George Schuyler - "The Beast of Bradhurst Avenue" (1934)

INTRODUCTION

George Schuyler (1895 - 1977) was a prolific African-American author who rose to prominence in the 1920s, contributing many fiction and non-fiction pieces to the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the most widely circulated black newspapers in the United States at the time. In the 1930s, he wrote the well acclaimed works "Black No More" (1931) and "Black Empire" (1936-38). Schuyler's political beliefs shifted to the right throughout his life, beginning in the 1920s with pieces on anti-communism, and by the 1960s, he was a supporter of Barry Goldwater,  controversially opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and criticized Martin Luther King Jr.'s being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

"The Beast of Bradhurst Avenue" was serialized in the Pittsburgh Courier in twelve weekly installments from March 3rd, 1934 to May 19th, 1934, under the pseudonym "Samuel I. Brooks", and to our knowledge has not been republished anywhere else. According to the "First copyright renewals for periodicals" page at the Online Books Page (with support from Penn Libraries), https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/cce/firstperiod.html, the Pittsburgh Courier is noted as having "no issue renewals found in CCE or registered works database; no contribution renewals found in CCE or registered works database", thus we believe this work to be in the public domain. 

In this version, minor typos have been corrected, and capitalization of names, capitalization of headings and sub-chapter breaks have been standardized, with the exception of chapter eight, the only chapter to use titled headers as breaks in the original. In the original text, the character MBula appears as both MBula and Mbula inconsistently, and "MBula" has been used here. The teaser headlines and plot summaries that appear at the beginning of each chapter have been moved to an appendix at the end.

"THE BEAST OF BRADHURST AVENUE" - A MYSTERY STORY IN 12 CHAPTERS

by Samuel I. Brooks

CHAPTER ONE

A shriek like that of a tortured soul from the stifling, searing heat of hell aroused the early morning stillness of Bradhurst avenue. Again and yet again it rent the air, piteous and horrible. Then there was silence. Ominous silence.

Windows creaked as the curious braved the freezing January air to peer out. Up and down the park-bordered avenue that runs from 142nd street to the 155th street viaduct, heads appeared. The shriek had ridden far on the clear cold air.

But there was nothing to be seen. Across from the barrack-like row of huge gray apartment houses the little lights in Colonial Park twinkled feebly amidst the encompassing darkness. If there was anything amiss under the bare, gaunt, black branches of its snow-clothed tees, there was no indication of it. Far above the park and the stone-walled cliff that bordered it, rose the vast, more palatial apartment houses of Edgecombe avenue. They looked down condescendingly upon the shabbier structures 75 feet below.

A police siren wailed down the avenue from 145th street. The little green runabout crunched to a stop at 150th street. The Negro policemen jumped out and hurried into the nearest apartment house.

"Did you ring for the police?" one of them asked a scared elevator man.

"Yes, I-I-I did," he stammered. "Somebody must be killed. There was an awful shriek. Then two more. And then everything was quiet."

"Where'd they come from?" asked the other policeman.

"I don't know," said the elevator man, now more composed. "I was sitting here reading a magazine when the screams started. It sounded like they came from the park, and then they might've come from the court back there. Wherever they came from they sure was loud, believe me."

"Let's take a look around," said the officer in command. "Keep your eyes open, fellah!" This to the elevator man.

"Ain't nobody gonna catch me sleepin' around here this night, brother," the man replied with emphasis.

The two officers left the lobby and walked a few feet to the square court of the building. The searching beams of their flashlights revealed nothing. They looked into the wells alongside the basement windows. They found nothing. Only ash filled with refuse, a battered baby carriage and a discarded Christmas tree.

They went back to their runabout and cruised slowly in the direction of the viaduct. Occasionally they stopped and flashed their lights into an areaway or court. In a few minutes they were back. Leaving the car they searched along the winding, tree bordered cement walks of the park. There was nothing there except the upturned iron benches. Disgusted, they returned to their car and scudded off to report.

"Two o'clock!" mumbled one of them, consulting his wrist watch. "Damn, it's cold!"

* * *

Sergeant Callahan, a burly, red faced, good humored Irishman, sat behind the desk in the Harlem precinct station.

"Say, Johnson," he called to a Negro officer, "didja hear any more about that screamin' on Bradhurst avenue. Anybody found dead or anything?"

"Nope, sergeant, we ain't hear a thing. I figured we'd get a call the next morning, but we didn't."

"Somethin' funny about that," boomed the Irishman. "Lotsa people said they heard the hollerin' but nobody's killed or nothin', so what th' hell? I can't make it out."

"Make it was some cokey," suggested the colored policeman, "off his junk."

"No," spoke up one of the officers who had answered the call, "everybody says it sounded like a woman."

The mysterious shrieks were the main topic of discussion in the hundreds of apartments whose windows overlooked Bradhurst avenue. No one had seen anything, but all had heard the piteous screams.

Two cold nights passed. Then in the darkness of the third morning, the walls of the police sirens again split the freezing air. From all directions this time came the little dark green runabouts, their radio sets shouting orders as they raced toward Bradhurst avenue.

They grouped like curious beetles in an irregular arc around a dark object on the icy sidewalk near one of the gateways to Colonial Park. A dozen uniformed officers crowded around the place. Windows creaked open and heads appeared. Early as it was, a knot of curious pedestrians gathered behind the officers.

The object was lifted into a car which immediately drove off. One by one in rapid succession the police cars darted back in the direction of whence they had come.

"Murder!" said one of the spectators, a diminutive Negro. The blood-quickening word was relayed from lip to lip. It flew with the electric speed of bad news from apartment to apartment along Bradhurst avenue. By 7 o'clock the entire neighborhood was repeating that terrible word, murder!

* * * 

"Well, sergeant," said Captain Quigley, glancing across at Detective Sergeant Walter Crummel, "what do you make of it?"

The tall, powerful, handsome Negro, dressed in neat blue serge civilian clothes, glanced over the proffered report and handed it back.

"Whoever killed her must have been a fiend!" he exclaimed. "Have they found her head yet?"

"No, that's the funny part about it," said the Captain, frowning, "and unless we can absolutely prove that it's the missing Marjorie Fenwick, we couldn't even convict the murderer even if he confessed."

"But her parents identified her, didn't they?"

"No, it's not really an identification, Walter," the Captain explained. "All they could say was that the body looked like that of their daughter and had a scar on the stomach from a childhood burn. But that isn't enough to convict on. There might be a thousand good looking colored girls 17 years old, with similar scars on their stomachs."

"Whoever killed her was a pretty clever duck, then," observed Crummel, "He knew it couldn't be pinned on him."

"That's it exactly," agreed the Captain, "but it's even more complicated than that. Did you notice in the medical examiner's report that no blood was found in the body?"

"No blood in the body?" echoed Crummel.

"No, and none was found where we picked up the body."

"You mean the body was bled and then carried where we found it?"

"That's it," said the Captain grimly, "and that's what gets me. I can understand why a shrewd fellow would cut off the girl's head to avoid identification. But why should he drain the blood out of her body?"

"Very strange," mused Crummel, slowly munching his inseparable gum. "When did the girl's people say she left home?"

"Sunday night about 9 o'clock. She said she was going to a dance at the Renaissance, but she didn't go. We couldn't find anybody that saw her there."

"Any other colored girls of her age missing?" asked Crummel.

"None that we know of," his superior replied. "Oh, I don't doubt that this is her corpse, but we can't prove it."

"Well, I don't see how we can prove it," said Crummel, thoughtfully chewing his gum, "unless we find the head."

"Crummel!" said Captain Quigley, leaning forward, "I'm going to put you on this case. I think you're the man for it. And I needn't tell you what it'll mean if you can solve it. I'll give you all the help you need. But we must have results. The Police Commissioner is all excited and the tabloids are plugging it for all its worth. The colored people up here are all excited and hollering for action. So we've got to show some results."

"Yes, sir. I'll get busy right away," said Crummel, rising lazily to his six feet two inches and stretching. "By the way, Captain, who found the corpse in the sack?"

"A milkman. You'll find it all in the report there. By the way, who do you want to work with you?"

"Orestes Williams will be enough for the time being."

"A good man," said the Captain, "you can have him. But remember, Crummel, we must have results."

* * *

Sergeant Crummel had finished half of his ham and eggs when detective Orestes Williams hustled into the Eureka Coffee Pot on 8th avenue, a short block from Bradhurst.

Williams was a wiry brown man with mournful eyes that belied his profession.

"I think I've got something, chief," he exclaimed in a low tone, seating himself across from Crummel. "I think I know where Marjorie Fenwick went last Sunday night when she was supposed to go to a dance at the Renaissance. I got hold of one of her girl friends who says she used to visit an old actor, Sammy Andrus. You know Sammy? Used to be a dancer, but he's all shot now."

"Did you find out where he lives?"

"Sure. On Bradhurst avenue. Right in the same apartment house."

"Well," drawled Crummel, swallowing the remnants of his coffee and extracting a stick of chewing gum from a package, "maybe we'd better go see Mister Andrus."

The two walked around the corner to the huge 90-family apartment house and were whisked up on the elevator to the fourth floor. They proceeded to a door at the end of the corridor and rang with the usual insistence of policemen the world over.

Several seconds passed. Detective Williams leaned against the bell with his thumb. They waited. There was the creak of a board in the hall behind the door.

"Who's there?" someone queried. 

"Open up!" commanded Crummel, now alert and grimly chewing his wad of gum. "We're police officers."

A key fumbled at the lock. The door opened a few inches. Detective Williams barged into the dim corridor, followed by his superior. A medium size, elderly brownskin man, wrinkled and gray, with pouches of dissipation under his eyes, faced them inquiringly and somewhat apprehensively as he noticed them sniffing the air. This man had once doubtless been handsome but the ravages of age and physical mistreatment had taken their toll. But his eyes were as bright as those of a youth: bright, worldly, shrewd, calculating.

"You Sammy Andrus?" snapped Williams.

"Yes, I'm Sammy Andrus," admitted the old man. "What do you want with me?"

"We'll just take a look around," Crummel put in firmly, striding past the old man and down the hallway.

It was an unusually well furnished place. A thick dark red runner ran down the center of the hall. Bright prints hung here and there. A pair of heavy wine-colored drapes separated the front room from the hallway. The front room was a symphony in dark, rich red. A gorgeous red silk scarf draped from the grand piano. Dainty multicolored little cushions were piled on the large modernistic green and gold sofa. Wine colored drapes bordered the windows looking out on Bradhurst avenue and Colonial Park. Potted palms and rubber trees added to the oriental luxuriance of the place. Gold fish swam lazily in a green glass bowl perched on a mahogany pedestal.

"Well, what's the idea?" asked Sammy Andrus somewhat irritably, tying the cord of his purple satin dressing gown tighter and throwing himself into a low, brilliantly upholstered modernistic chair.

The officers seated themselves without saying anything, but all the time Crummel was closely studying the man. He pretended to be in no hurry. Chewing his gum slowly he leisurely surveyed the gorgeous room.

"Pretty nice place you've got here, Andrus. Costs a lot to keep up, I guess," said Crummel, more to himself than to the older man. Then, "How much do you have to pay for a place like this?"

"Fifty-five a month," replied Andrus, his irritation increasing.

"Working?"

"No, I'm not working, why?"

"Well, how do you keep a place like this then?" asked Crummel, drawling innocently.

"That's my business," snapped the other.

"Oh yes?" observed Crummel, "we know what your business is. We could tell that when we walked in the door."

"What do you mean?" snarled Andrus, straightening up.

"You're selling reefers, Andrus," challenged Crummel, sternly. "That your business, isn't it Andrus?" Do you know we can send you to jail for that, Andrus?"

"You've got nothing on me," he growled, glowering at Crummel. "What are you looking for, a shakedown?"

"No, Andrus," observed Crummel slowly, "we don't want a shakedown." Then like a flash the words shot out of his mouth: "When did you last see Marjorie Fenwick, Andrus?"

The elderly man grew ashen and his bright eyes visibly enlarged. "Not since Sunday night," he blurted out defensively. Then he caught himself and wild panic raced over his face. Crummel smiled. Williams chuckled.

"Come with us, Andrus," said Crummel rising. "You're under arrest!"

CHAPTER TWO

Detective Williams deftly snapped the handcuffs on the old actor's bony wrists with a swift motion born of much practice. It was an act the wiry, mournful-eyed officer delighted in performing. It was the finishing touch, the culminating gesture, the end of a perfect day. It was what he and his kind lived for, the action that justified their existence and maintained them on the municipal payroll. Almost expressionless while carrying out his duty, there was a gleam of satisfaction in his dull, dreary eyes and a certain relaxation of the body that inevitably followed achievement.

"Well, chief, are we ready to go?" he asked, tonelessly, turning to Sergeant Crummel, and jerking the ashen, broken, trembling Sammy Andrus to his feet. "This about washes up the case, don't it?"

"Take it easy," commanded Crummel. "Sit down. I want to look around a little bit." He strode lazily around the room seemingly looking at nothing in particular.

Almost regretfully, Detective Williams permitted the old actor to sit back down in his chair. Andrus seemed to have aged in those few seconds that he had passed since Crummel announced his arrest. His hair seemed grayer, his wrinkles deeper. Even his bright eyes seemed duller as though coated with the film of despair.

"You ain't got nothing on me," he blurted out suddenly, straightening up in his chair and glaring at Sergeant Crummel. "I can prove that she left here Sunday night. I got witnesses. I've got an alibi. I Tell you, I was her friend. No, not what you think. I tried to make her do right. I gave her money when she needed it. Oh, I know you don't believe it, but I'm on the level. I couldn't do anything like that. I liked the kid. Come on, give me a chance, will you? Don't try to pin this thing on me. I didn't do it, I tell you..."

"Shut up!" growled Williams in his monotonous voice, pushing the old man's head with his gnarled, brown fist.

With a futile shrug and an expression of bitterness on his wrinkled sullen face, the old dancer sank back against the cushion of the brilliant-hued modernistic chair.

* * *

During the outburst, Sergeant Crummel had stood leaning lazily against the wall, regarding the excited old man beneath dropping eyelids and munching his chewing gum with the deliberation and placidity of a brooding Jersey cow. He studied Andrus for a full minute while Williams stood impatiently, eager to be off with his prisoner. Then he sat down near the old man, tipped his grey fedora on the back of his finely chiseled head and taking a cigarette out of a package, lit it and blew a funnel of smoke toward the pale green ceiling. He crossed his legs slowly and settled back.

"What're we gonna do?" asked Williams, frowning slightly.

"You go ahead and search this place," directed Crummel with a slight rasp in his voice. "I want to talk to this fellow."

Williams snorted almost inaudibly and strode into the next room. "Andrus, you're in a tough spot," snapped Crummel, with sudden animation, but retaining his lolling position. "Now tell me the truth and it may not go so hard with you. Come on! What time was it when Marjorie Fenwick came here Sunday night?"

"A little after nine o'clock," replied Sammy Andrus. "She wanted to borrow a dollar off me."

"When did she leave?"

"In about ten minutes."

"Who was here and when she came?"

"Billy Dogan and Margie Smith. You know, they're playing at the Apollo on 125th street this week."

"Were they here when the Fenwick girl left?"

"Yes, sir."

"Have you seen the Fenwick girl since she left? I mean, did she come back later?"

"No, sir. I never seen her no more."

"What did she say she wanted the dollar for?"

"To buy some liquor."

"Who for?"

"Oh, I don't know." The old man's bright eyes shifted just a trifle.

