciousness. This was the French woman who was reputed to know more about that mysterious element—radium—than any living person. It was obvious enough now why she had been kidnapped with the other scientists. Here at his beck and call, Matsiami had the brains of the world slaving for him, furthering his mad dreams of empire. “Then why are you locked up, when the others are working?” he asked.

44

THE ISLAND OF DEATH She shook her head wearily. “There are three of us his wicked drug robbed of everything. We cannot do our work while under its influence. And we have refused to carry out his wishes while we are in possession of our faculties.” For a moment, Van looked at her admiringly. He could well imagine what she had gone through in defying the yellow master. “Penwall, the munitions man, and Roberts, the ordnance expert, are with me in being unable to work while drugged. “Sometimes,” she added with a sigh, “I wish to God that we could function as the others. Then at least we would not be tortured, at least we would be free from the mental anguish.” From the position of his cell, Van could not see the others of whom she spoke. But as he regarded her, as he considered the fine courage she had exhibited in defying Matsiami, he was aware of a tremendous admiration for her. Perhaps, after all, if the Japanese was confronted by enemies as redoubtable as these, his plans were foredoomed to failure. The iron door suddenly burst open again. This time, Bomers, struggling desperately, was dragged into the room. Behind him came the real Messman, his pilot, and Matsiami himself. Messman walked up to the cell that housed Van and grinned triumphantly. “So this is the superman—the Phantom,” he said mockingly. “Well, we’ll see how the Phantom dies.” At a sharp order from Matsiami, Van’s cell was unlocked. Surrounded by a score of sinister-looking Japs, all armed with wicked revolvers, he was dragged into a line. The other cells were speedily unlocked, and before the yellow master, there now stood five white people who had refused to do his bidding. Roberts and Penwall, the girl, Bomers and Van stood there facing the merciless eyes of Matsiami.

my will. As for you, Bomers, if you join my organization, you can live. Now what do you say? You, Penwall?” Penwall, a disreputable filthy figure, lifted his head. Despite his abject appearance, something fine and scintillating was in his mien as he answered defiantly: “Never, Matsiami. Never shall I betray my own people. Death is infinitely preferable.” “Fool,” said the Japanese. “Now you, Roberts.” Roberts was less oratorical than Penwall, yet his words, reduced to a common denominator, meant the same thing. “The hell with you,” he growled. Matsiami shrugged as if it were of no moment. “And you, Madame Desplains?” “I’ve given you my answer three times already,” she replied. “It shall be the same.” “And before you ask me,” said Bowers, “the same answer: no.” CHAPTER XVI

THE THREE DOORS

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ATSIAMI stood and surveyed them for a moment. The black rage which had been upon him when he had ordered Van dragged from his presence earlier had vanished; and in its place was an ominous calm—a calm that somehow presaged more evil than his wrath. “Then,” he said slowly, “you shall all have the pleasure of dying together, dying slowly and miserably, in horrible agony.” He then turned to his ydlow henchmen. “Seize them,” he ordered. The five of them were grasped by rough hands. As the grip of his captor forced Van’s arms against his sides, his fingers came in contact with something solid and metallic in his pocket. A lilting hope surged in his heart as he realized what it was. In the excitement and anger of throwing him in his cell, Matsiami had forgotten to have him searched. And resting there in his pocket, the key to a desperate door to freedom, was the weapon he had taken from Messman earlier in the night.

A

S for you,” he spoke to Van, “death certainly awaits you. As for you others, I shall give you a chance. Once more I offer you the opportunity of bending your brains to 45

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE With a swift jab of his elbow he knocked the man behind him spinning backwards. Then his right hand disappeared for a moment in his pocket It came into view again, holding Messman’s automatic, its muzzle aiming steadily and directly at Matsiami’s heart. A gasp of dismay fell from Messman’s looks. “Don’t move, Messman,” said Van, “or I’ll drill you. Now lead us out of this place.” “Are you mad?” said the Japanese, a faint smile on his lips. “Do you think you can walk through the fort, even with me as hostage, without getting shot in the back? There are ten thousand men on this island.” Van considered this for a moment, saw the force of the argument, and changed his tactics. “Then,” he said, “we won’t go out that way. Surely there’s another exit from this cellar.” Penwall spoke up eagerly. “Yes,” he said. “There’s a door down there at the far end of the room. See?” He jerked a thumb toward the south. Van shot a swift glance over his shoulder and saw a single small door at the far end of the room. “We’ll go that way,” said Van. “You’ll walk with me, Maisiami, as hostage. At the first sign of trickery or attack, you’ll die.”

into a large black fuse box on the side wall. In a moment the scene was plunged into utter darkness. Red flame, followed by hurling steel, flashed from the barrels of a dozen guns. Excited shouts in Japanese ripped through the air. Van, hearing Somers’ voice at his side, whispered hastily. “Open that door, if you can. Keep us all together.” He heard the sailor fumble with the bolts of the door, while Roberts and Penwall spoke to him, reassuring him as to their presence. Three times Van’s fingers constricted on the trigger, and three staccato yells of pain through the darkness testified as to the accuracy of his aim. A shrill feminine scream ripped through the air, and Van was aware of a tugging apprehension at his heart. Bomers’ voice came to his ears. “The door’s open.” “Okay, let’s go through.” The white men moved suddenly, passing through the opening afforded by the small iron door. A moment later it slammed behind them. Van wiped his brow and glanced about him. They were in a small, dimly-lit chamber, semi-circular, which had three doors facing them on the opposite side from which they had entered. “We must hurry,” cried Van, “try those doors.” A low mocking laugh floated through the iron door. “You needn’t hurry,” said Matsiami. “I’m not coming in. You have merely gone directly to the death I intended sending you to. Furthermore, I have taken back my charming radium expert, having decided upon another fate for her. “Before you die, I want to tell you that those three doors you see before you, lead to freedom. They open out onto a tunnel which leads to the beach beyond the fort.” The white men exchanged glances. “Well,” called Van, “what’s the catch?” Matsiami chuckled. “The catch,” he said, “is that behind each door lurks a death. You can guess which one you will prefer. When one door is opened a

T

HE yellow man shrugged his shoulders. The faint smile about his lips persisted. And had Van realized the significance of that grin, he would hastily have revised his ideas of escape. Then, as they were almost near the door, something happened with startling rapidity. Someone from behind—Van never knew who it was—seized his right arm suddenly by the elbow. For an instant, the muzzle of his weapon. was pulled from Matsiami. In that single second the Japanese moved swiftly around the back of the little party of whites which followed them. Then, once the master himself was safe—came the deluge.

I

N an instant, pandemonium reigned in the room. Van, seeing a score of men jerking guns from holsters, fired two swift rounds 46

THE ISLAND OF DEATH machine-gun is automatically fired; when another is opened, poison gas will flood the chamber. Behind the third are a trio of charming fer de lance.” Bomers glanced at Van. “What the hell’s that last one?” “A snake,” explained Van briefly. “The most poisonous snake that science has ever discovered.” Penwall laughed bitterly. “Well,” he said, “we’ve nothing to lose. The certainty of death is far preferable to the uncertainty of life with that fiend.

saluting the emperor ere they died. The imminent appearance of death threw a fraternal halo about them. Then, at last, Van spoke, his voice husky with emotion. “All right, let’s go through.” They turned together. Three hands touched the brass knobs of the three doors. The knobs turned slowly as if the men who manipulated them yearned for an extra second of life. Then with a sudden jerk they were pulled open. Richard Van Loan was conscious of three things in the mad moment that followed. The staccato roar of a vicious machine-gun crackled in his ears. Something acrid and biting seared his nostrils, and into his vision there came a green spectral thing that crawled along the ground toward him. Behind him, he heard a cry as the savage bullets of the machine-gun, which had been synchronized with the door, ripped their way across the room. On the other side he heard the gasp of Roberts as the fiendish gas ate into his lungs. At his side Bomers stood, transfixed with horror, staring down at the three green crawling things which slithered across the floor toward them. Van, too, gazed, while held in a momentary paralysis, at the ghastly slimy things which carried instant death in their ugly fangs. Then, when one of the reptiles was almost upon him, he galvanized to action. Swinging his revolver as a club, he brought it down smartly on the snake’s head. The reptile swerved to one side from the force of the blow, for a moment its ugly head was flat upon the earth.

Y

OU’RE right,” said Roberts. “Let us die.” “Wait,” said Van. “We may yet have a chance.” Bomers grinned sardonically. “Yeah,” he said grimly. “A hell of a chance.” “Well,” said Van, “we have to try. We can’t simply sit here and starve. Perhaps we can break through the gas, if the tunnel isn’t too long. Perhaps we can get through the snakes. The machine-gun sounds like an impossible proposition.” “We can’t take our choice,” said Roberts. “We don’t know which door is which.” “We’ll take different doors, and wish each other luck. Roberts, you take the left hand door. Penwall, you the right. Bomers and I will go through the middle. Now, is everybody ready?” Everybody, it appeared, was ready. They stood there, brave men, and when they wished each other luck, the wish was sincere even though the luck of their fellows might well mean their own death. Van’s revolver was still in his hand, useless and unloaded, since he had emptied it at the yellow shadows in the room a few moments before.

V

AN sprang upon it, his heel grinding the green skull into the ground. The long tail thrashed angrily, then gradually became still. The other pair of snakes hissed, then, with a slinking, twisting motion of their symmetrical bodies, they charged down upon Van. By this time Bomers had broken the horror which held him immobile. Van’s cry of alarm penetrated his ears, and as the poisonous vipers slithered across the floor towards them, Bomers raised his foot, ready to crush the head of the nearest reptile.

S

TEADILY the white men moved forward toward the blank panels that concealed a terrible death, whose opening would release a savage, vicious doom upon the enemies of the things for which the yellow master stood. They reached the portals together. There they stood for a moment and looked at each other in the manner of Roman gladiators 47

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE However, the twisting, turning snake proved a difficult target. Van, noticing this, cried out to his ally: “If you miss, try jumping over; them perhaps we can make a race of it.” Bomers nodded. Almost beneath his feet was one of the green perils. His foot lifted with lightning speed and descended again. His heel pinned the reptile to the round, twisting and struggling, yet its head was free. Van struck out desperately with his empty revolver. Twice he missed the mark. The fer de lance drew back its head to strike. Van was almost on the threshold of the room. The acrid poison gas which was pouring out of the chamber to his left filled his lungs. His throat was parched from the stinging atmosphere. The brilliant green head before him darted forward with the rapidity of a piston. Desperately, Van swung his revolver again. This time he struck the snake, knocking its head to one side. Then, before it could recover for another attack, he leaped swiftly in the air, and landed on the other side of the reptile. Bomers was at his side in a moment. The sailor shuddered. “I don’t think I killed it,” he said swiftly. “But it’s hurt. It’s twisting there on the ground.” “Come on then,” cried Van. “We’ll run for it. The other one’s alive.” They turned and raced like mad-men down the long dark tunnel. “Don’t worry about Roberts and Penwall,” cried Van as he ran. “Matsiami needs them and will see that they’re all right. He can use them. It was I he was after.”

toward the ocean, as if challenging the world to question their power.

