Benjamin Franklin Gascon left the office of the Los Angeles chief of detectives, where he had spent a most trying forenoon convincing his interrogators that he had no idea why he should be brought into the case. He knew nothing of the underworld. True, he knew Miss Cole professionally, but—and his face was rueful—had no reason to count himself a really close friend of hers. He had not seen her since the termination of their latest radio assignment. His personal affairs, meanwhile, were quite open to investigation; he had grown weary of ventriloquism, and had retired to live on the income from his investments. Later, he might resume his earlier profession, medicine. He was attending lectures now at the University of California in Los Angeles. And once again, he had no idea of how he was being brought into this case, or of who could have kidnapped Miss Cole.
But, even as he departed, he suddenly got that idea.
"Tom-Tom!"
It took moments to string together the bits of logic which brought that thought into his mind.
Things had happened to people, mostly gangsters, at the hands of a malevolent creature; that is, if the creature had hands—but it must have hands, if it could wield a gun, a slip-cord, a knife! It must also be notably small and nimble, if it really traveled up chimneys, down ventilator shafts, along power-lines and through stovepipe holes. Gascon's imagination, as good as anyone's, toyed with the conception of a wise and wicked monkey, or of a child possessed by evil like the children of old Salem, or a dwarf.
But the point at which he coupled on his theory was the point at which police had paused, or rather begun.
Digs Dilson had been killed with a knife. So had old Bratton.
He, Ben Gascon, had given old Bratton the dummy that people called Tom-Tom. And old Bratton was forthwith murdered. Gascon had meant to go to the funeral, but something had turned up to interfere. What else concerned the janitor? What, for instance, had the younger electricians and engineers teased him about so often? "Electricity is life," that was old Bratton's constant claim. And he was said to have whole clutters of strange machinery at his shabby rooms.
Bratton had taken Tom-Tom. Thereafter Bratton and others had been killed. In the background of their various tragedies had lurked and plotted something small, evil, active, and strange enough to frighten the most hardened of criminals. "Electricity is life"—and Bratton had toiled over some kind of electrical apparatus that might or might not be new and powerful in ways unknown to ordinary electricians.
Gascon left the rationalization half completed in the back of his mind, and sought out the shabby street where the janitor had lodged.
The landlord could not give him much help. To be sure old Bratton had made a nuisance of himself with his machines, mumbling that they would startle the world some day; but after his death, someone had bought those machines, loaded them upon a truck and carted them off. The landlord had seen the purchase, and later identified the purchaser from newspaper photographs as the late Juney Saltz.
And Juney Saltz, pondered Gascon, had been killed by something with a shrill voice, that could crawl through a stovepipe hole.... "You saw the sale of the goods?" he prompted the landlord. "Was there a dummy—a thing like a big doll, such as ventriloquists use?"
The landlord shook his head. "Nothing like that. I'd have noticed if there was."
So Tom-Tom, who had gone home with old Bratton, had vanished.
Gascon left the lodgings and made a call at a newspaper office, where he inserted a personal notice among the classified advertisements:
T-T. I have you figured out. Clever, but your old partner can add two and two and get four. Better let S.C. go. B.F.G.
The notice ran for three days. Then a reply, in the same column:
B.F.G. So what? T-T.
It was bleak, brief defiance, but Gascon felt a sudden blaze of triumph. Somehow he had made a right guess, on a most fantastic proposition. Tom-Tom had come to life as a lawless menace. All that he, Gascon, need do, was act accordingly. He made plans, then inserted another message:
T-T. I made you, and I can break you. This is between us. Get in touch with me, or I'll come looking for you. You won't like that. B.F.G.
Next day his telephone rang. A hoarse voice called him by name:
"Look, Gascon, you better lay off if you know what's good for you."
"Ah," replied Gascon gently, "Tom-Tom seems to have taken up conventional gangster methods. It means that he's afraid—which I'm not. Tell him I'm not laying off, I'm laying on."
That night he took dinner at a restaurant on a side street. As he left it, two men sauntered out of a doorway and came up on either side of him. One was as squat and bulky as a wrestler, with a truculent square face. The other, taller but scrawny, had a broad brow and a narrow chin, presenting the facial triangle which phrenologists claim denotes shrewdness. Both had their hands inside their coats, where bulges betrayed the presence of holstered guns.
"This is a stickup," said Triangle-Face. "Don't make a move or a peep, or we'll cut down on you."
They walked him along the street.
"I'm not moving or peeping," Gascon assured them blandly, "but where are you taking me?"
"Into this car," replied the triangle-faced one, and opened the rear door of a parked sedan. Gascon got in, with the powerful gunman beside him. The other got into the front seat and took the wheel.
"No funny business," he cautioned as he trod on the starter. "The boss wants to talk to you."
The car drew away from the curb, heading across town. Gascon produced his cigarette case—Shannon Cole had given it to him on his last birthday—opened it, and offered it to the man beside him. Smiling urbanely at the curt growl of refusal, he then selected a cigarette and lighted it.
"Understand one thing," he bade his captors, through a cloud of smoke. "I've expected this. I've worked for it. And I have written very fully about all angles of this particular case. If anything happens to me, the police will get my report."
It was patently a bluff, and in an effort to show that it did not work both men laughed scornfully.
"We're hotter than a couple wolves in a prairie fire right now," the triangle-faced one assured him. "Anyway, no dumb cop would believe the truth about the boss."