"You're lying, Andrus," drawled Sergeant Crummel, re-crossing his long legs and drawing upon his half-smoked cigarette. "I want the truth. This is no time to cover up for anyone. You're in a tough spot, Andrus."

The old dancer drummed nervously with his bony fingers on the arm of his chair and avoided the black detective's steady gaze.

"Who was she going to get that liquor for, Andrus?" Crummel's voice was sterner now. He straightened up and leaned forward, his eyes hard, his mouth grimly set, until his face was close to that of the uneasy old man. "You'd better tell me, Andrus, if you know what's good for you. Come on! I'm tired of fooling with you now!" Crummel's voice grated.

"She... was... getting... it for...," the old man paused, "for that no 'count young fellah she was runnin' with. He ain't worked in months. I told her to quit fooling with that guy. He ain't no good." The words tumbled from his lips now as he launched into denunciation of Marjorie Fenwick's lover. Sergeant Crummel listened alertly, attentively.

"What's this fellow's name and where does he live?" answered Crummel, grasping the old actor's arm.

"Ernest Oats... He lives on the ground floor." The old man seemed relieved now. He was more animated. He glanced expectantly at Sergeant Crummel, perhaps hoping he might go free.

* * * 

Detective Williams strolled back into the front room bearing a cigar box and a bath towel stained with blood.

"Well, we got the goods on this guy, all right," he growled, his dull eyes brighter with his discoveries. "Look at this!" He thrust the towel and cigar box at Sergeant Crummel.

"Humph!" exclaimed the taller officer. "Refeer, eh? I thought we had you right on them, Andrus. Now how did that blood get on that towel. Come, open up!"

"Oh, that ain't nothing," scoffed the old actor. "I cut my hand this morning. See?" He extended his hand as far as he could with the cuffs on them and revealed a two-inch cut at the base of his thumb.

"Did you find anything else?" snapped Crummel to Williams.

"No, sir."

"Is there a telephone in the apartment where Oats lives?" Crummel asked Andrus.

"Yes, sir."

"All right, go to the 'phone and call him up. Tell him to come up here; that you want to see him."

"But I ran him outta here a couple weeks ago," Andrus objected.

"Telephone him!" snapped Sergeant Crummel. "Unfasten those cuffs, Williams."

Andrus went to the telephone in the corner and dialed a number. Crummel stood at his elbow. Someone answered the call and the wrinkled face of Andrus hardened malevolently. He did as he had been bidden.

"Now," directed Crummel, "when he comes in you make up to him and give him a reefer. But before he gets to puffing it you ask him sort of off hand, whether he saw Marjorie Fenwick Saturday night. If he says "yes," then ask him when she left and where she said she was going. No monkey business now or it'll be too bad. Williams, you hide in the bedroom there. I'll wait behind this drape."

They waited one minute, three minutes, five minutes. Then the doorbell buzzed. Sammy Andrus rose and walked slowly to the door. He flung it wide open. A slender, youthful fellow in a tan zipper sweater and black trousers, stood on the threshold. The two men exchanged a few words, Andrus invited Oats in to have a "weed." The young man accepted. They passed right by Crummel, hidden behind the folds of the drapes, entered the front room and sat down.

"What do you want, Sammy?" asked the youth disrespectful of the actor's years.

"It's about Marjorie," said the old man. "You know I'm worried about her. I'd hate to think it was really her they found this morning like that... Here, have a 'weed.'" The youth eyed him suspiciously. "When did you see her last, Ernest?" He passed the reefer to the young man.

"About one-thirty," replied the youth. "She brought me some gin and we had a little party. She was supposed to be at a dance, so she left about the time she thought the people would be going home. I haven't seen her since."

Sergeant Crummel stepped from behind the wine colored drapes. Oats sprang up.

"Sit down!" commanded the detective. "Williams, we'll take both of them."

Detective Williams came out of the bedroom, handcuffs out. With alacrity he slipped them on the wrists of the two men.

Young Oats flared with anger, cursing Andrus as a stool pigeon.

"Shut up!" growled Williams, threatening him.

"What are you taking me for?" asked the young man, frowning at the detectives.

"Because you've got a lot of explaining to do," said Crummel, quietly. "You were the last one to see Marjorie Fenwick alive, weren't you? How do we know she ever left your room? How do we know you didn't kill her and put her body in that sack? Yes, you've got lots to explain, young man. The safest place for you is jail. As for you, Andrus, well, those reefers will hold you until we get to the bottom of this. Even if you had nothing to do with it, we'll need you."

"All right, let's go!" growled Williams in his monotonous voice.

"Better let the old man put on an overcoat," drawled Crummel. "It's cold out there."

* * * 

An hour later Detective Sergeant Walter Crummel sat in the Eureka Coffee Pot eating his favorite dish: ham and eggs, straight up, with generous portions of french fried potatoes and a dish of sliced tomatoes. He was washing down the last of the meal with a cold bottle of Budweiser when Detective Orestes Williams strolled in.

"I knew I'd find you here," said Williams, regretfully eyeing the array of soiled dishes in front of his superior. "I wish I could eat like that but my stomach's all shot... Well, that was a quick job, wasn't it?"

"What job?" asked Crummel.

"Why nabbin' that kid for croaking that broad. He ain't got a chance to beat the rap."

"He's not the murderer," said Crummel, calmly, picking his teeth.

"Not the murderer!" echoed Williams, scowling incredulously at his superior. "But he admitted he was with her. I heard him and you heard him. We don't need more than that to send him to the chair, do we?"

"He's not the killer," repeated Crummel, taking another deep drink of the amber fluid. "His story was straight. So was the old man's. They don't know anything about it. I'm sure of that."

"Well, what did you haul them in for and shoot all that crap to the newspaper boys, then?" asked Williams, gesticulating animatedly, his tone losing much of his monotony.

"That's just a stall," said Crummel, lowering his voice almost to a whisper. "I'm convinced that the real murder is a fiend, a beast. What other kind of creature would cut off the head of its victim and drain the last drop of blood from the its body. No, Williams, neither the Oats boy nor old man Andrus know anything about this. I locked them up to give the real murderer assurance. Make sure, Williams, he'll strike again. I've had experience with the type."

"You don't mean you're going to encourage him to kill some more?" Williams grew unprofessionally excited.

"It's the only way," said Crummel, calmly, finishing his bottle of beer. "We're putting fifty plainclothes men along Bradhurst avenue from 145th street to the viaduct, tonight and they'll stay there every night until something happens."

"Who do you think is going to do anything with cops swarming all over the place?" scoffed Williams, nibbling one of the french fried potatoes Crummel had left.

"I know the type," insisted Crummel. "Wait and see."

Night came. The temperature sank lower. To all appearances, Bradhurst avenue and Colonial Park seemed no different than usual, but fifty lynx-eyed men watched hour after hour from as many points of vantage.

In a vacant apartment on the sixth floor of a large multiple dwelling, Sergeant Crummel sat at the window patiently chewing his gum, his eye glued on the avenue.

Hours passed. Midnight came. It was quite cold. The steam had been turned off. Sergeant Crummel pulled his overcoat closer around his gigantic frame. He began to doze. He lit a cigarette to keep him awake. Save for the feebly twinkling electric lights in the park and the occasional street lamps, the neighborhood was swathed in black darkness. He took out his watch and consulted it. It was almost two o'clock.

Suddenly a piercing, piteous, pulsating scream; a scream of a tormented soul; a scream seemingly close at hand, chilled his blood for a split second and then galvanized him into action. He threw up the window and looked out. Black coated men were running from all directions toward the house in which he was located, shouting, flashing their electric lamps.

He whirled way from the window and dashed out of the door of the apartment, pistol in hand. The halls and stairways were but dimly lighted. He raced down the final flight of stairs. He was sure the scream had come from inside this house. The ground flood hall was filled with detectives, guns in hand, gaping bewildered at each other.

CHAPTER THREE

"Surround the block!" ordered Crummel. "Don't let anybody leave until we've searched the whole area!" There were four other huge apartment houses in the square block and the tall dark detective sergeant selected three of the plainclothes men to search each one.

"Williams, we'll go over this house ourselves. Go get the janitor!"

"Ah'm th' janitah," a rotund black fellow spoke up from the crowd of sparsely clad residents who crowded the halls.

"All right," commanded Crummel, "get your keys. We'll start at the roof. Make it snappy!"

"Why the roof, chief?" asked Williams in his monotone voice.

"Because that scream came from near where I was watching. I was on the sixth floor. I wasn't two minutes getting down stairs to the lobby. Now unless the murderer (and I am sure it was the murderer) went over the roofs, he is still in this house."

The corpulent janitor returned with his pass keys and the three men ascended in the automatic elevator to the seventh floor and thence to the stairway leading to the roof. The janitor was leading, Crummel following closely behind, electric torch in hand, service pistol gripped in the other.

The janitor paused on the last landing. Before them was the big floor leading out on the roof. Crummel flashed his lamp on the door.

"By God! It's hooked!" he exclaimed, stepping past the janitor. The door was indeed hooked from the inside.

Crummel unhooked the door and examined it closely, inside and out. The roof was covered with snow. There were no footprints going to or from the door. He walked out on the roof and looked around quickly. The house was situated on a corner, thus on two sides it would be almost impossible for anybody to leave. At the rear of the house was a court at least 40 feet wide, separating it from the adjoining house on Eighth avenue. The roof of the adjoining house on Bradhurst avenue was at least 13 feet below. Crummel hastened back to the stairway, hooked the door again, and with Williams and the janitor descended to the seventh floor. He walked down the long hall to a window opening on Bradhurst avenue. Pushing up the window, he looked down. Two detectives were posted in front of the house.

"Hey! One of you fellows come up here quick. Take the elevator!"

"What do you make of it, chief?", growled Williams.

"Nothing yet, Williams," he replied in a tone that did not encourage conversation.

The elevator door opened and the detective Crummel had summoned stepped out.

"I want you to stand in front of that stairway going to the roof," Crummel directed, "and let no one go up there. Understand?"

"Yes, sergeant." The man touched his hat and turned to his post.

"Now, janitor," Crummel drawled, "we'll start at the end of the hall and we'll go through every apartment in the house. Something's wrong here and we must find out what."

* * * 

The janitor rang the bell of the apartment. A sleepy-eyed old lady opened the door a crack. She objected strenuously when told the apartment would be searched. The officers pushed in past her. They searched well.

"Nothing here," muttered Crummel. Then aloud to the old lady: "Did you hear a scream a while ago?"

"Yes, I did. and it like to scared the daylights out of me. It sounded so close. I got up..."

"Let's go," interrupted Crummel, hastening out of the apartment. "I knew it must have come from this part of the house."

One by one they searched the apartments down the hall, to the accompaniment of angry objections and curious questions from the occupants. All had heard the piteous scream, seemingly close at hand.

The janitor rang the bell of an apartment near the end of the hall. There was no answer. He rang again. There was no answer.

"Open it!" boomed Crummel. The man unlocked the door and stepped apprehensively to one side.

Crummel walked in, followed by Williams, and switched on the lights. Both men gasped at the gorgeousness of the furnishings and decorations.

Certainly there was no more strangely or richly furnished apartment in all the great city of New York. The whole was painted in green and gold. On the walls were grotesque African masks, African horns and harps, strings of leopard teeth and a great ivory elephant tusk. The squat chairs, closely resembling African chiefs' royal chairs, were carved from reddish brown wood and inlaid with silver and ivory. The floor of the parlor was highly polished and glistened like plate glass. A narrow bright green rug ran the length of the room, ending at a raised dais about three feet square, on which squatted an amazingly ugly African image about three feet high. It was lacquered a brilliant blue and had eyes made of bits of ivory. A silver cloth was caught around the middle and another of the same color artistically draped over the head and shoulders. On each side of this image stood an African drum. The ceiling was very light and blue and in the center was a great oval orange-colored electric light.

"What kinda joint is this?" gasped Williams, turning to the rotund black janitor.

"It belongs to uh woman calls herself some kinda Princess MBula. Says she's from Africa."

Crummel strode into the adjoining room. He snapped on the light. The walls were painted a dark brown and the whole interior was similar to an African hut. The window had a straw mat for a curtain. In one corner was a very low divan with a bright orange canopy over it. The divan was in disarray. The sheets were rumpled up and the pillow was on the yellow mat in front of the divan. Across an ivory inlaid chair was a yellow kimono, elaborately embroidered in red.

"This dame must be nuts," growled Williams, a puzzled expression on his usually expressionless face.

"She always wears that there yellah gown," offered the janitor, pointing to the kimono.

Crummel strode into the next room, the dining room. Like the parlor, it was green and gold, with many hassocks and pillows of brilliant hue around the highly polished floor. In the center on a light blue straw mat was a low, highly polished mahogany table inlaid with bits of ivory. A large black clay bowl of oranges, bananas and apples sat on a large yellow dollie in the center of the table. The beautiful table was scarcely more than 16 inches high. Its legs were four elongated, grotesque African images with long bony arms and legs, narrow heads and enormous paunches.

"What a layout!" commented Williams.

Crummel walked into the kitchen. It was small, furnished like most other kitchens, and was strikingly neat and clean, with everything in place.

* * * 

"Nothin' here, chief," said Williams looking up at Crummel as the taller man looked around the room.

"I'm not so sure," he muttered, half to himself. His eyes were riveted on a spot on the floor.

It was a large damp spot, evidently made by dirty water. Crummel dropped to his knees and examined it closely, taking its dimensions with a pocket tape measure. Within the space were at least a dozen pieces of sawdust. He rose and opened the refrigerator. It was well stocked with food, but there was only a small piece of ice in it. Crummel paused, puzzled.

"Hadn't we better be lookin' in them other apartments?" asked Williams.

"Just wait a minute," snapped Crummel. He turned on his heel and strode out of the little kitchen and into the even smaller bathroom. It was, like the kitchen, scrupulously clean. The green waterproof shower curtain was drawn to the length of the tub.

Just to be sure, Crummel reached up and shoved it back. It made a clinking, rasping sound as the hooks of the curtain scraped along the nickled bar on which it hung.

In the bathtub, tied hand and feet, mouth sealed with adhesive tape and a wound on his forehead from which red blood oozed, lay a young, light haired white man. He was clad in blue pajamas, with red Moorish slippers on his feet. His pajama coat was open, revealing his pale white chest.

"And you were in a hurry to go," observed Crummel, glancing pityingly at Williams.

They lifted the young white man out of the bathtub, loosed his bonds and peeled the adhesive tape off his mouth. He quickly gained consciousness under their ministrations. They helped him into the front room.

"Who are you?" asked Crummel, sitting down close to the young man and lighting a cigarette.

"My name is Ronald Dane."

"Do you live in this apartment?"

"No," replied the other, somewhat hesitant. "I was just spending the night with MBula, Princess MBula." He shifted uneasily.

"These ofay boys sure like black women," observed Williams, just the suggestion of a smile on his expressionless face.

"Where is she?" snapped Crummel.

"I-I don't know. We were just about to go to sleep when we heard a noise out in the kitchen. I went out to see what it was. I reached to switch on the light and get an awful wallop on the head. That's all I remember, officer."

"Well, the girl's gone," said Crummel. "You say you two were in bed about to go to sleep?"

"Yes, sir."

"What did she have on?"

"Greek silk pajamas."

"Williams, go down stairs and tell the boys what we've discovered. I guess we've got the place all right. Tell them to hunt for this Princess MBula. What does she look like Dane?"

The white man's eyes lighted. He brushed back from his eyes a few strands of yellow hair.