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HEN, suddenly, Bomers gripped Van’s arm excitedly. “Look!” he cried, “there’s the flying field.” To the left of the fort, and some hundred yards back of the beach, were some half a dozen hangars. Three trim, white fighting planes stood on the tarmac, their motors idling as a score of mechanics tinkered with their engines. “Good God,” said Van. “That’s our break. It’s an even-money bet that those mechanics haven’t heard of my impersonation of Messman yet. “They’ll think that’s who I am. Come on. Perhaps we can get a plane, and make a break for the Philippines and safety.” They turned and raced up the beach, disregarding the impeding sands, aware of nothing, save the fact that a chance to escape from the Island of Death had offered itself. Breathless, they arrived on the tarmac. Van addressed the mechanics in their native tongue. “The master has ordered me to take the fastest plane at once. It is a matter of grave importance.” For a moment the mechanics hesitated, then one who seemed to be in authority, spoke up. “It is all right,” he assured his fellows. “It is the white spy who flies here each week.” The others nodded and one of them indicated a Lockheed two-seater which stood near-by. Van noted with satisfaction that a Lewis gun was in each of her two cockpits. He wasted no further time. Waving Bomers to the rear office, he clambered into the pilot’s seat himself. Giving her the gun, he revved the motor, then waved his hand in signal to the mechanics. Four yellow arms tugged at the chocks beneath the wheels. Then, at that moment, even above the reverberating roar of the engine, Van could hear the shout of alarm which rose from the fort behind. The mechanics hesitated. Van shot a swift glance over his shoulder.

CHAPTER XVII

THE AIR FIGHT

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HEY emerged on a white shady strip of beach. The early sun of the semi-tropical dawn was slowly climbing the heavens to the east. As they turned their heads to take stock of the situation, they saw the gray ramparts of the fort behind them. Tremendous eighteen-inch guns thrust themselves out 48

THE ISLAND OF DEATH A platoon of soldiers was charging down to the tarmac, gesticulating wildly to the grease monkeys. Van waited no longer. Matsiami, it seemed, had discovered that they had escaped the death of the snakes. He had raised the alarm in time to have found the pair who defied him just before they made their escape. Richard Van Loan knew that it was now or never. He opened the throttle wide. For a moment the ship trembled violently, but did not move ahead. It teetered crazily as the restraining blocks jammed under the wheels of the undercarriage. The propeller slashed viciously at the atmosphere, and the aluminum body trembled violently.

As Bomers had said, one ship was already in the air and two more were taking off. Van’s eyes became hard. His lips tightened in a thin grim line. “All right,” he said. “Get ready for a battle. And don’t waste the ammunition. Well need all the bullets and all the luck we can get.” He rotated the magazine on his own synchronized Lewis, and a cursory examination showed him three more of the cylindrical black drums on the floor of the cockpit. However, he realized that there was still a chance that he could outdistance his pursuers and thus avoid the uneven battle. He opened her up wide, glanced at the compass, and headed due southwest in the general direction of the Philippines. But if he had entertained any ideas of being able to outspeed the other ships, his illusions were soon shattered. The plane that had taken off first zoomed across the face of the sun, then shot over the sky like a rocket. Glancing up at it, Van estimated that its engine was capable of at least fifteen more miles per hour than his own. Well, he reflected grimly, that settled that. Now it’s war.

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ALF a dozen shots ripped through the air as the onrushing soldiers bore down upon the flying field. Behind him Van heard the chatter of the rear Lewis, as Bomers pressed the trigger and fired into the ranks of the charging infantry. Then, as Van gave her every ounce of power that her pounding motor would take, the straining ship lifted herself over the blocks and raced like a frightened bird down the field. Bomers’ gun rattled out a savage obligato to the legato roaring of her engine. At the end of the field Van pulled back the stick slightly. The Lockheed’s nose thrust itself into the air tentatively, then, as if finding it to her liking, lifted herself off the ground and zoomed gallantly into the heavens.

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FAMILIAR thrill ran through him.. It was many years now since he had flown a flaming crate over the war-torn skies of France. It was an entire decade since he had pressed the trigger of a machine-gun at a savage, death-dealing target that fought a duel to the death with him. And now, that he was about to do it once more, all the inherent love of adventure welled up within him, and sent the blood surging through his pulses. Then, like a starving gull that sights its prey, the Japanese ship—a swift Curtiss monoplane—swooped down. A rattle of machine-guns ripped through the air as the two ships behind sent a flaming barrage toward the Lockheed, as their comrade charged down for the kill. Half a dozen tracers ripped through the fuselage of the Lockheed. And for a moment it appeared that the battle was over before it had fairly started. But Van had not forgotten all his flying skill.

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T a thousand feet, Van leveled her off and headed for the open sea. Behind him, he was aware that Bomers was shouting inarticulately in his ear. But the sailor’s words were drowned in the furious reverberations of the motor. Van pulled back the stick again, shot her up to five thousand, and then cut the motor. As they glided in silence, Bomers’ words became intelligible to him. “They’re following us,” he yelled. “Three planes are talking off after us.” Van turned his head and glanced down at the tarmac below. 49

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE Once again he opened the throttle wide. The prop picked up a dozen more revolutions. The engine roared crazily. The ship shot ahead. He pulled back the stick slightly, zoomed, then jamming down the rudder, swept into a perfect Immelmann turn. He came out of it higher, and traveling in the opposite direction. Below him the Japanese ship was flying bewilderedly, wondering what had happened to her adversary. The chattering of a machine-gun sounded in Van’s ears from the rear cockpit as Bomers, now circling the Curtiss in his ring sights, unleashed a wicked burst of steel at her. Van stared grimly ahead, saw the other two planes coming head on to meet him. Gently he nosed down, until the outer rim of his sight touched the nearest plane. Then his finger constricted on the trigger of the synchronized Lewis. A stinging burst of tracers ripped through the air. The enemy ship bobbled crazily for a moment, and Van thought he had scored a mortal hit But a second later her pilot righted her, zoomed, and essayed to gain altitude over the Lockheed. Van jerked back the stick and shot upward. Passing him by inches on the left came the Curtiss. He gave her all the right rudder she could take, then for a single second he had her dead on, in his brass ring sights. His finger constricted on the trigger of the synchronized Lewis and a devastating burst of steel flamed from its muzzle. A sudden line of holes appeared in the wing of the monoplane. She dived downward out of control for a moment. Her pilot fought desperately with the controls, and less than fifty feet above the shining sea she came out of her spin.

moment above the chattering of the guns, above the din of the roaring motors. Van glanced down at the Curtiss. That, he knew, was his principal enemy. The remaining ship, he felt he could outdistance. But the trim monoplane was the fastest thing in the sky at the moment. Her pilot had flattened her out just above the water. Now he pulled back the stick and came zooming once again to the battle. Van gave her the gun and descended to meet him. The propellers of the two ships slashed viciously at the air, bringing the two ships together at a terrific speed. From between the swinging blades of each prop a veritable hail of steel spat viciously. Then suddenly the Curtiss swung from the Lockheed’s path, swinging wide to the side, and up, in a desperate vrille turn. As the other ship disappeared over the rim of Van’s ring sights, he jammed his foot down on the rudder bar, pulled back the stick, and zoomed in a frantic attempt to keep his altitude above that of the other ship. Side by side they strained upward through the air, their machine-guns rendered impotent by their positions. Then suddenly Van banked slightly and moved inward toward the other ship. For a moment it looked as if a collision was unavoidable.

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HEN the yellow pilot, afraid that the wing of the Lockheed would tangle with his, banked also. The nose of his ship dipped slightly at the resultant loss of power. And that was the thing which Van had hoped for. Now he gave his plane all the power she could take. He jerked back the stick with all his strength, and shot into the sky some fifty feet above the other ship. He turned swiftly, nailed her vulnerable spot in his sights, and pressed the trigger. The magazine on the Lewis chattered around on its post. A hail of steel death vomited from the barrel and buried itself into the gas tank of the Curtiss. Desperately, the yellow pilot attempted to dive out of the way, but the avid Lewis in the Lockheed was not to be gainsaid now—was not to be cheated of its prey.

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AN heard Bomers’ gun leap to life again in the rear cockpit. He glanced over his shoulder to see one of the biplanes plunge past him, a flaming coffin of fire. Her pilot struggled frantically to free himself from the safety belt as she dove down to her last resting place. Bomers’ shout of triumph sounded for a 50

THE ISLAND OF DEATH

A

THIN flame crawled over the Curtiss’ cowling, spread to its tank, then evolved to a frightful yellow flame. Out of control, the plane pitched crazily in the air; then, like a crimson plummet, plunged downward to the ocean—its last landing field. Van flattened out, and as he did so he was aware of a string of lead humming like a swarm of wasps over his head. He gave her the gun, shot ahead, then banked swiftly, coming around to meet the enemy, head-on. But as he turned, ready for the fray, the third plane’s pilot evidently decided that he had had enough—that he was no match for the mad white man who already, against odds, had brought down two of his comrades. The Japanese turned the nose of his plane toward the Island of Death and scurried, like a frightened bird, for home. Van cut the power and relaxed for a moment as the plane glided. Then he heard Bomers’ voice, weak and strained, in his ears. “They’ve got me, I’m afraid.” Alarmed, Van turned his head. Bomers was stretched over his gun in the rear cockpit, an expression of pain and agony stamped indelibly on his features. His face was a bloody mask where a stream of tracers had rendered his features unrecognizable. His clothes were stained a deep crimson. Van regarded him with anxiety. “Is it bad?” Bomers nodded his head. “Three rounds in the lung,” he said. “I can hardly breathe. Drop me over the side, and scuttle for the Philippines.” “Nonsense,’ said Van. “You’ll be all right.” Bomers shook his head. “This is no time for sentiment,” he said grimly. “You’re fighting for a nation. Now listen to me. I won’t last ten minutes. “Give me your badge of identification— the gold insignia with the platinum which the world knows is carried by the Phantom. Then I’ll leap over the side. “Those warships in the harbor there will pick me up. Bullets have ripped my face to pieces, so that I’m unrecognizable. If they find your badge in my pocket they’ll think the Phantom is dead. That’s something you can

use to your advantage, and I can die knowing I’ve rendered a service to my country.”

H

E slumped forward again, exhausted by his efforts of speech. Van paused for a moment with a strong emotion in his breast. He was witnessing the death of a valiant man, and his eyes were suddenly moist. “Don’t be a fool,” he said gruffly. “You’ll pull through all right. I’m heading for the Philippines. We’ll get you to a hospital there in plenty of time,” But in his heart he knew that he lied, and a strange sadness was upon him as the life ebbed from the gallant sailor he had learned to call friend. He opened the throttle wide and headed due south. Then of a sudden, as he manipulated the controls, he felt Bomers’ hand touch his side. For a moment he paid the gesture no attention, thinking his ally was merely trying to steady himself. Then he felt the hand slip into his pocket, it was hastily withdrawn again. He turned his head—and then divined the other’s purpose. Bomers had unbuckled his safety belt. In his hand was Van’s gold badge which he had filched from the detective’s pocket. With a tremendous effort the dying man thrust one leg over the side of the cockpit. Van released the controls. The plane dipped crazily. A terrible admiration surged over him at the sight of Bomers, who had deliberately taken the badge Van had refused to give him, in order to render his country a service in his death. “Bomers,” he cried, as he reached out to prevent the sailor from leaping into space. “Don’t do it, man. For God’s sake, don’t—” His hand reached out and grasped the other’s coat. With his last ounce of strength, Bomers broke the grip. He thrust the badge in his pocket. His other leg lifted itself. The plane, hitting a pocket, dipped to the left. The sudden shock sent Van spinning to the side of the office. Bomers slipped over the side of the rear

51

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE cockpit, and fell—a whirling black figure through space. Van seized the controls again. Then, glancing over the side, he watched the man drop, with a terrible sorrow tugging at his heart. “Good luck, old man,” he muttered under his breath. Then, turning his eyes to heaven, he uttered a devout and sincere prayer. “Oh God, have mercy on his soul.”

Phantom was dead, he still could formulate no device for approaching the man. Then, as the meal upon the table before him vanished, an idea came to him. He smiled as he leaned back in his seat and lighted a cigarette. He had decided to pay Messman a visit that night, not in his own identity, but in that of Bomers! Even as the idea occurred to him, a frown crossed his brow and something tugged at his heart, as he thought of the gallant death of the sailor who had died for his country no less than the greatest patriot in history. However, despite that, life must go on. Matsiami must be balked, and there was no time to waste in fruitless regrets. A whitecoated native servant entered the room silently and bore the remnants of the meal away. As soon as he had gone, Van crossed the room, locked the door, then sat himself before the dressing table. From his pocket he took his portable makeup kit, and, peering closely into the mirror, he deftly wielded the grease-paint across his face.

