DEATH'S BRIGHT FINGER.

by Maxwell Grant (Theodore Tinsdale).

CHAPTER I. "I WANT FIVE YEARS!".

n.o.bODY at police headquarters knew the exact moment when fear first came to the underworld.

Everything seemed normal to Inspector Joe Cardona. Stool pigeons reported nothing out of the ordinary.

Cardona was so satisfied with events that he was about ready to take a brief vacation.

That was the day when Flash Snark came to police headquarters.

There was a gasp of surprise from the uniformed patrolman on duty at the front door of the weather-beaten stone building when Flash walked calmly in. He came alone. In his hand he carried a leather brief case.

He was dressed in his usual expensive fashion. A hundred-dollar suit, a twenty-dollar hat. The stickpin in Flash's tie was a large diamond that only a criminal big shot would buy.

But the thing that made the cop gape was the fact that Flash came alone. No bodyguard walked at his side. No high-priced lawyer. No bondsman trotted along to bail out Flash in case he was detained.

It seemed ominous and queer to the cop on duty at the big doorway of police headquarters. But his tight-lipped question to the racketeer brought only a harsh snarl from Flash.

"Go twiddle your nightstick, punk! I got business with somebody important!"

He swaggered into the marble lobby. Flash Snark belonged in the big-time criminal cla.s.s. He was undisputed boss of the numbers racket--but n.o.body could prove it. When lesser crooks bothered Flash, he had them knocked off--and n.o.body could prove that, either. Flash's income tax was made out every year by the best accountant in New York. The F.B.I. had wasted a lot of time checking and rechecking these financial statements. It hadn't got them a thing.

Flash seemed to enjoy the sensation his lone arrival created. He swaggered over to the information desk and said: "Hey, you! Phone the commissioner. Tell his nibs I wanta see him."

The cop hesitated. He felt like tossing this kingpin of crime into a cell. But there was something triumphant in Snark's grin. Something ratlike and menacing. The cop swallowed his wrath and shrugged.

"The commissioner is not in today."

"O.K. Cardona will do."

Without waiting for an answer, Flash shouldered his way into one of the elevators. A few minutes later, he barged into Joe Cardona's office without knocking.

"h.e.l.lo, copper! I brought you some news. I decided to go straight from now on. How do you like that?"

Cardona didn't like it because he didn't believe it. His eyes narrowed; his voice was cold, as he said: "What's the gag?"

"Don'tcha understand English? I decided to go straight! The way to start goin' straight is to pay for your crimes. So, here I am! I made a little miscue a while back--I beat up a guy. The guy went to the hospital.

You never found out who done it."

Cardona's face was still rigid. There was a catch in this somewhere. But what?

"You mean you want to plead guilty to an a.s.sault rap that will hand you five years in jail?"

"Yeah."

Cardona swallowed. It didn't make sense. Here was a successful crook, one of the biggest in the city, walking calmly in and asking for five years behind bars!

"Where's George Stoker?" Joe growled. "Did he figure out this little joke?"

Stoker was Snark's expensive lawyer. He knew every in and out of criminal law.

"Stoker?" Snark grinned. "I fired him. I fired my bodyguard, too. Pal, I'm not kidding. I'm out of the racket! Half of my ex-mobbies are already on trains headin' for Chi and St. Louie and Kansas City."

"But why?"

I told you. I wanta go straight! Maybe I got religion. What the h.e.l.l do you care? I'm pleadin' guilty to felonious a.s.sault. Here's the evidence."

He opened his brief case. Cardona noticed that Snark's fingers trembled as he unlocked the briefcase clasps. There was a peculiar pallor underneath his flushed cheeks. He handed over a paper.

"Look it over. A statement from the victim identifying me. An affidavit from three people who saw the thing and kept their mouths shut at the time because they were scared. And, lastly, a signed confessionfrom me."

CARDONA got up and began to pace the room. What was the catch? It sounded to Cardona like the beginnings of a slick alibi.

There were plenty of people in town whose guts Flash Snark hated. Suppose one of them was b.u.mped off while Snark was in a cell? Suppose the guy who did the b.u.mping got b.u.mped himself a day or two later? It would be very tough to pin it on Flash.

George Stoker, of course, could be counted on to pull some legal trick that would quash the five-year a.s.sault rap. Cardona suddenly picked up the phone, called the number of a lawyer friend.

"h.e.l.lo, Harry! Do me a favor. I've just heard a funny rumor. Check up on it for me, will you?"

"Sure thing! What's it about?"

"George Stoker has quit acting as mouthpiece for Flash Snark. According to rumor, Snark decided to go straight and fired Stoker. Is it phony?"

"No. It's true! I was talking to Stoker earlier this morning," the politician said. "The guy is fit to be tied.

He thinks that Snark has gone crazy. I was just going to call you up about it. What's it mean?"

"I dunno," Cardona growled. "I'll let you know later."

He p.r.o.nged the receiver. A shove at a b.u.t.ton on his desk brought in an attendant. The attendant was sent racing over to the detective bureau. Soon another man came hurrying in.

He gave Flash Snark a challenging look. Cardona explained the set-up.