"She is beautiful," he said simply and affectionately. "The most remarkable specimen of pure Negro beauty I have ever seen, and I've been across Africa. I would say, slender, lithe, supple, with small, aristocratic hands and feet, long slender legs and arms, small waist and beautiful erect conical breasts. A beauty, I tell you, and a brilliant woman, too."

"What color?"

"Very dark, the color of milk chocolate, with a skin as smooth as old velvet. And her eyes, her almond-shaped black eyes, God!"

"You like her, eh?"

"I worship her," he replied reverently. "Since the first day I saw her come aboard the steamer at Grand Bassam, I have worshiped her."

"Well, why didn't you marry her, then?" sneered Crummel.

Dane's expression became grave. He did not answer the question.

"If you were so crazy about her," continued Crummel, race feeling rising within him, "why didn't you marry her like you would have married a white princess."

"Oh, I asked her a thousand times," he blurted, "but she would not. All the way to Europe from Africa I asked her to marry me. Then in Paris, in Rome, in Vienna, in London, wherever we went I asked her, but she wouldn't do it."

"Why wouldn't she marry you?"

"She never told me but once," Dane answered slowly, "and that was tonight."

"Well, what did she say?"

"She said she could not marry me because it would mean that both of us must die. The curse of her gods is on all who violate the sacred tribal law not to marry strangers or even embrace them carnally. Tonight we gave physical expression to our love. And now I'm sure she is dead. It is the curse of her gods!" He buried his head in his hands and silently sobbed.

Crummel puffed thoughtfully on his cigarette. He was trying desperately to bring together all of the aspects of this mystery. A young woman, Marjorie Fenwick, had screamed aloud at nearly two o'clock Monday morning. Wednesday morning a body resembling hers had been found on Bradhurst avenue. Now at 2 o'clock Tuesday morning another scream is heard and they find this young woman, Princess MBula gone. The kidnapper or murderer could not have left the house by any of the windows because the whole section was under surveillance. The door to the roof was hooked from the inside. The door to this apartment was locked from the inside. Where had the kidnapper or murderer gone? Where was the Princess MBula? Crummel scratched his head, puzzled.

CHAPTER FOUR

Detective Williams entered. Crummel looked inquiringly into his eyes.

"Nothing doing, Chief. They've searched the whole block. Haven't found a thing." Williams' toneless voice seemed strangely out of place in this colorful apartment and after the strange tale Crummel had heard.

"Tell them to search every corner of this house. I'll be down later. That girl must be in this house. Find her!"

Williams batted his dreary eyes slowly, and turning quickly on his heel, went out. When the door closed, Crummel took off his slouch hat, threw it on a nearby chair and sat down. He lazily extracted a cigarette from a well-filled package and was soon blowing blue coils toward the orange-colored light that illuminated the pale blue ceiling. He crossed the lanky legs and shifted down comfortably into his chair.

Ronald Dane sat across from him in his blue pajamas and red Moorish slippers, his exceedingly light hair tousled in a manner that greatly accentuated his good looks. Williams thought to himself as he appraised the youth from beneath his lowered eyelids that he had known black women to succumb to much coarser and uglier white men. Dane gazed back at the tall Negro, expectant, curious as to what should follow. There was something so frank, open and honest about his countenance that Crummel, with his vast knowledge of faces and character, felt certain the white man had told him the truth.

"Now, Dane," drawled Crummel, flicking the ashes from his cigarette but not otherwise moving, "when did you first meet this Princess MBula?"

"Last summer when I boarded the steamer at Grand Bassam. Her father, powerful Chief Tsala, allowed her to go. The missionaries at the school where she had been educated had whetted her curiosity about the western world of the white man. We came up on a German boat and as she spoke only French and her native language, and since I speak French well, we soon became acquainted and shortly became good friends. As I told you, we traveled together to Paris, Vienna, London, Rome and most of the resorts. Almost every day I would ask her to marry me. I meant it. But always a frightened look would come into her face and her eyes would grow troubled."

"And you two didn't do anything until tonight?"

"Not until tonight. Then she told me about the curse of the gods, but she said she didn't care; that if we couldn't be together she didn't want to live."

"So you really wanted to marry her?"

"Yes," replied Dane, simply, "I did. My people would have objected like the devil, of course, but I am of age and I have a million in my own name, so they couldn't have hurt me."

"Did any Africans accompany her or ever visit her here?" asked Crummel, drawling the words out insinuatingly while studying the white man's face.

"There were four African men got on the steamer at Grand Bassam. They traveled in the steerage. Twice Princess MBula went down to visit them. She returned nervous and irritable. Again in Paris one of these fellows a tall, wrinkled, elderly black man, came to our suite and talked with the Princess a long time. I saw them no more until we reached New York but I always somehow had the feeling that everywhere we were being watched."

"What happened after you got here to New York?"

"Well, the Princess sold more of the virgin gold she had brought with her, opened a bank account, and leased this apartment. I helped her furnish it in a manner that would remind her of the Ivory Coast."

"How long ago was that?"

"About a month. Ten days ago the Princess became suddenly disturbed following a visit from this same tall, elderly man. He sat where you are sitting but refused to converse with her until I had left the room. Last Sunday night she went out hatless around 11 o'clock and did not return until 2 or 3 o'clock on Monday morning. When I asked where she had been, she just shook her beautiful head. Her eyes looked wild, almost fanatical."

* * * 

Crummel straightened up, his leisurely manner gone, and tossed aside his cigarette. Marjorie Fenwick had disappeared last Sunday night. Her screams had been heard sometime before 2 o'clock Monday morning. Princess MBula had returned to her apartment sometime afterward. What was the connection? Was there any connection? He glanced sharply at Dane.

"You say she left here hatless last Sunday night?"

"Yes, I remember telling her she should wear a hat in cold weather, but she said she was not going far."

Crummel grunted and nervously pulled out his package of cigarettes. The tobacco seemed to soothe him. He leaned back in his chair.

"You could identify this African fellow if you saw him again?" he asked Dane.

"Certainly. I'll remember his evil red eyes to my dying day. The cannibal!"

"Cannibal!" echoed Crummel, straightening up and throwing his freshly lighted cigarette away. "Did you say cannibal?"

"Why yes, of course. He was a cannibal. Most of the Ivory Coast people are or were cannibals. The French government has made it a crime but it still goes on. Princess MBula belonged to the Guro tribe who until very recently were certainly cannibals," explained Dane.

"Yes, go on," urged Crummel, "tell me all you know about that. We may have something."

"Well, there's not so much to tell. They used to take prisoners in their frequent wars. Every prisoner came to be regarded as meat, his flesh used as food, his blood used for drink. Their teeth are all sharpened even today to an acute triangle. They used to leap upon prisoners of war, gnaw at the throat of the wounded with their sharp teeth, drink their blood, and rend them to pieces."

Crummel rose with a suppressed chuckle. Things seemed to be clearing up. So these Guros drank their victims' blood! Marjorie Fenwick's body had been found drained of blood. But her body had not been marred. Since her head had been severed flush with the shoulders it was impossible to say whether or not her throat had been gashed by savage teeth.

Detective Williams, even gloomier of countenance than usual, opened the door and came in.

"We looked everywhere, Chief," he said tonelessly. "There's nothing doing.  It's a mystery all right."

Crummel grunted acknowledgment of the report. He reached for the green enameled French telephone concealed inside a miniature African hut.

"Hello; this is Sergeant Crummel. Yes. Look out for a tall, wrinkled elderly black man. Yes, send a broadcast out for him. We want him for questioning. He has teeth sharpened to an acute triangle. He may lead whoever picks him up to some other Africans. We want them all. Yes, sharpened teeth. Probably speaks broken English."

"Got something, eh?" asked Williams, evincing more than usual animation.

"Maybe," muttered Crummel. Then turning to Dane, "Put on your clothes, Mr. Dane. You'll have to go to headquarters with us. Williams, put an officer in this apartment with orders to arrest anyone who enters. Keep all of the men posted below. No one must leave this house until we return. Understand?"

"Hoke, Chief."

"Will they keep me down there?" asked Dane anxiously.

"I think not," said Crummel, kindly. "You've been a big help to us."

They went out together. Got in a police car and sped to headquarters.

* * * 

An hour and a half later Sergeant Crummel stopped by the Eureka Coffee Pot to get his breakfast. He was eating his way heartily through a meal of sausage and eggs, buckwheat cakes and honey, grapefruit and coffee when Detective Williams strode in.

Williams looked sorrowfully at the vanishing food as he ordered a glass of orange juice and two soft boiled eggs. "I sure wish I could eat like that," he observed ruefully, "but my stomach's all shot."

Williams toyed with his fork and water glass while awaiting his order.

"Well, what do you make of it now, chief?"

"I'm not quite sure, Williams," he confessed. "When we get our hands on those Africans we'll be surer of our ground. There are still a number of loose threads. For example, that Princess and whoever took her must still be in that house. With all the men we had around the place it was impossible for anyone to leave. Since they are still there, where are they? We've got to find them, Williams. They want results downtown and they expect me to get them. Now, are you sure they searched every place in the house?"

"Chief, they've searched every apartment, including the janitor's. I went into the basement with them myself. We searched the furnace room, the trunk room, the laundry room, the ice man's storeroom, the coal bins and the place they rent out as a church..."

"A church?" interrupted Crummel, setting down his cup of coffee. "What kind of church?"

"The janitor says he doesn't know. They just paid the rent and said they wanted the place for religious meetings. I went in but the gal wasn't there."

"What kind of place was it?"

"Oh, just a bare room. There is a little platform at one end but nothing on it except a big box sofa. They've got green cloth hanging at the back of the platform."

"No chairs nor benches?"

"Nope. Nothin' except what I told you."

"Humph! We'd better take a run around there when you finish your chow. I want to see this church place... No benches nor chairs, eh? That sounds interesting."

Fifteen minutes later the two detectives descended to the smelly basement of the ill-fated apartment house, the janitor preceding them. It was a place of dark, labyrinthine passages, of sudden turns and unexpected rooms and corners.

The janitor unlocked the door of the basement church. It was indeed a bare, gloomy place. There was scarcely any light from outside. Two small electric light bulbs in adequately illuminated the place.

Crummel looked around curiously. On the low platform was a big green box sofa. He walked over and examined it, pressing his long slender fingers into the cushion. Williams and the janitor watched him. Then he reached down and pulled out the long shallow linen drawer underneath the cushion. In it, swathed in scores of yards of narrow blue cloth was what seemed suspiciously like a human body. Crummel whipped out his knife and slit the blue binding. The janitor and Detective Williams gasped at the sight that met their eyes as the cloth fell away.

CHAPTER FIVE

Lying in the midst of the severed binding of blue cloth was a remarkably carved African idol. It was grotesque, amazingly ugly, jet black in color, about five feet tall. The grinning teeth were bits of ivory; the eyes which were almond-shaped, were made with pieces of yellow shell. The arms were long and slender, the belly protuberant with an exaggerated navel. Around the neck were several ropes of necklace made of beads, of shells and of leopards' teeth. An enormous phallus with brilliant red point was revealed when Crummel lifted the striped brown and white cloth that was caught around the idol's middle.

"Now ain't that sumpin'!" exclaimed the janitor.

"Well, I'll be dogged!" Williams remarked.

"Who rents this place?" snapped Crummel to the janitor. Now he had something to work on, he felt. And when Walter Crummel was hot on the trail, he dropped his languid unhurried manner.

"Some darkies rented it for a church, or somethin'."

"How long ago was that?"

"'Bout uh month, I reckon."

Crummel smiled to himself, a sardonic smile that wrinkled one side of his brown face. Here indeed was a coincidence. Princess MBula had rented her apartment a month ago and this group had rented this basement room for a church a month ago. There was an African idol in the Princess' apartment and one in this room.

"What did the man look like who rented this place?" snapped Crummel, noting again the super-Spartan frugality with which the room was furnished.

"Now, lemme see..." the janitor's voice trailed off as he looked up at the ceiling in an effort to recall the man's appearance. "I'm sorry, officer, but I just disremember. He gimme two months' rent an' I give him th' keys, an' I ain't seen him since."

"Was he a tall, wrinkled man?" asked Crummel, eagerly.

"Yeah, that's right," agreed the janitor, almost enthusiastically. "He sure was. An' lemme see, he talked right funny."

"Like a West Indian?"

"Naw, it wa'nt that plain. It sounded somethin' like geechie talk."

"Like an African?" presumed Crummel.

"I ain't never seen no African 'cept that Princess," countered the janitor, "an' she talked right plain. But I 'spect this fellah mighta bin an African. He were sure black enough."

"Did he have red eyes?"

"I jest can't remember, but I know I didn't like th' way he looked at me." The janitor was emphatic on this latter point. "There was somethin' else funny 'bout that man, too, now that I git to thinkin' 'bout hit, but I disremember whut it was."

"Was it his teeth?" asked Crummel, leaning forward eagerly.

"Yeah, yeah, that were hit," agreed the janitor. "That rascal had teeth jest like a dog. I didn't see 'em but once, but hit sent a col' chill oveh me."

"How often do these people meet down here?"

"I donno. I don' watch 'em. Long as they don' make no noise an' pays their rent, I don' pay them no mind."

* * * 

Orestes Williams extracted a plug of tobacco from his rear pocket and methodically bit off a hunk, chewing it swiftly into a mass that rested like a golf ball in his left cheek.

"It's a cinch, chief," he remarked tonelessly, shifting his fedora to the back of his head. "This is where them African fellows met. When the Princess gets fly with this ofay, they enter her joint, knock this Dane fellow on the bean, take the gal down the dumb waiter and into this joint." Williams shoved his hands deep into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. He'd show the chief that he could dope things out, too. "All we got to do now," he concluded, "is just wait for these guys to show up and then collar them."

"Very interesting, Williams," said Crummel, smiling, "but where is the Princess now?"

"Why they ate her up!" said Williams, triumphantly. "Didn't that white guy say these birds was cannibals and drank blood, and everything? Why it's a cinch, chief."

"Somewhat plausible, Williams; but where are the bones? They're certainly not here."

"Maybe they throwed them in the furnace. Let's go look."

"No, that's a little too unlikely. In the first place they would not have had time. We were searching the house five minutes after we heard the scream. They could hardly have even been in the house because no one was left - no one could leave - and we've seen everybody in the place."

"Yes," said Williams, obstinately, piqued by the reception his theory had been accorded, "but we weren't looking for men. We were looking for the Princess. You didn't even know what this African fellow looked like until you talked with that Dane fellow. Why couldn't a bunch of them eat her up, throw the head and bones in the furnace and then scram to different apartments?"

Crummel smiled indulgently, and slowly lit a cigarette.

"Have you tended the furnace since the Princess disappeared?" he asked the janitor quietly.

"Yeah, I was in there 'bout fifteen minutes ago."

"See any bones or heads inside the furnace?"

"Naw sir!" the man replied emphatically. "Wasn't nothin' in there but fiah."

"I guess you'll have to look a little farther for your bones, Williams," said Crummel, chuckling at the other's discomfiture.

"Well, she ain't gone out of this house," maintained his assistant stoutly, "And she ain't in none of these apartments nor in the basement. So where is she?"

"I confess, Williams," admitted Crummel blandly, "that I do not know. As you suggest, it is likely that she was taken down the dumb waiter. In fact she was taken down in a sack."

"How do you know?"

"There were marks of it on the floor. Remember when I examined them? There was sawdust there, too, doubtless from a sack."

"But where is she, chief?" asked Williams frowning. "This thing is getting my goat."

"I don't know where she is," confessed Crummel, "but we'll find out when we get hold of these Africans. Even if they can't tell us that, they can give us some information. We'll watch this place night and day, Williams, until they meet again. That's your job."