I

T was with misty eyes that he turned the Lockheed toward the Philippines, and, giving her the gun, went roaring through the air. Below him, a dead man floated in the water, a mute sacrifice to the evil of the Island of Death. CHAPTER XVIII

AT MESSMAN’S BUNGALOW

I

N THE Royale Hotel in Manila, Richard Curtis Van Loan slept the sleep of the righteous. He was dead-tired after his nerve- wracking experiences of the past few days; and it was almost a week since his aching body had rested itself in a real bed. It was dusk when he awoke. He indulged in the luxury of a bath and shave, then sighed contentedly, as for the first time since he had left San Francisco, he felt clean. But his momentary elation was short-lived. He realized full well that his task was by no means finished. That ahead of him lay a most dangerous mission; that he must soon take a trail that was even more perilous than the path which had led him to the Island of Death. He had a simple meal sent up to his room, and as he consumed it, he reflected on the best method of embarking upon the next step in the smashing of the Japanese plan for domination of the Pacific. The one man in Manila who could help him, who could furnish him with necessary information, was Messman. And there was the problem. Messman was not going to help him voluntarily. Though Van supposed the traitorous secretary believed by now that the

A

S HIS dexterous fingers performed their magical alchemy of rendering his own features into those of the dead seaman, his mind was busy perfecting the details of the scheme which had occurred to him. At last he rose to his feet, gave himself a final survey in the mirror, then, satisfied with his appearance, he walked boldly from the room, down the stairs and through the lobby. And there was not a living soul at that moment who could have recognized the stalwart figure with the sailor’s gait that stalked from the Hotel Royale as that of Richard Curtis Van Loan, who had registered there early in the morning. A telephone directory in a small cigar store served to give the address of Messman. He hailed a passing taxicab, and a moment later was being recklessly driven through the narrow, fetid streets toward the diplomatic quarter of the tropical capital. A native servant admitted him to the luxurious bungalow where the perfidious secretary lived, and ushered him into a large room in which Messman sat, poring over the

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THE ISLAND OF DEATH evening paper. Save for a reading lamp by Measman’s chair, the room was unilluminated. The secretary, apparently believing that his visitor had come to request some official favor, glanced up casually and failed to recognize his guest. “Yes,” he said. ‘What can I do for you?” Van shuffled toward him and when he spoke there was a desperate appeal in his voice. “Mr. Messman,” he said, “you’ve got to help me.”

“Money and transportation home.” Messman snorted. “Do you think I’m a fool? You might betray me before my plans have been consummated.” Van shrugged. “You’ll have to trust me for that,” he replied. Messman considered this for a moment. At last he spoke. “Wait,” he said. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Return to your hotel. Retrieve that note from the manager. I’ll give you a thousand dollars. There’s a boat leaving at midnight for South Africa. I’ll get you passage on that. It’s a freighter with no wireless, and by the time you get to a port, it won’t matter whether or not you make use of your knowledge. Is that satisfac tory?” Van pretended to think the offer over. “All right,” he said finally. “What can I do but accept?” “Return here in an hour,” said Messman, and bring that note from the hotel with you.” Van bowed and walked from the apartment, leaving behind him a far more worried man than had been there when he entered. But he did not return to the hotel. Instead. he walked circuitously around the block and then retraced his footsteps to Messman’s bungalow. This time he did not boldly enter. Instead, he slunk silently through the foliage at the side of the house. Bending low, he took the fullest advantage of the concealing qualities of the tropical plants which filled Messman’s garden. There he bided his time. Some twenty minutes later his patience was rewarded. He saw Messman stride hastily from the house and hail a passing taxi in the street. The cab chugged wheezingly down the street, and at that moment Van came out of his hiding place. He peered cautiously through the window which gave onto the room where he had interviewed Messman earlier in the evening. The reading lamp still burned within. There was no sign of life within the house now, the servants evidently having retired.

A

T THE sound of his voice, Messman dropped his newspaper to the floor and stood up, a startled light in his eye. His hand dropped to the pocket of his coat. It appeared a second later holding a blue automatic. Van stared steadily at the weapon which threatened him. He had made no error in calculating the danger that lurked in a visit to Messman. However, it had been the only way to contact the trail again, and even now he was confident that his bluff would work. At last Messman found his voice. “So,” he said, “it’s you. Do you care so little for your life that you come here?” Van spread his palms in a gesture of utter helplessness. “What else can I do?” he said abjectly. “The Phantom is dead. I kept the plane going till I hit Manila. I have no money, no friends. I’m stranded here. I thought you might give me money enough to get home, to get somewhere.” “You fool,” said Messman. “And did you think I’d let you live; knowing all you know.” The man he addressed as Bomers stared at him quizzically for a moment. Then he said, in a tone that had more courage, more steadiness in it. “I thought of that, Mr. Messman. I left a note at my hotel with instructions for the manager to open it if I did not return by morning. In it I have accused you of murdering me.”

M

ESSMAN glared at him. Then he slowly lowered the gun in his hand. “Well,” he said grudgingly, “what do you want?” 53

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE Silently he removed the netting which extended across the window, and a moment later he was in the room. With a dexterous, but thorough haste, he made his way at once to the desk in the corner of the room. Skeleton keys in his pocket proved able to open the drawers.

read the second letter. It was addressed to the same person. Mendez: You will be ready on the fifteenth. At the ball on the twelfth you will kidnap the Governor. We shall hold him as hostage in case our plans go amiss. Once you have him safely at headquarters, the revolution shall begin

H

E took a sheaf of papers therefrom and seated himself at the desk. Then he commenced running through the papers. His keen eyes extracted the full purport from each one, yet he had discovered nothing which was of any value to him. Then as he sighed and glanced up from his task, his eyes fell on a safe cunningly cut into the wall. With fresh hope in his heart, he rose and walked toward it. With his ear pressed close to the safe door, his fingers whirled the dial, seeking the combination. It took him some time before he heard the tiny click of the tumblers as they fell. He pulled the door open, and plunging his hand inside, withdrew a number of papers. Returning to the lighted desk, he proceeded to rummage through them. At first he found nothing but ordinary bills and other household papers; then, of a sudden, his pulses picked up a beat. He segregated two sheets of papers from the others. Then he read them again.

Van’s eyes narrowed as he read the message. Already in his mind, a plan was taking form—a plan which would permit him to frustrate the schemes of the yellow master. For a long time he remained lost in thought, oblivious to his surroundings, forgetting the dangerous position he was in, should someone find him in Messman’s studio. So engrossed was he that he did not hear a light step on the veranda without. The slamming of the door abruptly brought him out of his reverie. Hastily, he thrust the papers into his pocket. Then he relaxed in the chair, assuming a lounging nonchalance just as Messman entered the room.

T

HE renegade white man stopped dead on the threshold. He glared at the other. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. Van shrugged his shoulders ingenuously. “You told me to come back with the note I left at the hotel,” he said easily. A vague suspicion came into Messman’s eyes. “You certainly made yourself at home,” he commented. “How did you get in?” “I couldn’t get any answer to my knock, so I tried the door. It was unlocked.” Messman grunted. Apparently he accepted the story. “Did you get that note from the hotel?” Van nodded, drew an envelope from his pocket and handed it to the other. Messman took it, exam med it Then he tossed a single bill on the desk and said: “Dock sixteen. The Oceania. Here’s a note. Give it to the captain. He knows you’re coming. I’ll go to the wharf with you to make sure you don’t double-cross me.”

B

OTH of the messages upon the paper were typewritten; and both were obviously carbon copies of the originals. The first of these which caused a cloud of disappointment to come over him read: Mendez: The bearer is a trusted messenger who understands the working of the weapon he carries. He will show you how to use it for the destruction of our enemies. That was all. Yet it was enough to show him that already the deadly murder machine of Matsiami had gone to the Moros, and the Phantom had been too late to prevent its delivery. But his heart regained its hope as he 54

THE ISLAND OF DEATH He stopped speaking and his gaze traveled casually around the room. Then his eyes narrowed. A red rage flooded him. His hand dropped to his hip. “What does this mean? Why is my safe open? Why is the netting zipped off the window?” Instead of answering, Van rose to his feet. Though his features and general carriage were those of Bomers, the terrible threatening expression in his eyes was not. In his hand was an automatic, jerked from his pocket by some almost invisible legerdemain. It’s muzzle was aimed directly at Messman’s heart before the latter had even touched the butt of his own weapon. “Don’t draw, Messman,” said Van. Messman’s hand froze where it was. He did not move. Fear held him in its paralyzing thrall. They held a tense, silent tableau for a moment, then Messman found his voice. It was dry and cracked as he spoke. “What is this?” he demanded. “A doublecross?” “Perhaps,” said Van, continuing to regard the other speculatively. Messman quailed under his scrutiny. “Well,” he blustered, “what the hell’s it all about? Are you going to stand there and look at me all night?” Van raised his eyebrows. “I was just wondering what to do with you,” he said evenly.

forewarn the Japanese was to forearm him, as Van had already learned to his cost.

T

HEN, as he stood there cogitating, Messman himself very neatly solved the problem for him. Seeing the man who held him at bay apparently occupied with his own thoughts and thinking that his alertness had left him, Messman decided on a swift, desperate gamble for his liberty. He tensed himself, lowered his head, whipped his own gun from his pocket, and charged across the floor like a football tackle. He swung his revolver like a club, fearing that the sound of the shot might start an investigation which he was far from desiring under the circumstances. Van, seeing the attack coming, was of the same opinion. He, too, held his fire. Swiftly he sidestepped, but not quickly enough. Messman’s bullet head thrust itself into his diaphragm, knocking him off balance. Messman’s weapon lifted itself in the air, then swung down viciously toward Van’s head. Van flung up his right arm and the metal of the gun struck him a glancing blow. Messman stumbled forward off his balance, and then for the first time Van went on the offensive. His left fist swung in a short arc. It smacked hard against Messman’s jaw, knocking him backwards. Then, dropping his own weapon to the floor, Van swung a swift right. It landed with a dull thud. Messman’s knees buckled beneath him. He collapsed, an inert and helpless figure on The floor. Van’s eyes narrowed and a faint smile crossed his lips as he stood surveying the prostrate figure of the other for a moment. Then swiftly he knelt at his side. From his pocket he took a small vial containing a brown liquid. Some of the potion he forced through the unconscious man’s lips. It was a harmless drug, but nevertheless one which should keep the traitorous white man asleep for some hours, which was ample time for the plan Van had evolved. Now, reaching in his pocket once more, he withdrew the little make-up bag which never left him. Deftly, and dexterously he

A

ND that was the truth of the matter. The disposal of Messman was something that had not occurred to him before; something which he had not thought would be necessary. But now that the traitor had surprised him, it called for a swift change in Van’s original plans. Though the man before him most certainly deserved it, Van could not shoot him down in cold blood. And to release him would mean that his allies would be swiftly warned that an enemy had rifled his safe and discovered the incriminating documents. To turn him over to the police would tip off Matsiami through his network of spies that Messman had been apprehended, and to 55

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE smeared grease. paint on Messman’s face, until his features took on a rough similarity to those of Bomers’. He did not trouble to make the disguise perfect. That did not matter. The point was principally to make Messman look unlike Messman.