"It's true, Joe," the detective finally said. "I can't make head nor tail of it. My boys are phoning from all over town. Penn Station and Grand Central are lousy with crooks buying tickets. They're on the lam, every one of them! And they're all members of Snark's numbers racket."

His voice hardened.

"They claim Snark him self warned them to get out of town. The rumor is that Snark has busted up his own racket. Those mobbies my men talked to all had plenty of dough, which means Snark paid them off.

It sounds crazy to me!"

"What do you care what it sounds like?" Snark grinned.

His lips were white. The lips of the man from the detective bureau were white, too.

"Lemme take charge of him," he said to Cardona in a tight voice. "I'll make him come across with the truth!"

Cardona shook his head. "I'll handle this."

He sounded calmly contemptuous when he spoke again to the racketeer.

"Beat it! "Don't bother me."

"Aren't you going to put me in jail?" Snark said.

"Like h.e.l.l!" Cardona replied evenly. "I don't like the smell of this. There's something fishy about it. WhenI arrest you, it will be for something tougher than a.s.sault. Maybe it will be murder. In the meantime--scram!"

Flash Snark began to laugh. It wasn't a pleasant sound. The sweat on his forehead wasn't pleasant to look at either.

"I figured you'd get smart," he snarled. "O.K.! If you won't give me action, I'll see what the newspapers will do about it."

He turned arrogantly on his heel and started for the door.

"Wait a minute," Cardona barked. "What do you mean?"

"Simple enough," Snark grated. "I'll just take my confession and these affidavits over to the Daily Cla.s.sic.

The Cla.s.sic has wanted to know for months why you haven't put me out of business. I'll tell 'em that I offered to surrender and take a rap--and you were too scared to put me in a cell."

"You win," Cardona said quietly. He eyed the haggard face of the criminal. Snark's smile was wider now.

He seemed happy at the prospect of spending five years in jail. But behind his eyes was a veil of terror.

Cardona sent for a cop, had Snark taken away to a cell. He sent the affidavit and the confession downstairs to have the racketeer properly booked. He was still puzzled. Something ugly was going on!

Cardona asked himself two grim questions. Why should a successful criminal suddenly abdicate the rulership of his profitable crime empire and break up his mob? Secondly, why should such a crook deliberately confess to a crime that would hand him a five-year sentence?

Joe could find no reasonable answer to either question. He did some more buzzing of b.u.t.tons. Presently, he left police headquarters. With him went a group of trained police specialists.

They headed for the home of Flash Snark.

SNARK'S home was more a fortress than a dwelling. Its doors were of steel. Metal shutters covered the windows. There was an alleyway leading to the rear, but it was blocked by a metal fence. Cardona's men had to use a blowtorch before they could get through the alley to the rear of the house.

Cardona preferred to force an entrance from the rear because he did not want to attract attention to his raid. He gave a grunt of amazement when he saw the rear door.

There wasn't any door. It was gone!

An empty opening gaped where the enormous steel door had once stood. Even the hinges were gone.

The huge door could not have vanished more completely had it been made of tissue paper instead of the toughest kind of steel!

No gunfire greeted Cardona and his men as they walked cautiously into Flash Snark's stronghold. Every room was empty. No sign of a mobster anywhere from cellar to roof. Expensive rugs, high-priced pictures were undisturbed.

The house looked like a ship abandoned in midocean. There was food on the table in the dining room.

"How long would it take to remove that steel rear door?" Cardona asked a police expert.

"Not less than a full day of hard work--if you had the proper tools." "What sort of truck would you need to cart it away?"

"A huge one. Plenty of workmen and tackle, too."

"Go through the neighborhood and do some asking."

Asking didn't help. No one had seen the enormous steel door carted away. No one had seen any truck.

Cardona posted men inside the empty house. He went out front and had the cop on duty summoned.

The cop remembered something strange. A man had walked quietly out the front door of Flash Snark's home earlier that morning. He locked the huge steel door quietly behind him and started slowly toward the avenue.

"I followed him," the cop said, "because of the funny way his face glowed."

Cardona looked puzzled. "His face glowed?"

"His eyes. His teeth, too. There was sort of a light about them. That's the only way I can describe it."

"What did he look like?"

"All bent over. Like a hunchback. But he couldn't be a cripple. He was too tall."

"Did you stop him for questioning?"

"He acted like he was deaf when I called out to him. He kept on walking. Then he... he sort of disappeared."

"You mean he vanished?"

"No, sir. Not exactly. Wait--I wrote a report about it in my book."

The cop reached in his tunic pocket. Then he looked surprised.

"That's funny! The book is gone!"

"Never mind," Cardona rasped. "Tell me everything that happened from the moment you first saw this tall man who had eyes and teeth with a peculiar glow."

"Well," the cop began, "as I say, I saw him come out the front door. And that was kinda funny, because--"

The cop's voice stopped suddenly. He pitched forward. He landed full length on the sidewalk and lay there. Once glance was all Cardona needed to know that the cop had been shot to death.

There had been no sound of gunfire. All Cardona had heard was a faint wheeze like the noise of an air rifle. A silenced gun--from somewhere above!