* * * 

The Thursday afternoon newspapers were full of accounts of the strange disappearance of Princess MBula and her romance with Ronald Dane, the handsome, adventurous scion of the well known New York family of that name. Photographs of the huge Harlem apartment house, of the exotic domicile of the Princess and of the murdered Marjorie Fenwick appeared in every sheet. There were editorial comments on the bewilderment of the police. Harlem was excited and enthralled; Bradhurst Avenue was terror stricken, taut, expectant.

Captain Quigley looked up as Sergeant Crummel walked into his office.

"Well, they're giving us hell," remarked the captain, indicating the afternoon papers on his desk.

"So I see," said Crummel, throwing himself into a chair nearby.

"We've got to have some action, Crummel," warned Captain Quigley. "You know how nervous the commissioner is about these unsolved murders. Have you got anything yet?"

"I have and I haven't, captain. Just when I think I've got something it blows up. It's the strangest case I've ever had anything to do with. It can't be solved in a few days. Whoever is doing the job is pretty smart."

"Well, let's get somebody in jail," urged his superior, "to keep these guys off my neck, will you?"

"I'll do my best, chief," said Crummel.

After a minute or so Detective Sergeant Crummel went out. He was plainly worried. This was the first time in his fifteen years of service that he had been unable to put his finger even on a suspect in a murder case. Several times he had been decorated for bravery and mentioned for his excellent detective work. There was no better record in the department than his, but this having a woman kidnapped and possibly murdered almost under his very eyes was too much. It would not help his record, and he was in line for a lieutenancy. He shrugged his shoulders wearily and strode home to get a little sleep.

Thursday night passed. Friday and Saturday went into the limbo of history. Each day Sergeant Crummel had gone to the huge apartment house on Bradhurst avenue. Each day Detective Williams, who was assisted by two bluecoats, had nothing to report.

"This case has got me stumped," grumbled Williams to Crummel on Sunday afternoon when the latter came around. "Nobody's been around here except the ice man and the janitor and delivery men. Not an African in sight."

"Well, tonight's likely to be the night," cautioned Crummel. "I'll get a dozen men. They can stay out of sight down here somewhere. You and I will watch. They met last Sunday night, I believe, and they're likely to meet tonight. Did you get that blue cloth and wrap that image up like I told you?"

"Yes, it's all fixed."

"All right, I'll be back here about dark?"

"How about that fellow, Sammy Andrus?" asked Williams, "and that boy, Ernest Oats? Did you turn them out?"

"Yes, we didn't have anything on the boy. We'll keep an eye on him, of course, but he knows nothing. I let Sammy go because we can use him sometime on something else. He thinks I got him off that "reefer" charge. As a matter of fact, I never even reported it. He can give us a lot of dope on other cases."

"That's right."

Hours passed. Darkness came. Concealed near the door to the basement church, Sergeant Crummel and Detective Williams patiently awaited the arrival of the Africans. They munched sandwiches at 10:30. Still no Africans. The basement was very quiet. Only the squeal of an occasional rodent and the intermittent hum of the automatic elevator motor disturbed the silence. Sometimes the janitor shuffled past to tend his furnace. Eleven-fifteen came and they heard the evening news reports announced from the radio in the janitor's apartment nearby.

Suddenly the door from the alley opened and four black men entered. They wore overcoats with collars turned up against the cold. Two had on slouch hats, the other two wore caps. They hurried to the door of the basement church, unlocked it and entered. The waiting detectives were about to come from their hiding place when the alley door opened again. Six very black men entered the basement and proceeded silently to the door of the mysterious chamber.

Five minutes passed. Ten minutes passed. Then at least a dozen black men came from the outside and entered the basement room in the wake of the others. 

"That makes twenty-two," mumbled Williams. "Didn't know there was that many Africans in New York."

"Hush!" cautioned Crummel.

The alley door opened again and a half dozen more overcoated black men hurried to the strange basement rendezvous. Crummel noted that two of them carried large bundles and one big battered suitcase.

"That makes twenty-eight," said Williams. "I ain't never..."

The words died on his lips in response to Sergeant Crummel's nudge.

Another large party of blacks was entering the basement from the alley. They followed the rest into the room.

"That makes forty," said Williams, taking out his service revolver and examining it carefully in the light of his electric torch. Crummel said nothing. They waited all of fifteen minutes.

Suddenly from the mysterious rendezvous they heard the low, rhythmic almost indistinct throbbing of a drum. Soon it was joined by another drum of deeper tone. Had they not been so close to the door they could not have heard the sound, so muffled was it, but none-the-less hypnotic.

"Let's see what's going on here," said Crummel, approaching the door.

CHAPTER SIX

The two detectives tiptoed to the heavy door of the room, each carrying a stool. They placed the stool side by side against the door and stood upon them. From the nearby shadows the dozen hidden policemen watched, awaiting Crummel's signal to advance.

The two officers took out pocket knives and carefully removed two wads of white cloth from two eyeholes they had drilled in the whitewashed door. The drums were throbbing faster now. They put their eyes to the holes. A strange sight leaped to meet them.

In a triple row semi-circle squatted the Africans, naked, their smooth chocolate bodies gleaming in the fitful light from the weak electric bulbs. They were facing the platform, staring intently with rapt attention, their lips moving as if in a silent prayer, their bodies swaying from left to right with the rhythm of the two drums.

The drums were at each end of the semi-circle and close to the platform. Each was being played with the hands by a naked black man shining with perspiration from the exertion, although the sound of the drumming was not loud.

On the platform stood the jet black, ugly African idol, its grinning ivory teeth and its almond-shaped eyes of yellow shell reflecting the light. The beautiful necklaces of beads, shells and leopards' teeth only accentuated the image's grotesqueness. The striped brown and white cloth had been removed from the idol's middle and the brilliant red point of its enormous phallus caught a flash of light.

At its feet, rocking from side to side and mumbling softly, was a strange figure, a man with pointed straw cap and a straw cape that enveloped the whole body except bare arms loaded with silver studded elephant toe bracelets and bare feet. To one side of the kneeling priest was a white cloth spread on the platform, a freshly laundered cloth. Upon it were two plates, one containing a small trussed chicken that moved spasmodically, the other was heaped with cooked rice. Three green, long-necked bottles of wine stood at regular intervals, one in the center of the cloth, and the others at diagonal corners of the cloth. Three tapering black candles, as yet unlighted, stood in glasses half-filled with red wine. A large iron ladle and a large pile of spoons were piled together at one side of the cloth.

On his other side on a sheet of galvanized tin stood a brazier of glowing charcoal with nearby a two-thirds full sack of the fuel to replenish the fire. On the brazier stood a large copper cauldron.

Crummel and Williams looked questioningly at each other as if to comment on the strange sight, but neither said anything. They quickly turned their eyes back to the spectacle in the room beyond the door.

* * * 

The straw covered man stopped rocking back and forth. He took the candles one by one out of the half-filled glasses of wine and lit them at the charcoal brazier, returning them to their former place. He took one of the long green wine bottles and held it to his mouth. He sat the bottle down. Slowly his head went back and then jerked forward as he spewed the red wine all over the carved wooden image before him. The naked audience rocked back and forth more quickly as the drums increased their tempo. The priest now reached with one long black arm for the plate heaped with cooked rice. He placed it immediately in front of the idol. Now with a swift motion he turned, erect, and faced the audience. The two watching detectives with difficulty suppressed an exclamation. The front of the straw hood was cut away. The man's face was streaked with yellow and blue clay into a crude design. A magnificent necklace of finger bones and skulls of small animals hung from his neck. He was tall, and in the dim light of the basement room he seemed even more gigantic.

He raised his long, black braceleted arms and the drumming automatically ceased. The assemblage of naked blacks sat tense, motionless. He clasped his hands now and mumbled, his head lowered. From the audience came a tall, wrinkled, stately black man, absolutely naked. He stopped in front of the priest and kneeled, bowing his head. Two other naked men, younger and shorter than the other, came forward and stood on each side of him. The priest handed each one of the green long necked bottles. They put the bottles to their mouths and drank. They returned the bottles to the priest, who replaced them in their former positions on the white cloth.

Now the priest stepped to one side. He muttered a command. The three men spat the wine over the black idol. It gleamed with the red wine streaming down it like blood. At the sight of it a murmur went up from the watching blacks, a savage murmur like the grumbling of hungry beasts.

The priest muttered another command. A stout black man, completely naked, left the semi-circle of crouching natives and hastened to the platform bearing a small suitcase. The priest stepped to one side, the three naked men stepped to the other side. The plump black man sat the suitcase down on the platform in front of the gleaming, grotesque black idol. He unfastened it and threw back the cover.

Cupping his hands in front of his mouth he began a strange chant, part song, part whistling, part humming. From the depths of the suitcase rose slowly the head of a large green snake. Its wicked little eyes gleamed maliciously. It rose six inches, a foot, and then stopped rigid, fascinated by the weird minor strains.

The priest reached down to the white cloth and picked up the twitching chicken. He stood now alongside the black idol. The plump Negro stopped the snake chant. The priest reached out the chicken toward the snake. Quick as a flash the snake turned and lunged at the hapless fowl, but even quicker was the priest. He snatched the chicken to one side and the fangs of the green reptile struck the ugly black idol. Once again this was repeated. And then once more.

The plump black man began again his chant. The snake grew rigid. The chicken ceased to twitch. The priest took the chicken and walked over to the copper cauldron steaming on the brazier of glowing charcoal. He lifted the heavy cover and looked within. Then he replaced the cover.

He held the trussed chicken at the level of his head. The hapless fowl looking at him, terrified. Then quickly the priest opened his mouth, revealing two rows of filed teeth, and thrusting the chicken's head in his mouth, completely bit it off and spat it out on the platform as another deep murmur rose from the naked ranks before him. He stood still and sucked a great mouthful of blood from the chicken.

He cast the twitching carcass of the fowl into a corner and walked to the copper cauldron, his cheeks distended with blood. He lifted the cover and spat the blood into the steaming pot. The snake charmer was still chanting. Now he took the rigid snake out of the suitcase. It was all of five feet long. He grasped the snake's tail and with a snapping motion, broke the reptile's neck and wrenched off its head. Then quickly he walked back to the copper cauldron and cast the snake inside, replacing the cover.

* * * 

The drums began again now. The gleaming black backs moved from side to side. The plump snake charmer returned to his place in the audience. The priest stood in front of the idol. The three other men knelt on the platform.

The drums beat faster. The crowd took up a chant. The priest began to whirl and stamp his feet. He flung himself to the floor at the idol's feet, beating the platform with his fists. He rose again, saliva dripping from his mouth, staggered, shrieked, and fell to the platform. The drums beat faster, the chanting grew louder. The crouching blacks rose in a body and swarmed around the priest as he struggled with demonic ecstasy. Finally his limbs grew tense and his bare heels beat a tattoo on the platform.

A huge Negro came with a box of salt and began sprinkling it over the prostrate form of the straw-clad priest. It was spread quickly. The other blacks kept dipping their fingers into the salt and putting them in their mouths, murmuring the while.

The priest opened his eyes wide and came to a sitting position. The others hurriedly resumed their places. The drums stopped. he stood up now and began groping a greasy grey gri gri bag that depended from his neck. To the tall, elderly, wrinkled Negro he handed a sheaf of hair from a white horse's tail, to the second man he handed a bundle of feathers wound with grass, to the third he handed a nut through which a hole had been drilled and a large red feather inserted.

Now the priest produced a hammer and some long slender nails. The drums began again. The audience moved from side to side, chanting. The priest turned to the black idol behind him. Chanting a guttural song, he began furiously hammering the nails into the image while the chorus grew louder and louder. He hammered with amazing speed. Nail after nail fairly flew into the black wood until finally the supply was exhausted.

"What's he doing that for?" whispered Williams in Crummel's ear.

"African voodoo," explained the chief. "They're getting ready to kill someone who is not present. They conjure the soul into the wooden image and then kill it with the nails."

"What was the idea of all that rigmarole?"

"That was to make the god favorable; to appease him. Keep quiet now."

They turned again to their eyeholes. The priest was leaning over the three kneeling men, his striped face gleaming diabolically. Suddenly he leaned farther forward and throwing himself upon one of the men sank his teeth into his neck, growling like a famished beast. The sound of the drums and the chanting was now a din.

The attacked man screamed and then lay still on the platform. The priest arose, then attacked in turn the second and third man, sinking his teeth into each neck and drinking their blood. All three now lay in a heap before him; their bodies jerking, their blood trickling down to the platform. The priest turned to the crowd and snarled like a tiger, showing his pointed, blood-stained teeth.

It was enough. Snarling like beasts, then men attacked each other, sinking their pointed teeth into each other's neck and shoulders. Forgotten now were the drumming and chanting. Forgotten was everything but the ancient Guro cannibalistic blood drinking ordeal.

"Come on!" yelled Crummel, jumping off his stool and jerking out his pistol. The blue-coated officers rushed against the door and it fell inward with a crash, sagging on its lower hinge.

"Put 'em up! Put' em up!" shouted Crummel, waving his pistol and backed by the others. "One move and I'll drill you! Get over in that corner!"

Slowly, sullenly, reluctantly, the naked blacks, their orgy interrupted so rudely, obeyed. Blood was streaming down the chests and backs of most of them, and smearing their mouths. A not unpleasant odor was coming from the steaming cauldron. The grinning black idol on the platform seemed derisively indifferent.

Crummel turned to the tall, wrinkled old man, who with the two others on the platform, had risen from their recumbent position assumed after the priest's cannibalistic attack.

"You speak English?"

"Yes, I speak English," he replied with a decided accent.

"What are you doing here?"

"This is our meeting place. All of the people from our country living in New York come here for our religious rites. Why did you break in? What is it to you? You have interfered with the spirits, you fools, and someone whom he might have saved is probably lost."

"Who is that?" snapped Crummel.

"Princess MBula, our leader. She disobeyed us and permitted the white man to possess her. Juju told us her life was threatened after she disappeared the other night. We might have saved her, but you American fools interfered. But whoever killed her will die!"

"He will die!" chorused the others.

Crummel pondered the situation. Had the Africans not killed their erring princess after all? Were they in fact but seeking to find her? Was he again confronted by a stone wall?

A shout from the basement interrupted his speculations. The janitor burst through the line of policemen and ran to Detective Sergeant Crummel. His eyes were rolling with a fright.

"In the alley!" he shouted. "Come, quick!"

"Hold these birds here," Crummel directed the policemen, "and make them get dressed."

With Detective Williams he followed the quaking janitor out of the basement into the draughty court in the rear of the house. Williams brought his flashlight into play. The janitor pointed with shaking finger.

There against the wall was a large bulging sack tied securely at the neck. Crummel touched the sack. It was wet, cold, clammy. He took out his penknife and cut the string at the neck and opened the sack. Williams flashed his light inside. They both gasped. Inside was the headless body of a woman!

They carried it inside the basement, taking it out of the wet sack and stretching it on some newspapers, hastily spread by the janitor.

It was the body of a young woman, perfectly formed. The head had been neatly severed. Not a drop of blood came from the body.

"Bring out that tall fellow," commanded Crummel. Williams went immediately to fetch the old African.

The man, now fully dressed, came out, stared at the corpse, then let out a wail of distress that was repeated by his brethren within, and hid his wrinkled face in his hands.

"What's the matter?" asked Crummel.

"It is the princess MBula," said the old man, grief stricken.

"How do you know it is?"

"The noble marks," said the African. "See them on her upper arm."