“These fool women. I thought when I became governor I wouldn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to. But it seems the higher you climb, the more of a slave you become.” Manners, his secretary, laughed. “Ruffing,” he said, “you’re always complaining. Why, I bet you wouldn’t miss that affair tonight for a million.” The governor snorted with magnificent contempt. “Listen,” he said. “If anyone could save me from going to that dance tonight, I’d give a million dollars.” He paused impressively to let the emphasis of his statement sink into his secretary’s mind. Then, before Manners could reply, a voice from behind them drawled softly into their ears: “Save your money, sir. I am here to save you from attending the ball tonight. But I won’t charge you anything for it.” The two men in the room gasped audibly. Their heads turned slowly. Then, what they saw caused their jaws to drop in sheer astonishment, caused their eyes to reflect a stark and utter amazement. For there, standing on the threshold of the room, stood a tall, immaculate figure clad in impeccable evening clothes. A black silk mask covered the upper half of his face. “My God!” said Manners dazedly, then relapsed to silence again.

W

ITH that accomplished, he picked up from the desk the note which the other had told him to deliver to the captain of the Oceania. Then he lifted the body of Messman and carried him out side to the street. He hailed a passing cab, and with the driver’s aid, thrust Messman’s body into the rear seat. “Friend of mine had a drink too many,” he explained to the driver. “And he’s sailing tonight. Here, take this note and deliver him to the captain of the Oceania. Dock sixteen.” He handed the native a tip. A moment later The taxi, bearing the unconscious figure of Messman, chugged wearily up the street, leaving Van smiling softly at its red rear light. CHAPTER XIX

THE BALL

M

ANILA’S social life was pretty much animated. The governor, who rarely entertained, had issued invitations for an official ball—the first of the season. The white colony had talked of little else the approaching week, and it seemed that everyone on the island was looking forward to an evening of pleasure to break the dull monotony of the tropical routine. Everyone, that is, except the governor, himself. It was about half-past eight. The governor sat in his office in Government House, growling to his personal secretary. An honest, fearless politician of the old school, he heartily hated these social functions, the sole object of which seemed to him to be a deeplaid plot to force him into hot uncomfortable dress clothes as a sop to the socially ambitious wives of the diplomats. To his personal secretary, who had been working with him for thirty years, he was speaking his mind with profane and engaging frankness. “It makes me sick,” he complained.

T

HE testy governor, however, was more voluble. He heralded his recovery from surprise with a torrent of profanity. “Who are you, sir? How dare you enter the governor’s office unannounced. Who are you, sir? I demand to know. I shall call the police. I shall—” Only lack of breath stopped the tirade. In the instant that the governor had taken to replenish his supply of air, the tall masked figure spoke quietly. “I am known as the Phantom, governor. Perhaps you have heard of me.” This statement, instead of calming Manners, merely served to increase his amazement. The governor, however, lost his bluster, and registered a surprised respect. “The Phantom!” he repeated. “Of course,

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THE ISLAND OF DEATH I’ve heard of you. But I hadn’t the slightest idea that you were in the Philippines. Why do you come here?” “For two reasons,” said Van gravely. “First, perhaps, to save your life. Second, to do you the favor of getting you out of attending the ball tonight.”

“That’s a risk I’ll have to take,” he said quietly. “It’s our only hope. I must get to their camp and try my best to smash or steal that machine. As long as that’s in their possession, not a living white man on this island is safe.” He glanced anxiously at the governor, hoping that the official would see eye to eye with him in this matter and agree to his plans. Finally Ruffing spoke. “Well,” he said slowly, and his tone was grave and sober, “I suppose you’re right. I don’t like to see any man take my place when there’s trouble ahead, but in this case you’ll be more effective than I could possibly be. Go ahead, Mr. Phantom. And good luck. I’ll anxiously await some word from you.” He came to his feet and stretched out his hand toward the tall masked figure that stood before him. Van took it in a firm grip. “Thank you, sir,” he said. “I suppose it is unnecessary to tell you to remain completely undercover until the ball is over. And I’d suggest that your secretary attend me in the ball room.” “It shall be done,” said the governor gravely. “And I’m glad to have shaken your hand. You’re a brave man, sir”

A

TWINKLE came to the gruff man’s eyes. He broke into a smile. “Well,” he said, “I apologize for my outburst. Your presence here indicates something of importance is afoot. Sit down and let’s talk.” Van availed himself of the other’s invitation. Briefly he outlined the situation, telling of the plans of Matsiami, of the treachery of Messman. As he finished his narrative, the governor rose, his eyes blazing with wrath and indignation. “I’ll call out the troops!” he roared. “We’ll crush this thing before it gets started. I’ll round up every Moro in the Islands if necessary. I’ll—” “Wait a minute,” said Van. “You forget one thing.” “And what’s that?” “That they have a weapon that can rip your troops to pieces in two minutes. You can’t fight that Ray with bayonets.” Ruffing sank helplessly into a chair. He spread his palms upward in a futile gesture. “Then what?” he said. “Must we sit here and be killed?” “No,” said Van. “It’s not that bad. We must use strategy. As I told you, they are planning to kidnap you at the ball tonight. Now, undoubtedly, they intend taking you to their headquarters. That’s the flaw in their scheme. That’s the weak link, and I intend to take full advantage of it.” “How?” “As I said before, you must not go to the ball tonight. I will go in your place, disguised as you. They will kidnap me. They will take me to their headquarters. In that way I will know exactly where their headquarters are.” “Small good that may do you,” put in Manners, at last recovering from his speechlessness. “They’ll kill you there.” Van shrugged his shoulders.

T

HE masked man bowed slightly, then turned toward the full-length French windows at the rear of the room and disappeared silently into the shadows, leaving an old, weary man gazing after him wistfully, wishing that he were thirty years younger. A languorous tropical night wafted itself over Manila. Overhead a golden moon cast a soft light over the earth. The heavy scent of Capricorn’s flowers clung to the air. A million stars perforated the darkness of the sky. In the huge ballroom at Government House music floated from the orchestra and hung quivering in the rafters of the room. A gay, colorful crowd packed the chamber. Men dressed brilliantly in the brave uniforms of the diplomatic corps. Women resplendent in their most prized raiment. Laughter and merry chatter resounded throughout the room, as Manila’s society attended the governor’s ball. But there were three people in Manila that

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THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE night who were not gay. There were three people who fought with every ounce of their courage the terrible threat that they knew endangered the island. There were three people who knew that the governor was not in attendance at his own reception. But the gay, laughing crowd knew none of these things, and being unaware, they were happy—oblivious to the terrible peril, the death and destruction that threatened them—never realizing their own lives depended solely on the brains and brawn of a single man.

into the executive section of the house. Outwardly, Van was calm as he walked to the executive offices. Advisedly, he was unarmed. To find a weapon on the Governor while arrayed in full dress clothes would only arouse suspicion. Besides, he would undoubtedly be searched, thus rendering his revolver ineffective anyway. Within, he knew his heart was beating a trifle faster than was normal. Not that he feared death, not that he feared any personal consequences of his desperate plan. His apprehension was engendered by the terrible responsibility that was his. Upon his movements in the next few hours depended the fate of nations, depended the immediate lives of those people he had just left behind him in the ballroom. He entered the office, thoroughly prepared for what was about to happen. No sooner had he walked inside the door, than a pair of brown arms threw themselves around his neck and held him tightly. A piece of cotton reeking of chloroform was thrust roughly up against his nose.

A

T that precise moment, that man sat on a dais at the far end of the hall and surveyed the happy group that was dancing. His hair was gray and his face grizzled and tanned by age and a long sojourn in the tropics. His voice was full and throaty; and when he had entered the hall, both men and women had arisen and hailed him as Excellency. And only three people in Manila that night knew that the governor was at that moment locked upstairs in his own bedroom. And for their knowledge, they paid dearly in worry, anxiety and apprehension. It was almost midnight. Van sat conversing with half a dozen minor officials about subjects of which he knew almost nothing. However, by permitting them to do most of the talking, he had steered clear of any embarrassing commitments. Outside, the tower clock boomed the hour of midnight, sonorously. Van and Manners exchanged significant glances. A Philippino servant approached the governor’s dais. He bowed and said in Spanish: “Excellency, the telephone. It is from Washington. Most urgent.”

H

E struggled weakly and held his breath. Gradually his struggles ceased, and he fell back limply into the brown arms that encircled him. Yet, when the saturated cloth was removed from his nose, he breathed for the first time. As he was carried from the room, he was completely conscious, in full possession of his faculties. He was taken from the building into the night. His face and hands were badly scratched as he was roughly dragged through the foliage which surrounded the house to a little used dirt road at the rear. There he was unceremoniously hoisted onto a bullock cart, and an evil smelling fetid tarpaulin was thrown over him. He heard a voice shout in Spanish. The oxen pulled. The traces creaked. The wagon groaned as it started its rough journey over the uneven road. Silent and still Van lay inert beneath the tarpaulin, wondering how long the miserable ride would last, wondering if even the danger at the end of his journey was not preferable to this odorous prison in which he was now.

V

AN nodded. He rose. Manners made as if to follow him, but Van stopped him with a gesture. “Here it comes,” he said. “After I’ve gone, get the real governor down at once so that he is not missed. Good-by.” “Good luck,” breathed Manners almost inaudibly. His face was pale and drawn and a mute prayer for Van’s success was in his eyes as the gray-haired gaunt figure walked away 58

THE ISLAND OF DEATH

V

He estimated the time of travel at some four hours before his primitive conveyance came to a halt. The tarpaulin was abruptly flung off him. It was a cool tropical morning, and as he lay there, breathing gratefully, he was aware of a chattering Spanish excitement about him. At last brown hands lifted his inert figure down from the wagon. His hands were tied behind his back and he was carried to a rude shack and carelessly thrown on the floor. Then he was left alone, but through the open doorway he could see a guard pacing back and forth, insuring that he made no attempt to escape. For a long time he lay there motionless. His brain was working on all cylinders, essaying to evolve a plan to prevent the Moro uprising. True, he had accomplished the first part of his plan—he had been brought to the Moro headquarters. But there now remained the more difficult question of what he was to do now that he was here. Characteristically, he made no attempt to rush things. His adventurous career had shown him that when it is impossible to shape circumstances, circumstances have a convenient habit of shaping themselves. So it was that he lay quietly in his prison, still simulating unconsciousness, awaiting the turn of fortune’s tide that would enable him to leap to action.

AN’S eyes narrowed as he witnessed this scene. He had something more than a vague idea of what he was about to witness. The Japanese bent over the box and flung back the lid. The Moros crowded around and stared into the receptacle. The Japanese spoke the Moros’ language with a peculiar, unfamiliar accent “This,” he said. “is the weapon with which you shall slay the white men. I shall travel with you and use it. I shall also show you its use in case something happens to me in battle. Look now.” The Moros looked no less intently than the white man, who peered from the door of the shack some few yards away. The little Jap lifted a metal object from the box, that had the outward appearance of a triple-barreled machine-gun. The sun sparkled on its steel casing as he set it reverently on the ground. Then he spoke again. “Look you,” he said. “Its operation is as simple as its mechanism is complicated. You see this button? This is pulled back. The barrels are aimed at the enemy. It is best to sweep the barrel from left to right while firing. In that way you will destroy anything before you. Look now.” He placed himself behind the gun. Casually he pointed its triple barrel in the general direction of a flock of vultures which winged stolidly across the face of the sky at a tremendous height. His yellow finger touched the button which he had indicated. Then a low murmur of amazement emanated from the ranks of the Moros, and from his prison Van watched with horror and an awful impending sense of danger. For the vultures which a moment ago had flown free and animated across the sky were no longer there. The instant that the yellow finger had touched the button of the death machine, they had fallen. Plunged to earth instantaneously, as though smitten by the hand of some invisible god. It was weird; it was uncanny. One moment they had been there, alive, in flight The next they had plunged to earth, stricken—life forced from their bodies by the terrible instrument in the hands of the yellow man below.

