The Emperor of Death by G. Wayman Jones

him, trembling with the air of a man who had just met death face to face — as indeed he had.

CHAPTER X
HEARING BUT NOT SEEING
    THOUGH a pale dawn had streaked the East before Van Loan had found a troubled slumber the night before, he awoke promptly at ten. He was immediately assailed by the events of the night before and the tragic end of Bursage. He was oppressed by a sense of failure. A man’s life had been entrusted into his hands and he had failed — miserably.
    He picked up the few clues to the baffling mystery where he had left off a few short hours before. One question confronted him; one question to which he could arrive at no satisfactory answer.
    Locked in a vault alone — how was Bursage murdered?
    He could find no answer. At last he dressed and went out to telephone Havens. He dialed a number and a moment later the familiar voice of Havens trickled into his ear.
    At the first words of his friend, his physical and mental lassitude swept from him. He kicked his feet out of bed and sat bolt upright, gripping the telephone with tense fingers.
    “What,” he barked into the transmitter.
    Havens’s voice came to him again; calmer this time, more distinct.
    “Hesterberg has sent his second warning. Clairborne, this time!”
    “When did Clairborne get it?” snapped Van. “Give me the details.”
    “Ten minutes ago. I’m just through talking to him on the phone. He’s heard of Bursage’s death, and he’s terribly upset. Wants to know what he’s to do.”
    “What did you tell him?”
    “Nothing, yet.”
    “What was the message?”
    “No ultimatum; no demands. Simply that at twelve midnight, Clairborne would be killed. Good God, Van, this — this is terrible. We’ve got to do something; got to do something at once!”
    The tone of the voice told Van that Havens was a very frantic man. And with good cause, too. With each succeeding event, he, Van Loan, was realizing the terrific power he was pitted against. A power that could pronounce sentence on a man and then execute it within sealed, bank vaults.
    He whipped his brain into feverish activity.
    “What are we to do?” came Havens’s voice again, strained and halting.
    A half-formed plan began to mature in Van Loan’s brain.
    “Get in touch with Clairborne at once. Tell him to go to his Club tonight. The Union. Have a party of friends there. Have him get in touch with the Commissioner and have him throw a cordon of police around the building. I’ll be there. Tell Clairborne that. I’ll be there — and I won’t fail!”
    “You’re coming as —?”
    “No — I’ll be there, but you won’t know me. I’ll be there as the Phantom!”
    Van heard Havens’s short gasp over the wire, but before waiting for more questions, he snapped his last order.
    “Get in touch with Clairborne at once. And tell him if he wants to live he must be at the Union.”
    A cab crawled slowly down Fifth Avenue toward the Union Club. Leaning against the cushions in the rear, with a forgotten cigarette between his fingers, Van pondered this second warning of Hesterberg.
    That he should threaten Clairborne, he could understand. But to threaten him without making some demand was altogether unintelligible. It seemed incredible that Hesterberg was killing again, merely for a show. Hesterberg’s insanity didn’t run to murder for murder’s sake. No; there was something more behind it than that. Find the motive behind that second warning and he would have the key to its frustration.
    But the motive was as elusive as Hesterberg himself.
    His taxi pulled up to the canopied entrance to the Union Club. Richard Van Loan assumed his most debonair, nonchalant air and strolled into the luxurious smoking room of the establishment. He waved a cheery greeting to a few fellow members; sank into a deep leather-cushioned chair by an open window and rang for a drink.
    Sipping the highball, he studied the interior of the room. He found himself scrutinizing the pictures as if he half