The detectives looked. Sure enough an intricate design had been cut into the skin and dyed blue. It stood out plainly.

"Well, chief," said Williams, "that settles that case."

"No, Williams," replied Crummel, frowning, "the case has just begun."

CHAPTER SEVEN

"Well, Chief," said Detective Williams in his toneless voice, "where do we go from here?"

Crummel started as if being awakened from a dream. He had been lost in thought, trying to piece together this jigsaw puzzle. He looked at his watch. It was after 1 o'clock, in fact, nearly two. The African orgies had lasted longer than he had imagined. He snapped shut his watch and turned to his gloomy assistant.

"Did you post those men where I told you to?"

"Sure. You said to put one guy on the roof of the house next door and one on the roof of the house across the street, and one on top of the house across the alley. I did that. Then you said to put one cop on the roof of this house where he could watch the penthouse door and the fire escapes. I did that. Then you said to put a cop on each floor to watch the elevator door and the stairways. That's just what I done, Chief, and I'll be dogged if I can savvy how that gal's carcass got out in that alley. We got a bunch of the boys surrounding this house and the whole block. This thing is gettin' my goat, Chief."

Crummel grunted. He was plainly worried. The case was getting his goat too. He felt tired, baffled, puzzled. He wanted to go home and sleep over the case, to return to it later refreshed and with clearer mind, but he knew he couldn't do that. Captain Quigley was expecting results. The police commissioner was nervous. The newspapers would blazon forth this second murder as soon as they learned of it, and it could not be kept from them. Harlem would be demanding action and in no uncertain voice. Already the churches, fraternal organizations, newspapers and citizens of the section were saying that the police were not really trying to solve the Marjorie Fenwick murder. What would they say now, with the finding of the headless, bloodless body of Princess MBula?

"Go upstairs and see if those fellows saw anything, Williams," he finally ordered. "Make it snappy, now. We haven't much time to lose." 

"Okeh, Chief."

Crummel turned to the tall African, who stood sorrowfully looking down on the headless body of Princess MBula.

"What's your name, fellow?"

"GMande."

"Are you any relation to the princess?"

"I am her father's brother."

"What were you following her around for?"

"It was by command of the King of the Guro people, my brother, and the wish of JuJu."

"Why did he want her followed?"

"Because she was the next in line to succeed him. She carried within her the spirit of the first Guro, JuJu himself. She had to be protected."

"Well, why did the King let her go on this journey, if she was so precious?"

"The King loved his daughter, the Princess. She wished to see the world of the white man. He let her go, but told me and my men to keep watch over her in order that no harm might come."

"What did you tell her when you visited her two weeks ago here?"

The old man hesitated, and lifted his old, bloodshot eyes in a troubled gaze.

"Come on, GMande," snapped Crummel. "You'd better talk freely. The case doesn't look so good for you and your people. You'd better clear yourself, if you can."

"I went to tell her," said the old man slowly, "to beware of the young white man. I reminded her of the warning of JuJu that Guro blood must never be mixed with that of a stranger; that for eight hundred rains the Guro blood has been pure."

"What else did you tell her?" Crummel persisted.

"I told her that we had gathered together about fifty of our people living in New York who had come over as sailors on ships, that we had rented this room here for our ceremonies, and that she must attend and officiate as priestess."

"And she came, didn't she?"

"Yes, she came last Sunday night." The old man's eyes brightened at the memory.

"And she did what the witch man did tonight?"

"Yes."

"What's the idea of drinking each other's blood?"

The lips of GMande tightened and he said nothing.

"Come on, old fellow," snapped Crummel, frowning, but winking at one of the policemen standing nearby.

"It is not permitted by JuJu that we tell his secrets to the unclean," GMande said firmly.

"Call up the station house," Crummel commanded a policeman. "We'll take these birds down for the night at least. We can't take any chances now."

GMande grew downcast, his aged cheeks sagging, his eyes growing dim.

"It is a terrible disgrace," he murmured, "for a great chief of the Guros. It is better to die."

"Now don't feel like that, old fellow," said Crummel, soothingly, "you won't really be in jail. You'll just have to stay in the station house over night. Murder is a very serious crime in this country, we must get the guilty ones, we can take no chances."

"Juju will get them," observed GMande, confidently.

"What do you mean?"

"GMande has spoken. After words have flown, they never return."

Outside the clang of the police patrol bell sounded. The Africans were fully dressed now. The policemen herded them into three large vans and drove away.

Crummel ordered the janitor to lock the door of the room in which the savage orgies had been held.

Detective Williams came striding down the passageway, a cud of tobacco tucked in his cheek, his countenance expressionless.

"Well?" questioned Crummel.

"Nobody saw a thing," Williams reported. "I went the rounds, Chief and every guy said the same thing. It sure beats me. I can't make head nor tail of it. Must be one of them miracles."

"There are no miracles, Williams," snapped Crummel, frowning. "There is a rational answer for everything. The answer to these murders is in this house. It is up to us to find it."

"But what more can we do, Chief? Ain't we searched every apartment in the joint? Ain't we put guys to watch on every floor, on the roof and on all the roofs around about? Ain't we had the whole block surrounded? I can't make it out. I don't see what more we can do!"

"Oh, yes, Williams," said Crummel, smiling into the doleful countenance of his assistant. "There's always something more to do and there's something more to do on this case."

Williams said nothing. There was silence in the basement except for the noise occasionally made by the motor of the elevator as it was started and stopped. Suddenly they heard the sound of someone shoveling coal in the fire room.

Crummel smiled craftily. "Call that janitor," he ordered. Williams obediently walked to the fire room.

"Is there any way to lock that dumb waiter?" Crummel asked the janitor when he had arrived, perspiring from his exertions in the fire room. 

"Yas suh!"

"Do you lock it from down here?"

"Yas suh!"

"When do you lock it?"

"Eve'y night at eight o'clock, suh, 'ceptin' on Sat'day night."

"What time did you lock it tonight?"

"Ah guess Ah locked hit 'round seben tuhnight, suh 'cause they hain't no groceries or nuthin' much on Sundays."

Crummel walked over to the dumb waiter. The door was locked.

"Unlock it," he snapped, turning to the janitor.

The man unlocked the door. Crummel took out his flashlight and examined the interior of the box and also the shaft. There were wires leading to the upper floors.

"Ah jes pull down dis wire," the janitor explained, "an' dat unlocks all th' doahs. W'en Ah pulls down dis wire, all th' doahs is locked."

"So when the doors are locked it is impossible for them to be opened from the various kitchens, eh?"

"Yas suh."

"Did you lock this dumb waiter at eight o'clock Wednesday night?"

"Yas suh."

"Well, it wasn't locked when we searched down here early Thursday morning," challenged Williams.

"But the dumb waiter door in Princess MBula's kitchen was locked," said Crummel.

"Ah sho locked dis doah down heah," said the janitor.

"Well, it's a cinch somebody unlocked it," Crummel observed. "Who else has a key to this dumb waiter?"

"Nobody else, jes me."

"How many other dumb waiter shafts are there?"

"Ten, chief," said Williams. "I counted 'em. But this is the one that goes up to that African apartment."

"Does the same key fit the locks of all the other nine dumb waiters fellow?" asked Williams, turning his gaze on the thoroughly scared janitor.

"Yas suh. That makes hit easier foh me."

"Who else has ever had that key in their hands?"

"Nobody but mah wife."

"Who uses the dumb waiter most aside from yourself?"

"Well, lemme see now, dere's th' Chinaman what rents that laundry room. Sometimes he sen' laundry up on th' dumb waiter. Den dere's th' groc'ry boys. Dey comes in heah all hours. An' co'se dere's th' ice man, Karl, he allus sen'in' up ice to de folkses."

"How long has this Chinaman been renting the laundry?"

"Oh, Ah reckon 'bout fo er five yeahs."

"Ever had any trouble with him?"

"Nossuh, he sho a good man. He married tuh uh Wes' Indian 'ooman an' got a little kid 'bout three yeahs old."

"How long has this ice man been doing business around here?"

"He ain't been heah but 'bout uh month. He bought out Tony, the Italian, whut was heah uh long time."

"Is he a white man?"

"Yas suh, Ah tink he some kinda Dutchman. Ah know he ain't no Italian, an' mos' icemans 'roun' heah is Italians."

"That's strange," mused Crummel, half to himself. "A German ice man in Harlem. There used to be lots of Germans in Harlem fifteen or twenty years ago. Maybe he's a holdover."

"Well, Karl sho ain't bin in dis country no fifteen yeahs," the janitor offered, "'case he cain't hardly speak English good."

"Looks like it's worth following up, Williams," Crummel observed. Then to the janitor: "Does this iceman live in the house?"

"Yas suh, he live in the auh little one-room apartment on th' firs' flo."

"Come on, Williams," said Crummel, now animated, "I want to talk to this Karl. We can't afford to sleep any bets now. Take us up to his apartment, janitor."

"Yas suh."

The janitor turned toward the elevator followed by the two detectives.

Suddenly a piercing scream tore through the sepulchral quiet of the basement labyrinths; a piteous scream that made the three men shudder. It could have come from any direction in those twisting stone corridors. Again it rended the early morning quiet, a long, mournful, terrible scream. Now it seemed to be near by, Crummel and Williams turned and dashed in the direction from which they believed it came.

Then with startling, dramatic suddenness every light was extinguished and they were left in the darkness. The Beast had struck again. Somewhere in that blackened basement the fiend was lurking, crouched over his helpless human prey.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The basement was black as death. The very air was charged with some awful, mysterious sinister spirit. The place was still as an ancient tomb. Standing close to the wall, their pistols in their hands, the two detectives waited almost breathlessly for some movement of the assassin. There was no move. There was only electric silence. It was as if invisible Death had struck through stone walls, steel and plaster to claim a human life.

Crummel snatched out his flashlight. Its conical beam swept a hole through the darkness down one of the corridors. There was nothing there. Williams did likewise in another direction. The basement seemed deserted.

"Come on," ordered Crummel, addressing the trembling janitor, "get these lights going."

"The switch is in the fire room, Chief," said Williams. "I'll go and turn it on."

Williams strode away, only to return in a few seconds. "It wasn't turned off," he said.

"Well, a fuse is blown then. Somebody caused a short circuit here. Are the lights in the basement on a separate meter, janitor?"

"Yas, suh, them an' th' lights in th' halls. Ah kin git uh new fuse in uh minute, suh."

"All right. Make it snappy. Take this flashlight."

The janitor went off down the corridor to his storeroom to get the fuse.

"This thing is sure gettin' my goat, Chief," observed Williams, as he flashed his light about the basement.

Crummel said nothing. He merely frowned. He was more aroused now than ever. This latest outrage (for he was sure someone had been killed or kidnapped) was an outright challenge to the police, purposely committed almost before his eyes.

He could not go back to the station again without results. He would be laughed at, his reputation ruined. As a Negro he would, of course, get more than his share of blame. He resolved not to leave the apartment house until he had solved the mystery of the fiendish killings. He felt sure the solution was there.

The janitor returned, went into the fire room and soon the lights flashed on.

"Come on," cried Crummel, "those screams came from down this way."

He led the way down the corridor, pistol in hand, stopping at each electric light socket to examine it. Finally they came to the end of the corridor after making a sharp turn and came to a door.

"That's wha de Chinaman stay," said the janitor.

Crummel knocked on the door with the butt of his pistol. There was no answer. He knocked again more insistently. There was a faint cry from within, a hysterical, childish cry, a cry that touched the very heart strings. Then silence.

The Shambles

Crummel turned the knob. The door opened softly, easily, swinging into the black interior of the room. There was a mingled odor of starched clothing, human effluvia and strange oriental smells. The place was quiet now, as still as a subterranean stream.

Williams found the electric light switch and turned it on. The place remained in darkness. He exclaimed in dismay.

"I get it now," said Crummel, sweeping the place with his flashlight and permitting the beam to rest on the empty electric light socket almost overhead. It was slightly burned and still warm, clear evidence that here the short circuit had been caused. "Get another bulb from outside, janitor. Hurry!"

The janitor hastened to obey. Meanwhile the two detectives swept the room with their lights. Across one end was a dark red curtain separating the sleeping quarters from the laundry room, which was beyond. In the large bedroom was a large bed, greatly disordered, a bureau, two or three chairs, a table and a small gas stove. Aside from the bed everything was clean and orderly. The rumpled bed sheets were stained with several splotches of blood.

Williams nudged his chief and pointed under the bed. A bare foot protruded, an almost white foot, a man's foot.

"Come out from under there!" ordered Crummel, training his pistol. There was no reply, no movement of the protruding foot, only silence.

"Pull him out, Williams," said Crummel.

His assistant reached down, grabbed hold of the man's ankle and with a heave pulled him from beneath the bed. The man was dead, his skull crushed in his white pajamas stained with his blood.

"Dat's Wong," announced the janitor, "de Chinaman."

The laundryman's body was still warm. He had been dead but a few minutes. Williams covered the body with a sheet.

From the laundry room came a faint, startling cry. The detectives straightened and reached for their pistols. Again it came, a hysterical sobbing, shrill wails piercing the malignant stillness of the place.

Crummel leaped to the curtain and swept it aside. The beam of his flashlight sought every corner of the room. He found the ceiling light and turned it on. The walls of the room were lined with shelves filled with bundles of laundry, all neatly ticketed. There was a counter across the room and beyond it a door leading to the street and a large window on which was painted in red letters "Chinese Hand Laundry. Charlie Wong, Proprietor."

The Sole Survivor

Again came the faint crying, nearer now. There was a large hamper in one corner of the room. Crummel strode over to it and yanked off the cover. Inside, cowering, tearful, hysterical, was a little brown, straight-haired boy in a pair of white woolen pajamas.

"Come on out, sonny," invited Crummel kindly, holding out his hand.

"Dat's th' Chinaman's kid," volunteered the janitor.

The little boy held back, sobbing. Crummel lifted him out of the hamper and held him in his arms, talking soothingly, assuring him that everything was all right.

"What's the matter, sonny?" he finally asked. "What are you doing in here? Why aren't you in bed?"

Again the child grew hysterical, tears bathing its chubby, flushed cheeks, its little breast heaving with emotion. Crummel saw it would be possible to get little or nothing from the child until it had become composed.

"Call up the station," he told Williams. "Here, janitor, take this kid into your apartment and keep him there. Try to get him to go to sleep. I guess your wife will know how to take care of him."

"Yas, suh, we got uh couple of ouah own. Ah'll jist put little Bobbie right in with them." He took the child in his arms and went out.

Crummel went around the counter and examined the street door. It was securely locked. He next tried the window. It, too, was locked from the inside. He nodded his head in apparent satisfaction.

Suddenly getting down on his knees he crept over the floor of the entire place, carefully examining every square foot. Near the door into the corridor, he was rewarded. There, clearly marked in gray dust on the rug was the print of a large stockinged foot.

Grains of Sawdust

Crummel hastily took out his powerful magnifying glass and studied the print. Then he looked about and found evidences of other prints, but none so distinct as that by the door. He measured the print and then measured the foot of the dead Chinese laundryman. The print was longer and wider. In the middle of it were three grains of sawdust.

Further search revealed not another single clue. There were no finger prints on the door knobs, none on the bedstead, none anywhere. Crummel took out his notebook, consulted its closely written pages and then added a few brief notes.

He sat down in an easy chair across from the shrouded body of the murdered Mongolian, lit a cigarette and leaned back luxuriously to lose himself in thought.