CHAPTER XX

A NEW KIND OF DEATH

A

S THE morning sun climbed the heavens, heat permeated the rude shack in which he lay. Flies and other insects crawled from their nocturnal lairs and commenced to annoy him. He rolled over quietly so that he commanded a better view through the open doorway. The guard still paced lazily back and forth. Then, after a while, a number of Moros gathered some few yards away from the door of his prison. Van raised himself on his elbow and watched them curiously. As they stood there, a little Japanese approached, and behind him were two more Moros, bearing between them a long bulky box. 59

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE Van shuddered as it occurred to him what would happen to the enemies of Matsiami as long as the yellow master had this terrible thing in his possession. The little Jap straightened up. He smiled at his savage allies. “So,” he said, “you see? And now do you fear the rifles of the white man?”

strained his eyes toward the figure, but the distance was too great for recognition. The Moros gave a tremendous shout at the sight of the lone horseman. Quietly confident, the little Jap stood by his instrument of death, while the Moros shouted wildly of the impending doom that was to visit the white man that day. Then the man on the horse came nearer, and now, as Van looked at him, his features became distinguishable. Van frowned, and his heart picked up a beat. A sense of defeat deluged him, and a terrible fear for the fate of the world entered his heart. For the man on the horse, whom the Moros were now wildly cheering, was Messman! By now he had approached the group that was gathered around the Moro leader. He dismounted and turned a face black with anger to the Moro. “And why have you not done as I ordered?” he demanded. The Moro glanced at him in surprise. He shrugged his shoulders. “I do not understand,” he said. “I have carried out all your orders.” Messman shouted an oath at him. “You lie,” he roared. “Did I not tell you to bring the governor here last night?” The Moro looked surprised. “But I obeyed,” he said. “I have the governor here.”

T

HE Moros suddenly set up a howl of triumph. No, they no longer feared the rifles of the white men, nor his machine-guns, nor his strength, nor his courage. For did they not possess the greatest weapon in the world? They could wipe out the white man before he could even get close enough to use his own miraculous weapons. Then, above the tumult of the Moros, Van heard the little Jap shrilly inquire: “And when do we start? When do we descend upon the city?” An old and hoary Moro, evidently one of the head men, approached. “We wait for Mr. Messman” he said. “Then we shall begin our journey of death.” The Japanese nodded, and Van breathed a sigh of relief. If they intended waiting for Messman, it would give him plenty of time to formulate a plan, for by now the traitorous white man should be well out to sea. HEN, of a sudden, a half-naked armed Moro came rushing up to the group. He chattered excitedly in his native tongue, running his words together so fast that Van could not make out what he said. The others seemed greatly excited by his words. Half of them ran off with him. The old hoary man, who seemed to be the leader, issued staccato orders to his men, and the camp became alive with activity. Rifles and spears appeared from the shacks. Men lined up in platoons. Van frowned and wondered what could have happened to start them off. After all, he had just overheard them saying that they were about to wait for Messman, and he was positive enough that Messman would not put in an appearance. Then, through the doorway of his cell, he saw in the distance a figure on horseback slowly appear over the rim of a hill which stood at the north end of the camp. He

T

I

T was now Messman’s turn to look astonished. “Are you mad?” he demanded after a moment’s pause. “The governor is in Manila. I just saw him. He nearly arrested me. However, I got away. What do you mean by saying that he is here?” “He is here,” repeated the Moro firmly. “He is a prisoner in that house.” He turned and pointed a brown finger in the general direction of the shack where Van was quartered. Messman turned toward the shack. Van could see a dawning intelligence come over his face, as the man connected the fact of his own shanghaiing and the matter of the false

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THE ISLAND OF DEATH Oceania picked up some more freight and had to lay over another day. By that time I came out of the hop you put me in and established my identity.” “So I see,” said Van calmly. “Now, what do you intend doing?” “I’m going to kill every white man on this island,” said Messman “And I’m starting with you.”

governor in his mind. Taking a heavy .45 from the holster at his side, Messman made his way toward Van’s prison. He entered the shack, followed by the guard from outside. Van lay on his side, his eyes shut, pretending that he was still under the influence of the chloroform. Messman kicked him brutally, yet he did not move. “Cut his bonds,” he directed the guard. “Then get a pail of water.”

CHAPTER XXI

A

DEFT slash of a bolo released Van’s hands, and a moment later a pail of water was flung in his face. He waited for a moment, then slowly opened his eyes. Messman stood over him, revolver in hand, and glared down at the man who looked exactly like the governor. “Now,” said Messman, “I’ll give you just one minute to tell me the truth of this story, or else I’ll kill you.” Van blinked dazedly in the manner of a man who is desperately attempting to recover his wits. He stalled for time. “What story?” he said. “The truth of what story?” Messman cursed under his breath. “Don’t lie,” he said. “Unless you want to commit suicide. You’re not the governor. For I saw the governor four hours ago. In fact, I had a devil of a time getting away from him.” “No,” Van agreed, seeing that bluff on that score was impossible. “I’m not the governor.” “I’m glad you admit that much,” said Messman mockingly. “But you look like the governor. And there’s only one man in the world who can look as much like another man as you look like Governor Ruffing.” Van simply stared at him, saying nothing. “And that man,” continued Messman, “is the Phantom!” Van glanced at the gun muzzle which was unwaveringly held on his heart. At any second he fully expected to see a sharp stabbing flame emanate from its barrel, preluding the steel bullet which would end his career then and there. “You were pretty clever,” Messman sneered. “But not quite clever enough. Unfortunately, for you, the skipper of the

THE RAY

W

ARILY Van watched the other. He was still lying on the filthy floor of the Moro hovel. But imperceptibly his muscles tensed for a spring. Unseen, he prepared himself for a desperate leap at Messman at the moment the other was ready to fire. Messman, unaware of these things, came a step closer to the man who had come within an ace of frustrating his deep-laid plans. “I’m beginning to understand a number of things now,” he said. “It was Bomers who was killed in that air battle. We thought, when we found your badge, that it was you who had been killed. All right Mr. Phantom. You played your hand well enough as long as you were in the game. But you made a grave mistake in letting yourself be brought here. That was the one false move that will result in your death.” “Perhaps,” said Van Loan quietly, softly, his eyes fixed steadily on the other’s gun hand. “Perhaps, hell!” snarled Messman. “Get ready. Here it comes.” His finger constricted on the trigger of his weapon. The muzzle spat flame and steel twice. But in that infinitesimal instant Van moved.

W

HEN the steel-jacketed rounds hurled themselves through the air, when they reached the point of contact, Van was no longer there. Like an eel, he had jerked himself along the ground. He moved three feet in the split fraction of a second. And even as the

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THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE reverberations of the second shot were echoing through the hut, his powerful arms had twined themselves around Messman’s legs. The perfidious secretary fell backward. His gun spat twice again as he stumbled. This time the bullets plowed through the thatched straw roof of the hut. Van’s right hand wrenched at the other’s wrist. The revolver fell to the ground. Swiftly Van picked it up. Messman half rose to his feet, but a short left jab put him on his back again. Then Van ran his free hand through the other’s pockets. There he found a loaded automatic. With a gun in each hand he ran from the shack. Coming toward him on the run were a score of Moros who, hearing the sound of the struggle, were rushing to investigate. A spear hurtled over his head as he emerged. A long line of shacks similar to the one in which he had been held captive extended for some two hundred yards to the south. Swiftly Van dodged behind the nearest one; then the strange battle started. Realizing that he must conserve his ammunition, that he must make every shot count until some chance offered itself for his escape, he fired warily at the black heads as they appeared in close pursuit of him. Dodging from one hut to another, Indian style, he held his fire until certain that it would inflict the most possible damage. Rifle shots cracked through the air. Spears, glinting evilly in the lucid sunshine, hurled themselves through the air. Van’s aim was true and steady. For each round that he had fired a bloody inert brown figure lay on the ground. But now he observed, as he glanced behind him, the Moros had overcome their first blood lusting excitement and were resorting to strategy. They had split their forces and were attempting to flank him. Now, too, he heard Messman’s voice shouting staccato orders to the men. The white man had recovered from the blow Van had dealt him and was assuming an active command. Van realized that, unless something desperate was done at once, the battle was over. He thrust his back up against the mud

wall of the nearest hut to preclude an attack from the rear, and blazed away with both hands at the oncoming Moros.

L

IKE Indians they stalked him, coming closer and closer, taking a leaf from their enemy’s book, as they used the huts as cover for their advance. A metallic click told Van that the .45 was empty. He figured that there could not be more than three rounds left in the automatic. Desperately he glanced about him, seeking some chance of escape, some means in which he yet might evade the murderous wrath of the Moros. Then his eyes fell on something that sent fresh hopes surging to his heart Some hundred yards away, where it had been placed earlier that morning, stood the triple barreled death machine, glistening in the fresh sunlight. Save for the little Japanese, who evidently believed that discretion was the better part of valor and had warily stayed out of the battle, it was unguarded.

V

AN took a pot shot at a black head which thrust itself around the corner of the next shack, and decided to save his last round for the little Jap, in case he showed signs of fighting to prevent the consummation of Van’s last desperate plan. He braced himself for an instant against the wall. Then pushing with his hands in order to give him a springy, flying start, he ran like a madman toward the gleaming steel weapon ahead. Taken completely by surprise at the fact of their enemy’s desertion of his cover, the Moros failed to comprehend his motive at once. They held their fire. Then as he raced closer and closer to the instrument which could save him, Van heard Messman’s voice raised in shrill alarm. “Shoot him, you fools! Kill him! He’s after the Ray!” There was another pause as the Moros collected their wits, then a volley of shots rang out. The dirt behind the fleeing figure of Van kicked up as half a dozen slugs buried themselves in the soil. Then, before the Moros could fire again, he had reached his objective.

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THE ISLAND OF DEATH The Japanese who stood on guard apparently had no firearms. He jerked at the sleeves of his shirt, and suddenly there appeared in his hand a gleaming knife. Then as Van was almost upon him, he reached down to pick up the machine. Swiftly he swerved the thing around so that its barrels pointed at Van. Behind him Messman’s frantic scream was heard. “Don’t fire that thing! You’ll kill us all!” It was true enough. For directly behind Van were the rest of them, and there was no way of controlling that deadly Ray. It would not only kill the enemy, but would travel further and slaughter those who were its owners. The Japanese hesitated, then decided to use his knife after all. With a swift jerk of his wrist he flung the gleaming steel through the air. His aim was true, but Van’s defensive gesture was swift and accurate. The knife flew directly toward him. With a fast movement of his right hand he deflected the flying steel with the barrel of the .45. There was a metallic clatter as the weapon fell harmlessly to the ground. The Jap, now possessing no weapon with which to combat the mad white man who had charged down upon him, fled precipitately.

from his wound, Van addressed them. “Messman,” he said quietly, “you will come with me. As for the others, they are ignorant natives deluded by you. They shall not suffer. But you will come back to Manila with me at once. If you refuse—”

H

E did not finish the sentence, but he glanced significantly down at the weapon in his hands. For a moment there was silence. It was a weird, strange scene. Sullen and speechless stood the brown men, glancing alternately from the figure of Van to that of Messman, as if they were expecting some orders from the latter as to the next procedure. The day itself was sunlit and peaceful. On the right lay the ocean, blue and tranquil in the sunlight. The sky was turquoise, and the lush tropical foliage multicolored. Yet in this peaceful environment murder and lust stalked. “Well,” said Van again, “are you coming, Messman?” Then, as if the strain of the past few days had been too much for him, as if the certainty of the defeat of all his plans, all his ambitions, suddenly overcame him, Messman suddenly went berserk. He was conscious, at that moment, of nothing save an overwhelming desire to destroy the man who was responsible for his change of fortune. He turned to the Moros, a mad desperate light in his eyes. “Come,” he said. “Charge. We outnumber him. He can’t kill us all. Kill him! For your freedom!” Now, the Moro, despite whatever other faults he may possess, is certainly no coward. The little brown men are not afraid to die. Messman’s dupes as they were, his words meant something to them. Freedom! Little realizing that had Messman’s plans been successful they would be infinitely less free than they were at that moment, they rallied to the attack. A weird war cry emanated from their throats, as they prepared to charge. Apprehension and horror ran down Van’s spine. He realized full well that Messman’s madness was going to cost a terrible toll of human life. He knew that should he touch that

A

S he stooped down to pick up death weapon, Van heard Messman’s voice shout wildly from the rear. “Get him,” he screamed hysterically. “If he gets away with that we’re all dead men.” Responding to the white man’s appeal, the rifles of the Moros cracked into life again. Van felt a stinging sensation in his shoulder as an avid bullet ripped its way through the flesh. Blood streamed crazily down his coat. Then, before they could fire another volley, he had lifted up the Ray and turned it upon the foe. As he pointed those three deadly barrels toward them, an awful fear descended upon the brown men. Already had they seen the devastating power of the machine which was now aimed at them, already had they seen the instantaneous death that emerged from those three glistening barrels. Calmly, ignoring the blood which flowed 63

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE little button these men would die. “Messman,” he cried, “for God’s sake, call them off. This is murder, man. You haven’t got a chance.” Messman, however, translated his words as fear for the Phantom’s own life. He laughed harshly. “Look you,” he shouted to the Moros. “He begs for mercy. Charge him.”