That convinced Gascon that he was on his way to Tom-Tom. Too, the remark about "a coupla wolves" showed that the driver thought of only two members of the gang. Tom-Tom's following must have been reduced to these. Gascon sat back with an air of enjoying the ride. Growling again, his big companion leaned over and slapped him around the body. There was no hard lump to betray knife or pistol, and the bulky fellow grunted to show that he was satisfied. Gascon was satisfied as well. His pockets were not probed into, and he was carrying a weapon that, if unorthodox, was nevertheless efficient. He foresaw the need and the chance to use it.
"Is Miss Cole all right?" he asked casually.
"Sure she is," replied Square-Face.
"Pipe down, you!" snapped his companion from the driver's seat. "Let the boss do the talking to this egg."
"Your boss likes to do the talking, I judge," put in Gascon, still casually. "Do you like to listen? Or," and his voice took on a mocking note, "does he give you the creeps?"
"Never mind," Square-Face muttered. "He's doing okay."
"But not his followers," suggested Gascon. "Quite a few of them have been killed, eh? And aren't you two the only survivors of the old Dilson crowd? How long will your luck hold out, I wonder?"
"Longer than yours," replied the man at the wheel sharply. "If you talk any more, we'll put the slug on you."
The remainder of the ride was passed in silence, and the car drew up at length before a quiet suburban cottage, on the edge of town almost directly opposite the scene of the recent fight between police and the Salters.
The three entered a dingy parlor, full of respectable looking furniture. "Keep him here," Triangle-Face bade Square-Face. "I'll go help the boss get ready to talk to him."
He was gone. His words suggested that there would be some moments alone with Square-Face, and Gascon meant to make use of them.
The big fellow sat down. "Take a chair," he bade, but Gascon shook his head and lighted another cigarette. He narrowed his eyes, in his best diagnostician manner, to study his guard.
"You look as if there was something wrong with your glands," he said crisply.
"Ain't nothing wrong with me," was the harsh response.
"Are you sure? How do you feel?"
"Good enough to pull a leg off of you if you don't shut that big mouth."
Gascon shrugged, and turned to a rear wall. A picture hung there, a very unsightly oil painting. He put his hand up, as if to straighten it on its hook. Then he glanced toward a window, letting his eyes dilate. "Ahhhh!" he said softly.
Up jumped the gangster, gun flashing into view. "What did you say?" he demanded.
"I just said 'Ahhhh,'" replied Gascon, his eyes fixed on the window.
"If anybody's followed you here—" The giant broke off and tramped toward the window to look out.
Like a flash Gascon leaped after him. With him he carried the picture, lifted from where it hung. He swept it through the air, using the edge of the frame like a hatchet and aiming at the back of the thick neck.
The blow was powerful and well placed. Knocked clean out, the gangster fell on his face. Gascon stooped, hooked his hands under the armpits, and made shift to drag the slack weight back to its chair. It took all his strength to set his victim back there. Then he drew from his side pocket the thing he had been carrying for days—a wad of cotton which he soaked in chloroform. Holding it to the broad nose, he waited until the last tenseness went out of the great limbs. Then he crossed one leg over the other knee, poised the head against the chair-back, an elbow on a cushioned arm. Clamping the nerveless right hand about the pistol-butt, he arranged it in the man's lap. Now the attitude was one of assured relaxation. Gascon hung the picture back in place, and himself sat down. He still puffed on the cigarette that had not left his lips.
He had more than a minute to wait before the leaner mobster returned. "Ready for you now," he said to Gascon, beckoning him through a rear door. He gave no more than a glance to his quiet, easy-seeming comrade.
They went down some stairs into a basement—plainly basements were an enthusiasm of the commander of this enterprise—and along a corridor. At the end was a door, pulled almost shut, with light showing through the crack. "Go in," ordered Triangle-Face, and turned as if to mount the stairs again.
But it was not Gascon's wish that he find his companion senseless. In fact, Gascon had no intention of leaving anyone in the way of the retreat he hoped to make later. With his hand on the doorknob, he spoke:
"One thing, my friend."
Triangle-Face paused and turned. "I'm no friend of yours. What do you want?"
Gascon extended his other hand. "Wish me luck."
"The only luck I wish you is bad. Don't try to grab hold of me."
The gangster's hand slid into the front of his coat, toward that bulge that denoted an armpit holster. Gascon sprang upon him, catching him by the sleeve near the elbow so that he could not whip free with the weapon. Gascon's other hand dived into his own pocket, again clutching the big wad of chloroform-soaked cotton.
He whipped the wad at and upon the triangular face. The man tried to writhe away but Gascon, heavier and harder-muscled than he, shoved him against the wall, where the back of his head could be clamped and held. Struggling, the fellow breathed deeply, again, again. His frantic flounderings suddenly went feeble. Gascon judged the dose sufficient, and let go his holds. The man subsided limply and Gascon, still holding to his sleeve, dragged the right hand out of the coat. Dropping his wad of cotton, he took up the big pistol.
"I'm afraid, Gaspipe," said a shrill, wise voice he should know better than anyone in the world, "that that gun won't really help you a nickel's worth."
Gascon spun around. A moment ago he had put his hand on the doorknob. When he had turned to leap at the triangle-faced man, he had pulled the door open. Now he could see inside a bare, officelike room, a big sturdy desk and a figure just beyond; a figure calm and assured, but so tiny, so grotesque.
"Come in, Gaspipe," commanded Tom-Tom, the dummy.
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