The Chinese was dead and his West Indian Negro wife was missing. It was extremely unlikely that she had killed him. The blow that crushed his skull had been delivered by a powerful person, most likely a large man, as indicated by the foot print on the rug. The murderer had entered from the corridor and must have left the same way. He had murdered the laundryman and doubtless kidnapped his wife. The child had escaped. Alarmed by the screams of his victims, the murderer had then removed the electric lamp and caused a short circuit. In the interval between the extinguishing of the basement lights and turning them on again, the murderer had left the laundry with the kidnapped woman, and after turning the corner in the corridor must have for a few moments been right close to the detectives. Where then had he gone? Why had they not heard him? How, with the house closely guarded at every entrance and in every hall, could he possibly have gone outside? How, with a policeman stationed at the head of the stairway leading from the basement, could the murderer have gone upstairs? Obviously then the killer-kidnapper was still in the basement. But where? He was most certainly not in the furnace room. He was not in the room in which the African orgies had been held. He most emphatically was not there in the laundryman's place. Where, then, could he be? Well, there were left the large storeroom where were kept tenants' trunks and surplus furniture, another large room which was a sort of work room for the janitor, the janitor's apartment and the little room where the iceman stored his cakes of ice.

Williams came in, his face hard and expressionless as usual. "Th' wagon's on th' way," he announced laconically.

Crummel grunted, tossed away his cigarette butt and lit another smoke. "Take the load off your feet," he said, grinning at Williams.

"Say, what's the idea?" asked his assistant. "Hadn't we better be shakin' it up? We ain't got a thing on this case yet."

"Oh, I'm not so sure, Williams," observed Crummel, a mysterious smile curling the corners of his fine mouth, "I'm not so sure."

"Just find the woman, eh?"

"What woman, Williams?"

"Why th' Chink's wife. She probably croaked him and scrammed. I always say people oughtta marry their own kind."

"Where did she go after the murder, Williams? Have any of the boys seen anybody? How did she get out without us hearing her? Why would she scream and alarm the place if she was the murderer?"

"Well, I give up," said Williams a little hopelessly. "What's the answer?"

"The answer is that Mrs. Wong was kidnapped and her husband killed by the same persons that murdered Marjorie Fenwick and Princess MBula, and the murderer is in this basement, Williams. We're going to find out where he is hiding right now. Come on!"

CHAPTER NINE

"Yuh... yuh... yuh doan want me, does yuh, Chief?" stammered the janitor, his eyes round with concern, as Crummel indicated that he was to go with them on the search of the basement.

"Yes, come along, we may need you to open some doors." 

Crummel, followed by Williams and the quaking janitor, strode down a corridor toward the trunk room. The detective tried the door. It was securely locked.

"Do you keep this door locked all of the time?" he snapped.

"Yas suh!" exclaimed the janitor emphatically. "Ah have tuh do dat 'cause all de folkses stuff is in dah. Onliest time Ah opens dat doah is we'en somebody wants tuh go in dey trunk or put sumpin' lak furniture in heah."

"Nobody in there, I reckon," growled Williams, shifting his chew of tobacco from one side of his cheek to the other.

"Open it up!" Crummel ordered. "We'll take no chances."

The janitor took out his ring of jingling keys. After some fingering he selected the right one and inserted it with trembling hand into the lock. The bolt shot back. The heavy door, sheathed in galvanized iron, opened out with a mournful creak that seemed even more eery than usual in the dimly-lit, draughty shadowy corridor.

"All right, turn on the light," ordered Crummel, frowning at the man's hesitancy. "What's eating you?"

The janitor stepped timidly into the blackness of the room, visibly shaking. They could hear his sibilant breathing and the shuffle of his feet on the cement floor. Then there was a sharp click and the trunk room was flooded with light.

It was like some great auction room. All around in individual piles were groups of trunks, suitcases, bedsteads, couches, bookcases, floor lamps, barrels, hampers, and jugs. They were nearly all covered with a thick coating of gray dust. The vast room was hot and dry, and an odor not unlike that of a warehouse pervaded it. It was illuminated by several powerful 110-watt electric lamps.

Crummel slowly walked down the first lane, peering searchingly at everything. Ever and anon Williams pistol in hand, would look behind some suspicious pile of goods, only to emerge with a look of disappointment and sheepishness.

The detective was about to leave when he noticed in the last lane not far from the door, a pile of trunks plastered with foreign steamship and hotel labels and almost dustless. His professional curiosity and his mania for overlooking nothing induced him to pause and examine them. His eye quickly ran over such labels as North German Lloyd, Hotel Adlon, Berlin; Hotel Kaiserhof, Hamberg; Hotel National Leipzig; Royal Hawaiian Hotel, Honolulu; Grand Hotel, Vienna; The Grace Line; British Empire Hotel, Melbourne; Hotel St. Francis, San Francisco; Hotel Pierre, New York; The Savoy, London.

* * * 

Crummel ran his hand over the top of a small steamer trunk brilliant with a plumage of labels from all parts of the world. He looked at his hand. There was scarcely any dust on it at all.

"How long have these trunks been here, janitor?"

"'Bout uh mont', suh."

"Who do they belong to? Some actor?"

"No sah. Dem belongs tuh de perfesser upstaihs."

"What professor?" snapped Crummel, immediately interested. This must be some Negro he had not heard about. The man had evidently been everywhere.

"Perfesser Grausmann," answered the janitor, a note of great respect in his voice. "He's uh German gentleman."

"A white man?" asked Crummel, incredulously, again running his eye over the expensive luggage and nothing the stickers from world famous hostelries and steamship lines.

"Yeh, uh w'ite man," admitted the janitor, "but he sho is uh fine man."

"Tips good, eh?" snapped Crummel, shooting a swift glance at the man.

"Well... yeah... yeh, he do tip good," this somewhat reluctantly.

"When did he tip you last?"

"Jes th' otha day."

"What for?"

"Foh lettin' him in heah tuh go in one uh his trunks."

"What did he get out of his trunks?"

"Oh, sometimes he git clothes, er packages, er bottles, er sumpin' lak dat."

"You say 'sometimes.' Do you mean that he comes down often?"

"Wel... Ah guess he bin in heah right offen."

"How long has he been here?"

"'Bout uh month."

"And how often has he been down here?"

"Oh, Ah doan know. Lemme see...," the janitor looked up speculatively at the low ceiling. "Ah guess 'bout five er six times."

Crummel took out his notebook and made several notations.

"What did you say this German's name was?"

"Perfesser Grausman."

"Did he ever tell you what he is doing living up in Harlem?"

"He jes say he studyin' nigguhs - say he gittin' local coloh." The janitor sniggled, the first sign of humor he had displayed. "He, heh, heh! He sho Gawd fine plenty coloh up heah wi' dese folkses."

"What does he do?"

"He doan do nuthin' far's Ah kin see, 'ceptin' tuh walk 'roun' de streets. He did say how he lak tuh go tuh de Laffeyette en sometime tuh de Savoy en watch dem nigguhs dancin'."

Crummel made a few more notes in his book, shoved it in his pocket and strolled out of the trunk room.

"Well, what do you think of that?" asked Williams, blinking up to his chief.

"Unusual, but not disturbing," said Crummel, laconically. "Let's go into your work room janitor."

"Dey ain't nuthin' in dah," the man remonstrated.

"I'll find that out for myself," snapped Crummel. He strode off down the shadowy corridor in the direction of the work room, followed by the others.

"This sure is a funny house," blurted Williams, unable longer to bottle up his curiosity. "Colored folks, Africans, white folks, Chinamen! Man's liable to find anything here."

"No funnier than most houses in Harlem," retorted Crummel, lighting a cigarette. "There are Chinese and Africans and white folks to be found in lots of houses up here. This is the city of refuge, my boy."

"You mean 'the city of refuse,' dontcha," said Williams in his droll tone, with just the suspicion of a smile on his dour countenance.

Crummel laughed. "Well, perhaps it does about amount to that. We've sure got everything in the world up here."

"But what I don't get," observed Williams, "is why a guy that could stay at the Hotel Pierre would come up here to live. Why I went down there once when I was in uniform, and that's a swell dump."

"Lots of white people come to Harlem to live for a while," said Crummel. "That's nothing unusual."

"Well, they oughtta stay with their own people," grumbled Williams.

"There you go," replied Crummel, "just like a darky for the world. Now if some cracker said that about your folks you'd want to knock him down."

"Yeah," said Williams, an ominous tone in his voice, "and I would too."

* * * 

They were in the janitor's work room now. It was not so large as the trunk room and had no door to it. It just opened off the corridor. Thrown around inside were carpenter's horses, cans of paint, tools, packing cases, several planks and bundles of newspapers nearly tied. There was a carpenter's bench on one side of the room under a basement window. Against the wall stood three of four paint-spattered ladders.

A glance and a poke here and there revealed nothing. 

"We'll go into your place now, janitor."

"Into mah place?" echoed the man. "Wha, mistuh, dey ain' nobuddy dah but mah wife en kids."

"We'll overlook nothing," announced Crummel with finality. "I guess we'd better look in on that ice man afterwards, eh Williams?"

"Yeah," nodded Williams, "and I'd like to lamp that there German professor, too."

"Don't worry," chuckled Crummel, "you will."

The janitor let them into his three room apartment. The close air was heavy with the odor of sleeping humans. He snapped on the light and the officers strode through the rooms. In the sitting room, kitchen and bathroom there was no one nor anything of importance in Crummel's eyes.

The janitor indicated the bedroom door. His two children were asleep on a cot. His wife was lying in bed with the little Bobbie Wong with her. The child was asleep, but the janitor's wife, a tall, gaunt, sharp faced woman, very dark and with piercing eyes, was sitting up rigidly gazing at them with an intense steadiness that seemed almost the result of hypnotism.

"Whutcha mean mon breakin' een mah ouse lakka dis, eh?" she challenged.

"Dese mens is officehs, Lucy," warned the janitor.

"Ah no cah whut dey is! Ah no cah whut dey is!" she yelled excitedly. "Ah doan wan no nigguhs comin' in mah bedroom lakka dis."

"Sorry, Mrs... er..." Crummel looked around helplessly to the janitor.

"Johnson," the man said.

"Mrs. Johnson," continued Crummel. "You see we've got to search the whole place, and of course we had to come in here too. Well, I guess there's nothing here." His voice trailed off.

He was about to leave the room when he noticed on the lower shelf of a table next to the bed, a large red covered book, much the worse for wear. Had it been a black book he would have thought it a Bible and given no attention to it, but the obvious ignorance of the Johnsons and the absence of any other evidences of culture, made him pause to examine the tome. He reached for it.

"Tek yoh han offen hit, mon," screamed the janitor's wife. In a flash she was out of the bed, had pushed Crummel backwards, and was grasping the big red book to her bosom.

"Doan nevah tech mah tings, mon! Doan nevah tech mah tings!" she cried, backing away, trembling with rage.

She seemed like a fury with her wrinkled white nightgown billowing around her tall, muscular frame, her bony black hands clawing the volume to her, her sunken eyes now blazing with anger, buried deep behind her broad high brow, her entire being emanating malevolence.

"Les go, Mistuh Detectuff," warned the rotund janitor, nervously. "Mah wife she's fum Nawlins, en she doan stan no foolin'"

Crummel could see the title of the red book, the way Mrs. Johnson held the volume. It read: Occultism. Was the woman a witch? Certainly she looked it.

CHAPTER TEN

"Doan nevah tech mah tings!" the janitor's wife cried again, her deep set, evil eyes flashing.

"So you believe in voodoo, eh?" asked Crummel, a smile playing around his lips.

"Yeh, Ah believe in it," she answered, "kaze it's true."

"I guess you know how to find out things, eh?" Crummel thought he would humor the woman.

"Yeh, Ah know," she answered, "Ah know. Ah know whut's happened 'n' Ah knows how tuh stop it."

She swayed as she spoke, looking for all the world like a fury; her white nightgown billowing about her bony frame, her malevolent eyes filmy and half closed, her book gripped closer, her thick lips twitching.

Williams and Crummel looked at each other and then at the little rotund janitor who gazed awed and fascinated at his gaunt spouse.

"It's col'," she murmured, and then in louder tones, "Ah say it's col'... It's col' 'n' wet... Yeh, it's col' 'n' wet... 'n' it's goin'... its goin' up... up... up th'ough uh hole..."

She was swaying back and forth now, her eyes completely closed, her thick lips twitching, perspiration on her brow.

"Th'ough uh hole... up th'ough uh hole," she mumbled "Ah kin see it... Ah kin see it..."

"Where is the hole?" asked Crummel quickly. He would sleep no bets, pass over no clues. Stranger things had happened in history than this. Who knew but what there might be something to it?

"Take me to it," he insisted firmly. He reached out and touched the woman's hand. "Take me to it," he commanded again.

Mrs. Johnson grasped his hand with a strong masculine grip that surprised him. Her eyes were closed. Beads of perspiration stood out on her brow. She moistened her switching, bulbous lips with her long purple tongue.

"Ah kin see it..." she mumbled, almost in a whisper, moving toward the door and still firmly holding Crummel's hand. "Yeh... Ah kin see it... it's going up th'ough a hole."

"Say, Chief," whispered Williams, "do you think there's anything to this dame?"

"I sleep no bets," replied Crummel, grimly. "I've seen some funny things in my time."

Johnson, the janitor, hurriedly opened his apartment door and flattened himself against the wall.

"How long do these spells last?" asked Crummel out of the side of his mouth as the uncomprehending barefooted black woman led him slowly past her husband.

"Sometime fi' minutes, sometimes ten," he whispered.

"It's goin' up..." the woman mumbled hollowly, making her way slowly down the corridor... "Yeh... it's goin' up..." 

Crummel wished she would hurry. He wanted to continue his search, but years of experience had taught him to never overlook the slightest clue or tip that might help him solve a case. And this was one case that he HAD to solve. It meant everything to him. It meant a great deal to the Police Commissioner. All Harlem, all New York was aroused by these fiendish murders. Unless they were solved there would certainly be a police shakeup.

"It's col' 'n' wet," she murmured, as she strode slowly down the corridor between the stone walls. "It's col' 'n' wet... Ah kin see it... it's goin' up... up... th'ough uh hole... uh hole... uh... uh..."

Her voice trailed off. Suddenly, like a wax figure before a blazing fire, she collapsed on the cement floor, still clutching the big red book on witchcraft. Crummel picked her up.

"Take me to it," he insisted frantically, but it was too late. Mrs. Johnson's eyes opened wide.

"Whut Ah doin' outchere?" she thundered in her natural voice, twisting out of the detectives grasp. "Whut Ahm doin' outchere?"

"That's all right, Mrs. Johnson," soothed Crummel, "you were just saying that you knew what had happened around here."

"Ah doan know nuthin'," she snapped angrily, flouncing back into the apartment and slamming the door. 

"I knew there wasn't anything to that," scoffed Williams. "That woman's just crazy."

"I don't know, Williams," mused Crummel, lighting a cigarette. You know, there are many strange things in the world that science has never been able to explain. There are some people more naturally gifted than others. There is undoubtedly something to all this occultism or else humanity wouldn't have been believing it for so long. Of course, it has been exaggerated, like everything else, but underneath all the hokum, Williams, I have a sneaking feelin that there's a bit of truth. Anyhow, I'm going to act on that hunch."

"What do you mean, Chief?"

"We'll just go down this corridor a ways."

"Does yuh still want me?" asked the janitor, who was following behind.

"Yes, Johnson you stay right along with us."

Crummel walked slowly down the stone-lined corridor. The sacks in which Marjorie Fenwick and Princess MBula had been found were both cold and wet, he recalled, but what had she meant about them going up through a hole? And where was the hole?