Better that such a weapon should perish—at least until mankind was more civilized, more fit to use it.

H

E turned slowly and walked through the deserted camp of dead men. Over to the east he saw a compound in which cattle stolidly munched grass completely unaware of the terrible fate of their masters. He walked over to the coral, picked out a horse that looked more speedy than the others, mounted, and headed at a gallop toward Manila. As he rode, no sense of triumph pervaded him. He was too affected by the sight of the dead Moros, the men that had been killed as a sacrifice to Matsiami’s mad dream of power. Further, he realized that the battle was not won yet. Out there on a remote island in the Pacific, Matsiami still had his headquarters, still had his plans of conquering the world. As long as the yellow master and the Island of Death existed, the Phantom’s work was not yet done.

M

ESSMAN flung himself at the head of the group of brown men, and, shouting wildly, they charged headlong at Van. Bolos glistened in the sun. Rifles cracked as they came, rushing madly to conquer a lone man who stood facing them with a strange threebarreled device held in his hands. Now he had no alternative. Much as he hated to send these fanatical brown men to their death there was no choice. To permit them to live was to permit Messman to carry out the insidious schemes of Matsiami. No, now there was nothing else for it. His finger reached out. Grimly it touched the button at the side of the murderous weapon. On came the Moros crying for blood, their weapons held ready for the kill, screaming, shouting, filling the clean air with hideous sound. Crazed, berserk, Messman charged at their head. Van’s finger pressed the button. A strange, ghastly silence gripped the scene, strange and horrible in contrast to the terrible noise that had been there but a moment before. Van stood stock until, staring at the awful vista be fore him. There, lying prostrate on the pound, were the Moros. Messman, struck down first, was in their midst. Of a hundred men, not one stirred, Not one lived. Of all those who had been so pronouncedly animated a moment before, not one of them stirred now. Life had been ripped from their bodies, swiftly, cleanly and awfully. Van looked down at the terrible weapon in his hands. Then slowly and deliberately he walked toward the ocean. A small dock ran out into the sea. He strode purposefully down to the end of it, then, lifting the Ray high above his head, he hurled it down into the placid blue depths of the Pacific.

CHAPTER XXII

ONE MAN CAN TRY

G

OVERNOR RUFFING sat bolt upright in his chair. A moment before, he had been seated alone, in his library, smoking a cigar and relaxing after an anxious day, but now somehow he was vaguely aware of another presence in the room. He stared into the darkness of the curtains which hung over two French windows. Softly, silently, a figure stepped from the shadows into the circle of light cast by the reading lamp. The figure was tall, masked and clad in immaculate evening clothes. Ruffling breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God, you’re safe,” he said. “Tell me what happened.” The Phantom walked further into the room. At the governor’s gestured invitation he took a chair and helped himself to a cigar. “Your uprising has been crushed,” he said. “It’s all over.” The governor wiped a wet brow with a

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THE ISLAND OF DEATH huge handkerchief. “Thank heaven,” he said. “I feel ten years younger with that knowledge. Where’s that traitor Messman? He slipped through my fingers when I tried to arrest him.” “Messman’s dead,” said Van gravely. “Dead, with a hundred poor devils who had rallied to his false banner.” Ruffing raised his eyebrows. “How did he die?” “He died,” said Van solemnly, “as no other man has ever died. The life was torn from his body by the most diabolical machine man has ever devised.”

Ruffing stared at him. “You don’t mean that you’re going back there? You don’t mean—” “Just that,” said Van. “It’s a long chance, but I’ve got to take it. However, I want one favor from you.” “Of course,” said Ruffing. “Anything you ask.” “I want a seaplane,” said Van. “A big one that can carry half a dozen people. I want it loaded with bombs, with weapons. And I want it ready in the bay at dawn, serviced and ready for flight” “Half a dozen people,” mused Ruffing. “Then you intend to take some help with you?” Van shook his head. “No,” he said. “I intend to bring those six captives away with me.” Ruffing stared at him aghast. “But, God, man, you can’t go there alone and face that Jap. You can’t rescue those people single-handed, overpower Matsiami alone.” Van rose from his chair. His lips were set in a thin grim line. His eyes gleamed with a terrible resolution. “Perhaps not,” he said grimly, “But I’m about to bet my life against Matsiami’s that I can do it. Will you attend to the matter of the sea plane?” Ruffing rose and extended his hand. His admiration for the courage of the man before him was mingled with a sensation of dismay that he had been asked to aid in sending him to what he considered certain death. “Yes,” he said quietly, “I shall attend to it—with the greatest reluctance.” The masked figure bowed, stepped back toward the French windows, then on silent footsteps evanesced into the darkness of the night outside.

R

UFFING nodded his head slowly. “Well,” he said, “perhaps it’s for the best. At any rate, you’ve saved the Islands from a treacherous revolution. Your task is finished, and the white men of this island will never know that they owe their lives to the Phantom.” Van smiled ruefully. “I wish my task was finished,” he said. “But it’s far from that. We’ve merely stopped Matsiami temporarily, that’s all.” Ruffing looked at him inquiringly. “What do you mean?” “Simply this: There’s nothing to prevent the Japanese from sending more of his murder machines here, to foment another revolution directed by someone other than Messman. There’s nothing to prevent his carrying out his other plans. “Besides, on the Island of Death there are six white men and a woman, victims of his devilish schemes. They must be rescued and Matsiami must be crushed before the civilized world can breathe easily once more.” Ruffing’s brow knitted into a worried frown. “You’re right, of course,” be admitted. “But we’re helpless. What can we do? It’s impossible to send the navy. We can’t attack a nation’s possession when we are ostensibly at peace with that nation. And from what you’ve hinted about that island, it’ll take at least a navy to wipe it out. One man can’t do it.” “One man can try,” said Van grimly.

I

T WAS dawn. Far to the east, the red rim of the sun thrust itself over the horizon, ready to flood the torrid zone with its burning diurnal heat. The water of Manila Bay was thick and greasy, inert, as if it, too, had been enervated by the beating rays of the tropical sun. Half way out in the bay, a huge seaplane

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THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE

T

bobbed lazily up and down upon the surface of the water. Toward it chugged slowly a government cutter. In the boat were two men. One, a sailor in dungarees, held the tiller, while the second figure, masked and solitary, sat in the stem. The cutter pulled up alongside the plane. The masked man stepped from the boat to the plane. The sailor saluted, nosed the boat around and went chugging back to the dock. The masked man clambered into the cockpit and examined the interior of the amphibian. With vast satisfaction he noted that his instructions regarding the preparation of the ship had been carried out to the letter. The bomb rack was filled. Arms and ammunition were neatly stacked around the sides of the cabin. A box of Very lights and a pistol for firing them was under the pilot’s seat. Fixed to the center of the deck of the ship was an automatic camera. Van’s eyes lit up with satisfaction as he observed this last item. That was an important link in his plan to wrest the Island of Death from the bloody hand of Matsiami. At last, satisfied with his scrutiny, he seated himself behind the controls. He opened up the throttle slowly. The big motor beneath the cowling slowly throbbed to life. Then the soft purr that emanated from her cylinder evolved to a terrific amount of power as he opened her up wide. Leaning over the side, Van stretched out his hand. Something glinted in the sun as his knife lashed at the seaplane’s moorings. The prop whirled savagely at the impeding atmosphere. The pontoons moved through the water. She started slowly, then gradually gathered speed as she tore through the flaccid, greasy water. Straight toward the neck of the bay she ran. Then slowly, like a fledgling testing her wings for flight, she thrust her nose upward tentatively, and lifted her pontoons from the water. She zoomed until her altimeter indicated a height of five thousand feet. Then Van gently pulled back the stick and flattened her out. Now he opened the throttle wide, giving her all the gas she could take, and scuttled across the sky, headed dead on for the Island of Death.

HE hours passed monotonously. The constant whirring of the propeller, the roaring chant of the engine, drummed maddeningly into his ears. His hand was steady on the stick, and his eyes were glued to the chart pinned on his instrument board as he drew nearer and nearer, mile by mile, to the perilous island, where the Phantom was prepared to risk his life once more in this grapple to the finish with Matsiami, the genius of evil. The sun, which had belted its terrific heat down upon the lazy Pacific all day, crawled over to the west and softly dipped down to meet the sea. The sky assumed a deep crimson, as the God of Day dropped below the horizon and disappeared, leaving night to sweep unhampered across a grateful universe. But the solitary man who flew the gray seaplane over the lonely expanse of ocean paid scant attention to the passing of the day, save to increase his vigilance to insure his keeping the sky-trail through the darkness. The tropical dusk was short-lived. Soon, the gray respite which comes between the daylight and the evening was gone, leaving a sable curtain draped over the earth. No moon penetrated the ebony of the evening. No star peered from the heavens. It was blackness—the blackness of hell itself. Yet the redoubtable flying ship plowed her way determinedly through the air, throwing miles behind her swirling propeller, driving on to her mission of righteous vengeance. It lacked two hours of midnight when Van, after a hasty glance at his watch and the chart, realized that he was close to his destination. He cut the power and slowly, volplaned down toward the sea. Straining his eyes over the side of the cockpit, he became gradually aware of a dozen pinpricks of light below. He nodded in satisfaction. He dropped still lower, to orient himself, then there suddenly loomed beneath him some black against the blackness of the night. Swiftly he switched on the power again and came out of his dive. For a moment he headed out to sea again, then banking,

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THE ISLAND OF DEATH achieved a complete turn. He thrust the stick forward, and plunged down toward the sea. There was a splash us the pontoon hit the water. He switched off the ignition. The plane glided softly through the water. Looming up before him, he saw a rock promontory. He smiled with satisfaction. He had noticed, the last time he flew over the Island of Death, that one side of it was unfortified, unpopulated. It was the lee side which faced the ocean. He had deduced that Matsiami had deliberately left this side alone, inasmuch as it could be seen by passing vessels. The seaplane drew up against the rock in the cove. It was an ideal spot for concealment. The rock itself leaned over the water, thus hiding the seaplane from view to any prying eyes that might be on shore, within a few feet of it. Yet Van Loan did not anchor. The purpose of this landing had merely been to assure himself that he could find this rocky hiding place again. Now that he had accomplished this, he had something else to do ere he landed on the island and met Matsiami face to face. He gave her the gun again, turned her around, and a moment later was streaking into the clouds once more. He pulled back the stick and zoomed. Now that he was about to pass directly over the fortifications, he wanted as much altitude as possible in order to deaden the sound of his motor until he was ready to carry out the details of his plan.

into garish, illuminating flame. He could clearly obtain a perfect bird’seye view of the illicit fortifications below him. In that instant, that single moment when the entire vista was clearly lighted up he pressed the little button at his right which clicked the shutter of the camera in the deck.

T

HEN the Very shell died and darkness again swept the scene. Van jammed down on the right rudder, pulled back the stick slightly, and came around once more. This time he was barely three hundred feet above the fort, when his pistol again spat a flaming torch out into the blackness. Again the shutter of the camera clicked, and printed indelibly on the film the evidence of the perfidy of Nippon. This time, he saw in the flash of light hundreds of ant-like figures below, running madly about, shouting the alarm as the mysterious lights dropped from heaven upon the secret of the Island of Death. Van pulled back the stick, opened the throttle wide and shot once again into the heavens from which he had come. The night swallowed up the gray seaplane, and closed again over the Island of Death. At ten thousand feet Van banked, cut the power and glided silently down to the spot he had selected for a landing place. This time he skillfully effected a landing without touching the dead ignition. The gallant ship sped soundlessly through the water to the spot beneath the rock that he had already selected as her mooring place. Swiftly he made her fast, then clambering agilely over the face of the rock to the shore, he raced up the beach, then carefully made his way on silent feet across the island. He had reckoned on the excitement caused by his Very lights to aid him in gaining admission to the fort. Overhead, he heard the humming of airplanes as the Japanese sent their pilots aloft in an effort to discover what intruder had descended upon them from the night. The portals of the fortress were open, and a myriad of flashlights pierced the night, as the yellow men combed the island in their investigation.

H

E had almost reached the ceiling when he thrust the stick forward again and plunged to earth in a roaring power dive. His eyes were glued to the altimeter. It was impossible to judge how close to the land he was with the naked eye. The falling finger on the altimeter dropped alarmingly. When it showed a scant five hundred feet, when he was fully aware that the pounding roar of his motor could be heard by those beneath, he flattened out again. His left hand left the controls, stretched out of the cockpit and pressed the trigger of a Very pistol. Of a sudden, below him, the darkness was ripped aside. Light flooded the whole scene as the shell from the pistol burst 67

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE Those moving torches made it easy for Van to avoid discovery. In the utter blackness of the night it was a simple thing to avoid the moving soldiers, who advertised their presence by the flashlight in their hands.

Japanese froze to immobility. His senses were keen and thoroughly developed. Matsiami, himself, could not have explained why, but he suddenly knew that there was someone in the room besides himself. Casually his hand moved to a small jade button at the side of his desk. But before he could touch it a silky voice thrilled into his ear. “Don’t press that button, Matsiami. In fact, don’t move at all. And if anyone should knock at that outer door, during the next few minutes, tell them that you’re engaged.” A tall figure wearing a black silk mask over his face approached the Japanese from the rear. He came around to the front of the desk and looked Matsiami in the face. Bland and impassive, Matsiami gave no facial sign of being astounded as he recognized his captor. For a full moment he glared at him in silence, then he said simply: “So it is you.” Van nodded. “Yes,” he said. “It is I, Matsiami.” The yellow man smiled coldly. “If you have been fortunate enough to escape death thus far,” he said, “why do you tempt fate by coming here?” “I’ve come here for certain reasons,” said Van. Matsiami shrugged. “Suicide is one of them?” be suggested mockingly. “No,” said Van. “One of them is to rescue those six white people that you have in captivity. The other was to take some aerial photographs which will give every power in the world reason enough to declare war on Japan for treaty violations.” Matsiami remained unperturbed.

C

AUTIOUSLY he approached the fort, seeking a chance to slip unseen through the gates. With his back up against the wall, he moved closer and closer to the open gates. For a moment he stood breathlessly near the portal as a pair of Japanese passed so close to him that they could have touched him. Then, with a swift movement of his body, he slipped into the fortress proper. He breathed a trifle easier. He remained in the darkness under the walls as he slowly worked his way toward the building at the far end of the quadrangle, the building where once before he had come face to face with Matsiami. A searchlight split the night. Gathered about it were a number of soldiers as its white ray shot into the clouds. Half a dozen Japanese planes buzzed about overhead like angry wasps. Van grinned to himself as he realized how much he must have upset the yellow men by his weird maneuvers of a moment before. CHAPTER XXIII

“BRING HIM HERE”

M

ATSIAMI sat at his desk, an evil frown creasing his brow. One yellow finger drummed the desktop nervously, and his little eyes were narrowed as he stared straight ahead. The sudden appearance of blazing light, the sudden sound of a roaring airplane motor had disturbed him no little. Firm in his belief that the Phantom was dead, convinced that by now the Philippines must be in a state of revolution, he could not imagine what enemy had swept down upon him. He thrust a long cigarette into an even longer jade holder, and puffed luxuriously. Behind him a curtain moved, and the

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OOL,” he said. “What can you do? What can the world do? Already I have taken the Philippines. Already Messman has swept the white men from Manila with the death machine I gave him. Already he is triumphant, and by the same means shall I defy all the white nations of the world.” “Messman is dead,” said Richard Van Loan. “The revolution has been broken, and your murder machine lies at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.”

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THE ISLAND OF DEATH For once the traditional calm of the oriental was shattered. His yellow face became a dirty gray. His eyes dilated. He leaned forward over the desk and stared at Van. “You lie!” he shouted. “Messman could not fail.” Van shrugged. “Believe what you like,” he said quietly. “I tell you the truth.” Matsiami sank back in his chair, silent. Once again he was under control. His facial muscles were inexpressive, but stark murder shone from his eyes. “Well,” he said, in a flat monotone, “You are here. You hold a gun at my breast. Yet you talk in riddles. What do you want? What do you intend to do?” “I intend to leave here,” said Van, “with your six captives and my photographs.” Matsiami smiled sardonically. “Small good your photographs shall do you. Let the nations attack. They can not stand against the weapons I am perfecting. As for your quixotic rescue, how do you propose to get your six people off the Island of Death?” Van eyed him steadily. “I’m gambling on that, Matsiami,” he said. “I’m gambling that you’re more fond of your own life than you are of the evil ideals which you follow.” The yellow man frowned. “What do you mean by that?” “Simply this. I shall keep this gun leveled at your heart. You will, by means of a mental message, bring the six captives to you. You will accompany us outside the fort, after giving instructions that we must not be followed. You will remember that, through all this, I am directly behind you with a gun that is ready to snuff out your life at the first false step.”

“Then,” said Van gravely, “we both die.” He stiffened as a soft knock came on the panel of the door behind them. Matsiami’s eyes lit up with a faint gleam of hope. “Send him away,” whispered Van. Matsiami nodded. He opened his mouth to speak. Then, swifter than light, his hand touched something beneath his desk. The room was suddenly plunged into pitch darkness. Even as Van’s revolver hurled a staccato shot at the spot where he had last seen Matsiami, he heard the Japanese shout triumphantly: “Fool, you shall die at once.” Then he called loudly in his native tongue for aid. Van wasted no time in vain regrets at Matsiami’s having tricked him at the very moment when it had seemed that his plans were about to be triumphantly consummated. Instead, he cast about for a means of escape.

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E fled across the room to the window, through which he had entered. He threw his leg across the sill just as the far door burst open and an excited horde of armed soldiers poured into the room. A rifle spoke and its bullet shattered the glass above Van’s head. His finger constricted once on the trigger of his revolver and a scream of pain attested to the accuracy of his aim. Then, pulling his other leg over the sill, he dropped from the window ledge. The window opened onto a garden at the rear of the fortifications. He raced madly across the flower beds, as the figures of soldiers appeared at the window. A volley of shots followed him. He heard Matsiami cry out harshly: “Bring him here. Don’t let him escape. Close all the gates, then comb the grounds for him. Bring him here alive, though.” Van grinned bitterly as he overheard this last order. He knew full well that this last order was no boon, but rather a sentence to a horrible lingering death: By now the soldiers were leaping from the window. Van turned the corner of a rampart, found it deserted, then noticed a small steel door in the side of the wall. He tried it and found it locked. In a trice he

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HEIR eyes met, and for a long time they stared at each other across the desk. At last Matsiami spoke. “And,” he purred, “suppose you are wrong? Suppose I do not care for life as much as you seem to think? Suppose I press this button at the side of my desk and bring a hundred men to this room? Suppose all this. What then?” 69

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE whipped a bunch of skeleton keys from his pocket and muttered a prayer that the first one would turn the lock. His supplication turned to thanksgiving when it did. He entered the steel door and slammed it behind him just as the khaki clad mob poured around the corner on his trail. For a moment he stood up against the inside of the door, prepared to sell his life as dearly as possible should they enter. Then he breathed a sigh of relief as he heard their scudding footsteps disappear in the distance. For the moment he was safe, though he had not the slightest idea where he was. He appeared to he in a long, dark cave. He could feel concrete walls on either side of him some three feet apart.

corridor had been placed there with a purpose. The ammunition dump, because of its explosive danger, had been placed some distance from the fort, where no careless smoker would approach. Then, of a sudden, he froze to immobility. The sound of a distant footstep sounded in the corridor behind him. He moved over behind a huge shell, his revolver in his hand. The faint beam of a flashlight pierced the darkness of the corridor, and slow shuffling steps came nearer. Van frowned, puzzled. The steps were those of but one man, and so slow, so hesitant were they, that it did not seem like the gait of one of the soldiers. His finger rested on the trigger. His eyes were glued to the point where the corridor met the ammunition chamber. Then slowly, a shambling dejected figure came into view. As he saw it, Van lowered his weapon. It was Penwall, the explosive expert. The man’s face was blank. His eyes were glazed and dull; it was evident that Matsiami’s evil potions still held the white man in their thrall. He shuffled dejectedly across the room, stopped before a drawer and pulled it open. Van came slowly up behind him and looked over his shoulder. The open drawer contained a quantity of black powder— ammonal. Van addressed the man slowly. “Penwall.” Blankly the other looked at him. “What are you doing here, Penwall?” asked Van. The scientist spoke slowly, dully. “I come for ammonal to make the new bomb for the master. I must hurry back or he will punish me.”

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AUTIOUSLY he clicked the button of his pocket torch. The flickering light revealed a long, straight passageway, so long that he could not see its end, could not see where it led. With his revolver in one hand and his flashlight in the other, he moved slowly down the passageway. Slowly he made his way through the concrete cave for at least a hundred yards. Suddenly, the passage opened on to a tremendously lighted chamber. Van stood on the threshold of the room and gasped. For there before him was a complete armory. Shells were stocked row on row as far as the eye could see. Bombs were piled up to the roof in boxes. One enormous bin was labeled powder. He had accidentally stumbled upon the ammunition quarter of the Island of the Dead, and he realized that here was enough explosives to blow the island to kingdom come and enough to withstand the siege of any enemy. Further, he realized that he had also stumbled upon an ideal hiding place. They would probably not search for him here until all other possibilities had been exhausted. Even then it would be possible to remain well concealed in this tremendous room, filled as it was with various objects which offered concealment.

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AN was aware of an overwhelming pity for the broken man before him. His mind had been stolen from him by the Japanese fiend. Then, in an instant, Van was struck with an idea. It was a long, desperate chance, but it might work. If Penwall’s mind was not his own, if it was merely the pawn of the brain of Matsiami. Perhaps, Van could exercise control of that mind himself for a short time.