They came to a door on the right of the corridor. Crummel paused.

"That's the iceman's storeroom, isn't it?" he asked the janitor.

"Yassuh, dat's it."

"Open it up."

"Yassuh." The janitor took out his keys and unlocked the door. As he flung it opened a cold, wet, moist air struck their nostrils. Crummel took out his flashlight and swept the little room with its beam.

The place was half filled with large cakes of ice standing on their long ends and covered with burlap sacks and canvas. Aside from a chair, there was nothing more.

Crummel reached up and turned on the electric light just over their heads. Then while the other two men watched, he examined the place minutely, going over the stone walls, the cement floor and the wooden ceiling, which was the floor above.

Suddenly he stopped with an exclamation of surprise and satisfaction. He called Williams. There were three or four clearly marked footprints in basement dust on top of the damp burlap sacks covering the cakes of ice. They had evidently been made by a stockinged foot.

"That looks like something," murmured Crummel, half to himself, a slight smile playing around the corners of his mouth. He measured the plainest footprint. He grunted with satisfaction as he put away his tape, and taking out his notebook made a few notations and comparisons. Then he turned to the assistant.

"It's the same footprint, absolutely the same measurements as the one in Charlie Wong's room. Williams, we've found something at last."

"You mean the murderer was in here?"

"Yes, he was in here. He must have had a key. How did he get it? Where did he go? That's what we've got to find out, Williams, and I think I know somebody who can tell us."

"He sure didn't go out in the street," said Williams, glancing at the other door leading to the alley, "because there's a cop out there."

"That's right," Crummel agreed. "Maybe he left here while we were in the janitor's and is hiding somewhere else in the cellar. Go outside, Williams, and get four or five men. We're going to place a man in each one of these rooms and then search the corridors. This guy can't get away now. He's in this cellar and we'll get him."

"Okeh, Chief," said Williams. "Johnson, open this outside door to the alley for me." 

The janitor did as he was told. Williams stepped outside after the policemen.

"Johnson," said Crummel turning to the rotund janitor, "where does the iceman live? We'll go there next; I want to talk to him."

"He lives upstaihs... Fact is, heh live right about heah on th' fust flo'."

"Oh, I see," murmured Crummel. "Well I guess we'd better look in on him when Williams comes back."

"Ah guess you'll fin' 'im tha, all right. He uh funny man; he doan go nowha. Jist stay aroun' heah."

"Is that so? And how long did you say he had been handling the ice here?"

"Just 'bout uh munt."

The outer door opened and Williams came in.

"Here they are, Chief," he said, indicating the five policemen behind him.

Crummel directed them to completely search the basement. The janitor locked the outer door of the ice storeroom.

"Now," he announced, "we'll go up and see this fellow, Karl. He may know something."

"I think so, too, Chief," added Williams. "He's about the only guy that fools around these dumb waiters. And that African gal was sure brought down on the dumb waiter. Couldn't have come down any other way. And then who else would have a key to this room?"

"In addition to that," said Crummel, quietly, "this door leads into the alley or court outside, and Princess MBula's body was found there. With all of our men about, it must have come from there. Yes, this man Karl has a lot to explain. Let's go. Williams, station one of those cops inside this room. I'm going to get to the bottom of this thing right now."

Williams called a policeman. Then he followed Crummel and the janitor to the automatic elevator, where they ascended to the first floor. The policeman on guard there saluted as they came out of the lift.

"Seen anything, Sam?" asked Crummel.

"Not a thing," the officer replied.

"No one came into the hall?"

"Oh, a couple of people came in... Oh, yes, and that old white man that lives down the hall came out and asked me what was going on around here. He talked a few minutes and then went back into his place."

"That must have been this Professor Grausmann," mused Crummel thoughtfully. "Where is his apartment, Johnson?"

"Right down th' hall theah," replied the janitor. "He live in 1-K. Karl live in 1-J."

"Interesting," commented Crummel to himself.

They walked down the hall to 1-J, pausing before the door.

"Unlock that door," Crummel commanded.

"Deh man's in tha," protested the janitor. "Ah cain't open people's doahs w'en deys inside. Hit's 'ginst deh rules."

"Shut up," growled Crummel, "and do as you're told. I'm making the rules here now. Turn the key easy, I don't want to make any noise." He got out his pistol. Williams did likewise.

The janitor inserted one of his keys gently into the lock and softly turned it until there was a faint click. Crummel shoved him to one side and pushed the door inwards, wide, noiselessly.

The interior was black, dark, forbidding, sinister and silent as an Egyptian tomb.

He signaled to Williams to wait and then softly closed the door behind him. He tiptoed along the carpeted little hall to the curtain that shut off the view of the room beyond. He reached his hand inside the room to fell for the electric light switch that he knew was alongside the door frame.

Suddenly, in a movement astonishingly swift, his wrist was held in a vice-like grasp, he was yanked into the dark room and a hard object crashed against his skull. He lurched forward but was kept from falling by the giant strength of his assailant. Another blow staggered him and he lost consciousness.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Detective Orestes Williams waited impatiently outside apartment 1-J, frowning and twirling his pistol around his index finger. One minute, three minutes, five minutes, ten minutes passed, and yet Crummel did not reappear. What could he be doing? It surely did not take that long to search a one-room apartment.

"Hey, Sam!" he called down the hall to the policeman on guard.

"Yes, sir."

"Come down here." The policeman hurried to him. "I'm going in there, Sam. You keep watch outside. Don't let anyone out of this apartment except Sergeant Crummel or me. Savvy? And if that old white man next door comes out, tell him to stay in his apartment. That goes for everybody else, too."

"I gotcha," the policeman replied, settling himself on an ornamental hall bench upholstered with red velvet where he could watch both doors, and holding his service revolver in his hand.

"You wait around here, Johnson," Williams directed the janitor.

He turned the knob softly, pistol in the other hand, and gently pushed the door wide open. The place was as still as a subterranean cavern. A heavy blue drape at the end of the little carpeted hallway shut off the view of the bedroom. The fact that there was no light burning immediately aroused the officer's suspicions. Why should Crummel remain in the dark.

"Chief!" he called softly. There was no reply.

Thoroughly alarmed now, Williams strode the brief length of the hallway, thrust the curtain aside and pulling out his flashlight, allowed its beam to play over the interior of the room. There, sprawled out on the floor, was Crummel unconscious, a great bruise on his forehead. There was no one else there.

First aid methods shortly brought Crummel around. His eyelids flickered and very shortly opened. He looked up at Williams and smiled wrly, then winced with pain.

"What a wallop!" he exclaimed, gingerly touching the lump on his forehead. "That guy ought to be in the ring with Carnera."

"What guy?"

"The guy that hit me, you sap," grinned Crummel.

"But where is he? He sure didn't come past me, Chief, and he ain't in here. You can see that."

"Yes, Williams," said Crummel, "I'm beginning to see everything pretty clearly. It won't be long now. Now let me take a look around this place first. Meantime, you go down stairs and see if that cop in the iceman's storeroom has seen anything. Make it snappy."

"Okeh, Chief," Williams hurried out.

Sergeant Crummel proceeded to search the little one-room apartment minutely. There was a shallow alcove for cooking, a tiny bathroom, a clothes closet and the bedroom. Moving swiftly but methodically, Crummel examined every inch of floor and wall, every stitch of clothing, every article of furniture. Several times he exclaimed in satisfaction as he noted what might be a clue. He made several entries in his notebook.

* * * 

Suddenly the door opened and Williams hurried in.

"Well, what's up?" asked Crummel, looking up from a minute examination of the floor.

"That cop, Adams, somebody got him. You know, the cop we left in the iceman's storeroom downstairs," shouted Williams.

"Got him how?" asked Crummel, straightening up.

"Shot through the head. They took his coat and badge, his cap and his gun. He's dead, Chief."

"I thought as much, Williams. Now we've got this case almost solved. I knew there was a way out of this room to that storeroom. That's the way he escaped. That's the way he brought the bodies up here."

"Well, all we've got to do then is to catch this fellow, Karl, and the case is settled, eh?" asked Williams. 

"I don't know about that," Crummel cautiously replied, "there's something more to this than that. Get a description of this fellow Karl from Johnson, the janitor, telephone it to headquarters so they can broadcast it immediately. Tell them the number of the cop's shield, too. It will be a cinch to nab him. Make it snappy, now."

With Williams' departure, Crummel continued his hunt for the hidden trap door. There was not the slightest evidence of it, no crack in the highly polished parquet floor.

The detective sat down in one of the two chairs, lit a cigarette, and pulling his gray hat down over his eyes, settled back to think over the case of the trapdoor. There must be one. Since there was one, there must be a way of opening it. There must be hinges and a catch somewhere. The door would be at most not more than three feet square. He finally decided that it must be in a certain part of the room, where one could enter and leave through it swiftly. He knew it was not where he had fallen because he had not been moved by his assailant.

Somewhere within the area he had marked out, there must be a loose board which the ice man had lifted in order to open the trapdoor, but where was this board and how had the big German been able to lift the board quickly, or even find it quickly? Crummel rose and strolled around the little apartment. In the bathroom his eye fell upon a red rubber suction plunger with a long handle. Acting on a hunch, he picked it up.

He walked to the area he had marked out and placing the plunger on each little square of flooring in turn, pressed down and pulled upward. Five or six times he tried it without any results. He tried it a seventh time for luck. He pulled upward and a tightly fitted square of flooring came up with the rubber suction plunger.

Excited, Crummel fell to his knees. Grasping the edge of the flooring with both hands, he pulled upward and a section three feet square lifted noiselessly on folding steel supports. On the second floor below there was a small knob. He pulled upward and a section of the flooring swung up toward him. He found himself looking down into the iceman's storeroom.

The detective smiled triumphantly and softly closed the trapdoor. Yes, the janitor's wife had been right. There was a hole, as she had said, and obviously the bodies of the murdered persons had to be taken through it. His next step now was to lay hands on Karl, the iceman.

* * *

Williams came back. "It's okeh, Chief. Every cop and plainclothes man in town is hunting for that dude. He won't even get off the island. So all we've got to do now is to sit tight and wait until they bring him in. He'll sure burn for this."

"He can't burn except for bumping off that cop," said Crummel, puffing on another cigarette. "We have proof that three persons have been murdered, but we can only legally establish the identity of one of them, the Chinese laundryman. We cannot prove in court that these two female bodies were those of Marjorie Fenwick and Princess MBula. We cannot yet prove that this Karl killed the Chinaman, at least we can't prove it until we get Karl."

"I don't get you," declared Williams, frowning, "we've got the bodies of the Fenwick girl and that African woman, ain't we."

"Yes, but we cannot legally identify them until we find their heads, Williams."

"Well, suppose we don't find their heads? What then?"

"We'll just have to try to get a confession, that's all. We actually have no proof legally that he was in this room when I entered; that he attacked me or that he escaped through the trapdoor and shot the policeman on watch in the storeroom. I didn't see him. No one saw him. No one heard a shot because he probably used a silencer on his pistol."

"Damn!" said Williams. "He must be a clever duck. We really ain't got nothing at all on him, have we?"

"Legally, no," said Crummel, slowly, flicking the ash off his cigarette. "I know he's guilty but I can't prove it in court, at least not yet."

"But what I can't savvy," Williams went on, "is why he wanted to kidnap and then murder these women, what did he do with their blood and what did he do with their heads? They were never thrown in the trash or garbage cans because we've had them carefully searched ever since the Fenwick girl was killed. They weren't thrown in the furnace, either. Yeh, that iceman was smart, if you ask me."

"He isn't the brains behind this," said Crummel. "He was just the muscle man. There's some fiend, who planned these murders, Williams, some maniac, who is cunning and resourceful. I haven't got the whole thing pieced together yet but its taking form. But I'm convinced there is someone behind Karl, directing and controlling him. Only a fiend incarnate, some strange madman, some singular pervert would seek the heads and blood of young women; only some strange magnetic monster could force the co-operation of a giant like this fellow Karl."

"You mean to say that when we get this fellow, Karl," cried Williams "that we don't have the main guy?"

"That's just what I mean, Williams," said Crummel, grimly. "Where are the heads? Where is the blood? Where is the laundryman's wife? They are not in here, and yet they must be in this house, but where? That's the big question. We'll get the big German, all right, but when we get him our job is not finished."

"Well," sighed Williams scratching his head, "I'll be damned if this case ain't got me. What are we gonna do now?"

* * *

"We'll go out and get a bite to eat first," said Crummel in a voice booming louder than usual, "then we'll come back and see that Professor Grausmann. I want to talk to him. Living right next door to this fellow, he should have heard something." He tiptoed to the kitchen, got the flour jar off a shelf and lightly sprinkled the entire floor of the room. Then he replaced the jar.

Crummel led the way out of the apartment, followed by Williams, and down the corridor to the front door and out on to Bradhurst Avenue. Day was just breaking. They turned the corner and Crummel stopped.

"What's the idea," asked Williams, "I thought we were going to eat something."

"Not yet, old man," said Crummel, his eyes gleaming with excitement. "The fun's just beginning. We'll wait five minutes and then go back. I'm making an experiment."

The two officers stood in the early morning cold. When the five minutes was up, Crummel led the way into the court and the basement. They ascended the stairs to the first floor and were starting down the corridor to 1-K when a uniformed officer came after them shouting.

"What's up, Sanderson?" asked Crummel, pausing.

"They've found another one," yelled the policeman, "right out in the court."

"Another what?"

"Another woman's body," cried the officer, "it's in a sack, and it ain't got no head, just like the rest."

"By God," exclaimed Williams, and started to go back downstairs to the basement.

"Wait, Williams," commanded Crummel, "I'll need you. This is exactly what I suspected; that's why I came back. I thought five minutes would be enough. Sanderson you come with us." They followed him down the corridor, puzzled, expectant, on edge.

When they reached the door of the missing iceman's apartment, he threw it open and taking out his flashlight, entered. The beam of light swept the floor of the one room. There, clearly revealed, were footprints in the film of flour, footprints leading from the wall of the room across the floor to the window.

Noiselessly, Crummel dropped down and measured the footprints. He made a few notes in his book. Then he looked out of the window which opened upon the court below. There a little knot of uniformed police were clustered around a large gunny sack into which they were peering. He knew it was the body of Mrs. Wong, the laundryman's wife.

He went to the door of the apartment and called the policeman who had been guarding the door.

"Sam, I want you to stand in this little hall here with your gun out. You are to shoot anybody you see in this apartment. Understand?"

"Yes, sir." Sam took his post gun in hand.

"Now," said Crummel, "we'll drop into 1-K and see the professor." 

"What's that old white guy got to do with this?" asked Williams.

"I don't know," Crummel remarked, but I'm going to find out."

CHAPTER TWELVE

Walter Crummel was tremendously curious about the occupant of apartment 1-K. The fact that a white scientist should seek residence in a Harlem apartment house was in itself singular. What was he trying to find out? Was there any connection between him and that other German, the fugitive Karl? They had both arrived about the same time; their apartments were side by side. Why? Did it mean anything? Or did it mean nothing.

Crummel frowned. Something told him that behind the door of Apartment 1-K was some vital clue. It was not just a hunch; it was the result of careful elimination, and how easy it was to be mistaken.

Motioning to Williams, he approached the door of Apartment 1-K. He told the janitor to softly unlock the door. Johnson was about to comply when a hubbub arose at the front door of the apartment house. Several policemen were entering. In their midst, securely handcuffed, was a gigantic blonde, square-headed man with close-cropped hair and pale vacant blue eyes. He was dressed in an ill-fitting policeman's coat. He had evidently been soundly beaten.