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E knew, too, that he was far removed from the rest of the fort. The long 70

THE ISLAND OF DEATH He placed his hands on Penwall’s shoulders and turned him so that they faced each other. Hypnosis was an old story for Richard Van Loan. There were not three men in America who were more proficient in this mysterious art than he. And now he essayed hypnosis to attempt to break Matsiami’s hold over the munitions expert’s mind. Perspiration stood out on his brow, as his mind fought the evil Powers of the brain of the Japanese. The blood throbbed in his temples. The veins stood out on his neck. And then he experienced a thrill of triumph. Penwall’s eyes dropped. Van took a step toward him, lifted his head and again stared deep into his eyes. “Penwall,” he said quietly. “Yes—” he hesitated for a long moment, then added a single word which told Van he had won. “Yes—master!” “Listen,” said Van talking swiftly. “You shall return to Matsiami, Penwall. This ammonal is defective. He must come here at once and examine it. Your work cannot go on with this defective material. You must bring Matsiami here to examine it. Do you understand?” Penwall repeated the instructions like a man in a dream. “Ammonal defective. Matsiami must come. Work cannot go on. I shall bring him to examine it.” “You will do that,” said Van. “And you will forget having seen me. You saw no one here. Do you understand? When you leave my presence you forget me entirely. Do you understand?” Penwall nodded. “I met no one here. I must bring Matsiami. The work cannot go on.” He shuffled back to the corridor, and Van listened with a pounding heart to his footsteps disappearing in the distance.

control of Penwall now, all was lost. His revolver was gripped firmly in his hand as he waited. Penwall, he realized, being perfectly safe while under the yellow man’s influence, had been given the run of the ammunition room in order to accomplish his researches. Van’s heart picked up a beat as he heard footsteps In the distance. He squeezed himself, between two nine-point-two’s, near the explosive stores and waited. His pulse pounded as he saw the Japanese and Penwall enter. the room. “Ammonal no good,” Penwall was muttering. “Got to get some more, can’t get on with work. No good.” Matsiami glanced into the drawer containing the black powder. He dipped his fingers in it and felt its texture. He dropped a little on the floor, touched a match to it. It burned slowly. He stamped out the flame, and turned an angry face to Penwall. “Fool,” he cried. “Have you lost your wits? This is all right. There is nothing the matter with it.” He lifted a yellow hand and struck Penwall in the face. “Fool,” cried the Japanese again. “Return to your work and don’t make mistakes like this again. It may mean death.” Richard Curtis Van Loan stepped out of his hiding place. His revolver was aimed directly at Matsiami’s back. “It does mean death, Matsiami,” he said slowly. “Your death!” The Japanese whirled around on his heel. Stark fear was reflected in his eyes. His face was bewildered and stupifed with astonishment. “What does this mean?” he demanded. “How could Penwall betray me? His mind is mine. How could he betray me, I say.” The yellow man was nearly berserk. So positive had he been that as long as Penwall’s mind was in thrall he had nothing to fear, that this, to him, inexplicable turn of events completely baffled him.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE COMMAND

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HAT is neither here nor there,” said Van. “Now listen to me. You will write an order instructing the white men and the woman to come to you here at once. You will

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ENSE and straining, Van waited. Not for an instant did he dare relax the vigilance of his mind. If he should lose 71

THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE give it to Penwall to deliver. You will then release them from your dirty poisons. You will unfasten your mind from theirs.” “I shall do nothing,” said Matsiami. “Nothing. You cannot do this thing.” Van Loan moved a step nearer. “Matsiami,” he said. “I am in no mood for conversation. Nothing would give me greater satisfaction than to send a yellow rat like you to the hell that yearns for him. Now will you write that order or—” He left the sentence unfinished, but the threat in his eyes was obvious enough. A shudder ran through the yellows man’s body. Involuntarily he took a pace backward, away from this terrible white man who had overcome so many perils, so many dangers, to follow the bloody trail of Matsiami’s ambitions to its bitter end. He took a pencil from his pocket, scrawled something on a piece of paper. Van took it, glanced at it, then handed it to Penwall. His eyes held Matsiami’s. “Go,” Matsiami said to Penwall. “Give that to Astsi.” Penwall shuffled off down the corridor, leaving the white man and the yellow there alone. In the eyes of one was a terrible righteous wrath, in the other a bitter murderous hatred.

“What is this place?” he asked. “What—” Van turned to the bewildered men. “There is no time for explanation now,” he said. “I want you all to know that we are in great danger. We must get out of here without delay. Each of you get a rifle from that stack over there. Load them and carry as much ammunition as possible. Then follow me.”

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HE freed scientists, some of them still bewildered, some of them—those that had been unable to work while drugged, and hence free from Matsiami’s sinister powers— eager, rushed to the stacks of rifles. “You stay near me,” said Van to the girl. She nodded. “Now,” said Van to the Japanese. “You are coming with us. You will walk with us as if nothing untoward was happening. I’ll just have to take a chance that I’m not noticed in the crowd of us. You shall lead us through the gates of the fort. At the slightest false move, you die.” Sullenly, Matsiami fell in line beside Van, and the strange procession marched down the concrete corridor to freedom—or death. With Van’s revolver jabbing into his back, Matsiami led the little cavalcade through the fort. Sentries stared at the procession strangely, wondering at the arms the white men carried, but apparently accustrued to their master’s eccentricity. Afraid of his wrath, they laid nothing. They gained the gates of the fortress with no untoward incident. But there, a sentry more observant than the rest, peered closely at them as they passed. Then a sudden cry left his throat as he saw Van’s mask. “The Phantom!” he cried. “Treachery. Turn out the guard.” He brought up his rifle and aimed it dead at Van’s heart. But swift as he was Van was even swifter. His revolver moved from its target in Matsiami’s back. It spat a single streak of flame into the night. The sentry fell, blood rushing from his temple. From a dozen points soldiers came rushing into the portcullis. “Run for it,” cried Van. “Here, follow me.” Matsiami, taking advantage of the

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HEY remained there in that sinister tense silence for a long time. At last, footsteps again sounded in the long concrete corridor. Penwall entered at the head of a file of white persons. The girl came next, then the others. She shot a glance of mingled wonder and admiration at Van. “Now,” said Van, thrusting his gun up against Matsiami’s heart, “release their minds.” For a moment the yellow man hesitated. Again Van’s weapon pressed against his flesh. With death staring him in the eyes, he capitulated. He closed his eyes. His brow wrinkled for a moment Then, of a sudden, Penwall spoke. “My God,” he said in an animated voice. “What is this? Where am I?” Ricci blinked slowly at the huge chamber. 72

THE ISLAND OF DEATH confusion, fled back into the fort, shouting to his men as he did so. Van streaked like a rabbit across the island, followed by the others. A volley of shots rang out from the gateway. Matsiami’s voice was heard above the din of battle, screaming to his men. A horde of yellow men charged from the fort at the heels of the whites.

“He’s got a plane! Send every available pilot up. Bring him down if it costs a hundred lives. Fast now. He must not escape!” The seaplane slid through the water, her propeller roaring a terrific song of power. Marie Desplains leaned forward and shouted in Van’s ear. “Get away quickly. He may have another of those terrible Ray machines with which to bring us down.” Van nodded. To get away was far from his intention. Even if Matsiami did not possess another of those terrible weapons that had ripped the life from Messman and his followers, he possessed the formula for their manufacture, and no matter what happened he could defy the civilized world with a single one of those murder machines in his possession.

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ROM time to time, the little party stopped, fired quickly at the oncoming mob, then fled precipitately again. Van heard a cry of pain at his side, and turned to see Ricci go down with a bullet through his heart. The girl uttered a cry of concern and made as if to stop. Van seized her arm and dragged her along with him. “We’ve no time to stop for dead men,” he said. “We’ll all be killed if we do.” Through the night they scampered, keeping close together, pausing momentarily to return the fire of their pursuers. Pandemonium shattered the stillness of the tropical night. Rifles cracked. Somewhere on the ramparts a machine-gun leaped to life, and sprayed death blindly in the darkness. At last, like a haven, Van caught a glimpse of the big rock under which the seaplane was moored. They reached it with no casualties other than Ricci. Van stood for a moment on the rock and emptied his rifle at the pursuing mob. He was answered by a scream of pain and another barrage of rifle fire, which ricocheted crazily off the big stones. “Quick,” he cried breathlessly. “Follow me.” He leaped over the side of the rock into the water. The others followed him. He sprang into the pilot’s seat, while the rest of them scrambled into the big cabin. He opened the throttle wide. He did not dare to take the time to warm up the motor. He slashed desperately with a knife at the painter, and taxied the ship through the water, just as the vanguard of the Japanese soldiers arrived upon the rock. Matsiami’s voice fought with the roar of the engine.

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O, Van realized that the one way in which to crush the arrogant ambitions of Nippon was to totally destroy the Island of Death. Though he risk his own life and that of his passengers in the attempt. Searchlights pierced the darkness in an endeavor to find the seaplane. Already the Japanese pilots were taking off to give battle to the ship which was carrying off their victims. The lights showed half a dozen of their own planes in the air now. Even so, Van did not flee. Instead he turned the nose of the seaplane in again toward the island. Defying the searchlights, ignoring the hail of bullets that ripped through the fuselage, he roped down to five hundred feet and flew steadily over the center of the island. Below him, he saw the spot where he estimated the ammunition dump was located. There plunged before him suddenly, a Japanese monoplane, tracers spitting from the synchronized gun between her prop blades. Coolly, calmly, he mirrored the pilot’s body in his ring sights and pressed the trigger. Crazily, out of control, the ship lurched wildly, then dropped like a stricken bird to earth. Van glanced down through his bomb sights. Below he saw the fort clearly. A searchlight had picked him up now, and the seaplane was surrounded by a halo of brilliant

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THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE white light. With a steady hand he released the bomb lever. The torpedo hurled itself down to earth. Van banked. Another stream of tracers whistled through the struts like a banshee’s wail. Something vicious and stinging bit into his shoulder. Blood ran crazily down his coat. Still he paid it no heed. He swung the plane around in a sharp bank, and even before the first projectile had landed, he released another one. Then he jerked violently back on the stick to get the plane out of the danger zone before the detonation. Then—devastation! The pair of bombs had plunged into the heart of the ammunition store of the Island of Death. The very air itself received part of the tremendous shock. The gallant sea plane shuddered like a frightened horse. The air was suddenly filled with flying missiles. Below, the earth was torn and ravished. The night was in upheaval. Fire and confusion took hold below, where every living thing had been torn to pieces by the booming explosion which had blown the Island of Death to the hell that spawned it. Van flattened the plane out at eight thousand feet. Then he glanced over the side. The searchlights no longer played their revealing beams upon him. The air about him no longer buzzed with the angry hum of tracers and airplanes. Those that had survived the detonation had descended again to see if their comrades were beyond all aid. Far, far below, Van saw a crimson lurid flame, as that scavenging glutton, fire, avidly consumed what was left of the island.

With a sigh, Van banked and headed the ship toward the Philippines. Despite his victory his heart was heavy within him. For down there below, good men had gone to their deaths. Good men had been compelled to sacrifice their lives as the toll of false leadership. Yet with him now were all but one of the scientists whom Matsiami had abducted to perform his nefarious tasks. True, Ricci— who unwittingly had created the most murderous weapon ever devised by man— was dead—a victim of the guns of the man whom he had involuntarily served. Still, the Phantom had completed his task. Matsiami and his island were destroyed, and headed safely back to civilization were these distinguished white people who had been torn from their homes and transported to this desolate reef of death. Stern and grim beneath his black mask, Van flew steadily through the night. Once the girl leaned over and grasped his shoulder firmly in a fraternal grip. He did not heed the gesture. He was aware of a terrible loneliness. He was the Phantom. He had dedicated his life to the battle with crime. Yet at times he desired above all else the peace and content that is the prerogative of the normal being. Yet as he flew steadily through the night, he knew that these things would never be for him. And in that wistful moment, he knew his heart was as empty, as barren, as desolate, as the ruins on the Island of Death which smoldered red in the distance behind him.

Next Month: A Gripping Full Book-Length Novel of International Intrigue, Murder and Mystery—Grim Death and Disaster in the Wake of a Gigantic, Sinister, Criminal Plot, Originating in India.

JEWELS OF DOOM

Taken from the Case-Book of Richard Curtis Van Loan by C. Wayman Jones 74