"Dat's Karl," said the janitor.

"That's swell!" exclaimed Crummel, turning to meet the approaching group. 

"Well, here he is," announced one of his captors. "We got him up in the Bronx. We sure had a scrap. He's as strong as a bull."

"Good work," said Crummel. "Well, Karl, are you going to be smart and talk or do you want the chair?"

The blonde giant stared vacantly at the Negro detective but said nothing.

"We've got the goods on you, Karl," continued Crummel. "We know you killed Marjorie Fenwick. We know you killed Princess MBula. We know you killed Charlie Wong and probably his wife. We know you killed that policeman in your storeroom just a while ago. Why did you kill them? Why did you murder them, Karl? Didn't you know you would burn in the electric chair? Think of it, Karl, the electric chair... You walk down a narrow hallway, Karl. There's a bright light at the end of it. You walk down the narrow hallway, Karl, and the priest walks behind you. You walk down the hallway, Karl, and then you walk through a little green door into a little room. The big chair is there, Karl, and there's where they'll make you sit. Understand? You sit there Karl, while they strap you in and put that big cap on your head... and then... and then you die, Karl! It's terrible, Karl, with your flesh and blood, your brains and nerves burning to a crisp! Do you want to die, Karl, or do you want to live?"

The big German stood there, the cold sweat broken out on his broad protuberant brow, his hands clenching and unclenching, his tongue moistening his heavy, sensual lips. He said nothing but his eyes stared with cold fright as Crummel's searching words tore their meaning through his tortured mind.

"He won't talk," said Williams, in his cold monotonous tones. "Shall I give him the works?"

"No, take him and lock him up," commanded Crummel, "but don't give him anything to eat until he talks."

The huge white man still stared vacantly at Crummel as though he had heard no words of what had been said. The officers started to lead him away.

"Wait a minute there. Bring him back." The officers stopped and retracted their steps. Again Crummel faced the Nordic giant.

"Listen, Karl," said the detective, "do you want to carry the heads with you?"

The man's reaction was electric. His ruddy face drained itself of blood and his eyes grew as round as saucers.

"No! No!" he cried, recoiling and raising his manacled hands before his face as though to ward off an unpleasant ghost.

"Where are they?" snapped Crummel, coming closer.

The man's lip trembled as though to speak. Suddenly he winced in pain and looked bewildered. He began to sway from side to side and then collapsed on the floor like a house of cards.

The astonished officers bent over him, seeking to get him to his feet. It was no use. In a short while the man was dead.

"Doggone if this ain't gettin' my goat," observed Williams, scratching his head and looking down at the prostrate giant. "I wonder how come him to shuffle off all of a sudden like that?"

Crummel was grim. He knew he was frustrated again, but of one thing he was convinced;  that there was something very peculiar about Karl's sudden death.

It was some time before the medical examiner arrived but they all waited patiently for him. He examined the big German minutely. Then suddenly he gasped, followed by a grunt of satisfaction.

"Just as I thought," he said, gingerly, holding up a slender thorn between thumb and forefinger.

"What is it, Doctor?" asked Crummel, eyeing the thorn curiously.

"Dendang," announced the physician, "one of the deadliest of poisons. It is used by the Brazilian Indians in hunting and warfare. They smear it on these thorns and blow them through blowpipes. Death is usually instantaneous."

"But there was no one here with the fellow except us," objected Crummel.

"Well, I don't know, Sergeant," said the physician, "but that's the way this man died."

His suspicions were confirmed: there was something peculiar about the big German's death. It had been murder, but by whom and how? He pondered a moment and then a smile spread slowly over his face.

"All right, Johnson," he said, turning to the janitor, "unlock the door of 1-K."

Somewhat hesitantly the frightened man complied. Crummel nodded to Williams and throwing the door of the apartment wide open, entered. A very small entrance hall opened on what was obviously a large apartment. As they walked into the large sitting room, a tall stoop-shouldered white man with sparse gray hair, a long sharp nose and piercing, glittering eyes, appeared in the opposite doorway. He was dressed a surgeon completely in white from head to foot.

"Well," he inquired, with a slight German accent, "what do you want?"

"We're officers," said Crummel, flipping his coat lapel to one side and revealing his badge. "We want to look over this place."

"What for?" countered the scientist, his voice rising. "Am I to be annoyed all of the time by stupid people?"

"It just happened, professor Grausmann," replied Crummel, mustering all of his characteristic suavity, "that several people have been murdered around here and we are questioning everybody."

"What have I got to do with that?"

"Just sit down, Professor," commanded Crummel, gazing significantly at Williams, "while I look around."

The man scowled and then with a shrug of resignation sat down on the sofa. His swiftly moving, glittering eyes, followed the detective as he went about the place.

Crummel walked through the apartment. There were four rooms in all: a sitting room, a bedroom, a study, a bathroom and a kitchen. It was not until he reached the kitchen that he discovered anything untoward. There on an operating table, securely pinioned, was a huge black mastiff, under the influence of ether. Professor Grausmann had evidently been interrupted as he was about to operate on the animal's head. There were strange jars filled with various colored fluids on the shelves, boxes, cans and strange apparatuses on the wall. Carefully Crummel went through everything without finding anything important.

He looked into the bathroom again and made note of two large wet bath towels. He emptied the clothes hamper and piece by piece examined the soiled linen. He went into the bedroom and opening the closet door, examined all of the professor's shoes and slippers. He measured one of the slippers and then consulted with his little notebook. With a grunt of satisfaction, he replaced the book and taking the slipper returned to the sitting room.

"Well, I hope you are thorough," snapped the German, "so I can finish my operation."

"Are you running a dog hospital, professor?" asked Crummel, suavely.

"No, I'm merely practicing some vivisection for the purposes of research."

"Do you generally practice on heads, professor?"

"Just what are you trying to get at, my man?"

"I merely asked the question, since there are three heads missing around this vicinity."

"You're not insinuating..." The professor's voice rose.

"What do you think, professor?" said Crummel smiling.

"Come, come, my man. I've no time for foolishness. I've got work to do."

"I should think you had accomplished sufficient for one night," remarked Crummel blandly. "You take it easy now before you get careless. You've already made one serious mistake."

"What do you mean?"

"This slipper, professor," said Crummel, still smiling, but coming closer to the man. "You forgot to wipe all of the flour off this slipper."

The man's jaw fell and he looked panicky for a minute, then with an effort he pulled himself together, regaining his sureness.

"No, I didn't," he replied confidently, then he caught himself and stammered: "I... I haven't wiped off any slippers."

Crummel whipped out his pistol and covered the man. "Put on the bracelets, Williams."

Quick as a flash Grausmann's fist lunged out and caught Crummel flush on the chin. He stumbled back against Williams. In the twinkling the German dashed into the studio. The two detectives raced after him just in time to see the huge bookcase that took up all of one wall of the room swing on a pivot and the man disappear into the adjoining apartment, formerly occupied by the dead iceman. There was a crash and explosion, then another and another, and the fugitive slumped to the floor clutching his stomach.

"Good work, Sam," complimented Crummel. "It's a good thing I put you in here, but I had a hunch something like this would happen."

Grausmann was badly wounded. They carried him back into his apartment and stretched him out on the sofa. He glared at them, helplessly. Williams hurried off to summon an ambulance.

"You haven't got long to be here, Grausmann," said Crummel, as one of the policemen sought to halt the flow of blood with a towel. "Hadn't you better tell me all about this?"

"Swine!" gasped the German. "You have interfered with science. You have stopped my life's work with your damned meddling."

"What was your life's work?"

"To transplant a living human brain to the skull of a great dog. It would have been remarkable, revolutionary! And now you..."

"is that why you needed the heads of young Negro women?"

"Yes, the female Negro brain because of its small size was best adapted for my purpose."

"What did you do with the skulls?"

"I have them in my bookcase. Look for them. Most of the books are a blind."

"And why did you drain all the blood from the bodies. What was the idea of that?"

"Karl... He was a huge beast... a ghoul, an ex-butcher. I saved him from the axe in Germany. He served me faithfully because I gave him human blood. That was the secret of his tremendous strength... He was a great brute... a sub-human type, but he served me well."

"Why then did you murder him? I know you shot the dart through the eyehole in your door."

"Ah, you know that too, eh? You are a very canny man. Well, Karl might have talked. He was no more use to me. Self-preservation, you know."

The dying man's face was pale and drawn. He breathed with difficulty. He smiled wryly as the ambulance doctor rushed in.

"It's no use, my good man," he sneered. "You fellows will never drag me through your courts. What are three black women compared to my researches? That is what I hate to see ended."

He shook his head sadly. Then turning to Crummel he eyed him curiously, then said, "See here, black man, how did you know that I failed to wipe the flour off one slipper?"

"I didn't," said Crummel blandly. "That was just good guesswork."

The German grimaced, closed his cold gray eyes and muttered an almost inaudible "Damn!"

APPENDIX: TEASER AND PLOT SUMMARIES

Chapter 1:

MYSTERY MURDER, BEHEADING OF GIRL STIRS HARLEM; PROBE IS STARTED

Chapter 2:

DETECTIVES ARREST LOVER OF DEAD GIRL; FIEND STRIKES AGAIN

THE STORY SO FAR: - Detective Sergeant Walter Crummel is assigned to solve the murder of a young colored girl, Marjorie Fenwick, on Bradhurst Avenue, a Harlem thoroughfare. A body resembling that of the missing girl is found headless in a sack and drained of blood. Learning that the murdered girl was a frequenter of the apartment of Sammy Andrus, an old ex-actor, Crummel and his assistant detective, Orestes Williams, go to the Andrus apartment. Questioned, the old actor admits that he saw Marjorie the night she disappeared, whereupon Crummel arrests him. Now proceed.

Chapter 3:

INTERRACIAL LOVE TRYST ENDS IN DISAPPEARANCE OF BROWNSKIN VENUS

The story so far: A headless body resembling that of Marjorie Fenwick, a missing young colored girl, is drained of blood in a sack on Bradhurst avenue, a Harlem thoroughfare. Detective Sergeant Walter Crummel is assigned to the case. Sammy Andrus, an old former actor, whose apartment Marjorie frequented, is suspected. Quizzed by Crummel, Andrus asserts that Marjorie left his apartment and went to see her young lover, Ernest Oats, living in the same apartment house. Crummel has Andrus telephone Oats to come upstairs. Crummel hides while Andrus questions Oats as directed. Oats confesses that he was with Marjorie until late. Crummel arrests both men, but admits to his assistant, Detective Williams, that neither is the guilty man. That night the entire area is surrounded by detectives, Crummel himself watching in one of the vacant apartments. Suddenly a piteous scream is heard, a scream of terror, a scream near at hand, now proceed:

Chapter 4:

STARTLING DISCOVERY IS MADE BY SLEUTHS IN THE MYSTERY MURDER PROBE

The Story So Far: A headless body, partially identified as that of Marjorie Fenwick, a colored girl, is found drained of blood in a sack on Bradhurst avenue, a Harlem thoroughfare. Sergeant Walter Crummel, crack Negro detective is placed on the case, with Detectives Orestes Williams assisting. Through Sammy Andrus, an old actor who runs a "reefer" flat, they find Marjorie's lover, Ernest Oats, last to see her alive. Crummel arrests both men, but privately admits that neither is guilty.

The entire area is surrounded by detectives. Crummel waits in a vacant apartment. Suddenly at 3 in the morning a scream rings out nearby. Thoroughly searching the house, finally coming to the exotic apartment of Princess MBula, and getting no response, they enter and are amazing at the strange African surroundings. In the bathtub, securely bound and gagged, they find Ronald Dane, a handsome blonde young white man. Revived, he tells a strange story about the mutual love of he and Princess MBula, which tribal superstition would not permit them to consummate. Now proceed:

Chapter 5:

DISAPPEARANCE OF PRETTY AFRICAN PRINCESS STILL MYSTIFIES THE POLICE

The Story So Far: A headless body resembling that of Marjorie Fenwick, missing colored girl, is found drained of blood in a sack on Bradhurst avenue, a Harlem thoroughfare. Detective Sergeant Crummel, a noted Negro sleuth, is assigned to the case. He learns from Sammy Andrus, who keeps a "reefer" flat, the identity of Marjorie's lover, Ernest Oats. Confronted, Oats admits he saw Marjorie the night she was murdered. Andrus and Oats are arrested, though Crummel admits to Detective Orestes Williams, his assistant, that he doubts their guilt. That night while the whole area is surrounded by officers and Crummel is keeping vigil in a vacant apartment, a piteous scream rings out near at hand. Crummel and his assistant search the apartment house. Entering the apartment of Princess MBula, an African girl, they are astonished by the gorgeousness of the exotic furnishings. There is no trace of the princess. In the bathtub, however, they find a young, handsome white man, bound and gagged. Revived, he tells a strange story about he (Ronald Dane) meeting the princess in Africa, and how in spite of his daily appeals she refused to marry him, fearing the wrath of her gods. He tells of them being followed by a tall, wrinkled, elderly black man. Princess MBula belonged to the Guro tribe of cannibal blood drinkers. Crummel beings to see light. Accompanying his assistant to the basement, they enter a room recently rented out for religious purposes. It is absolutely unfurnished save for a box sofa on a platform. Pulling out the box drawer from underneath, Crummel finds a human-like figure concealed in wrappings of narrow blue cloth. Now proceed:

Chapter 6:

SLEUTHS SPY ON STRANGE VOODOO CEREMONIES, MAKE STARTLING DISCOVERY

The Story So Far: The headless, bloodless body of Marjorie Fenwick, a colored girl, is found in a sack on Bradhurst avenue, a Harlem thoroughfare. Detective Sergeant Walter Crummel, a negro sleuth, is assigned to the case. Apparently good clues lead nowhere. The whole area is circled by officers and Crummel hides in a vacant apartment. Aroused by a piteous scream close at hand, Crummel and his assistant search the apartment house. The enter the gorgeously exotic apartment of Princess MBula, an African girl, only to find her gone, and her lover, Ronald Dane, a handsome young white man, bound and gagged in the bathtub. Dane tells a strange tale of the romance between him and the Princess, and of her refusal to marry because of fear of her native gods. Dane also tells them of being followed around Europe by a sinister old man belonging to Princess MBula's Guro tribe of cannibal blood drinkers. Scenting a clue, Crummel searches a basement room rented out as a church. There under a couch on a platform they find a lifesize African god swathed in blue bindings. The janitor tells of renting the place to the tall, sinister African. Crummel sets a guard over the room, but nothing happens until the following Sunday, when he and several hidden offers hear the alley door open and forty silent, overcoated black men enter the basement room. Soon from within comes the rhythmic throb of drums. Now proceed:

Chapter 7:

HEADLESS BODY OF BROWN PRINCESS BRINGS SPURT IN SEARCH FOR THE 'BEAST'

The Story So Far: The headless, bloodless body of Marjorie Fenwick, a colored girl, is found in a sack on Bradhurst avenue, a Harlem thoroughfare. A Negro sleuth, Detective Sergeant Walter Crummel, is assigned to the case, but apparently good clues lead nowhere. While watching the area of the crime, Princess MBula, an African, is kidnapped right under the nose of the detective and his men. Ronald Dane, a handsome young white man, is found bound and gagged in the Princess' exotic apartment. He tells a strange tale of he and the Princess being followed about Europe by one of Princess MBula's Guro tribe of cannibal blood drinkers. Crummel learns that some Africans have hired a basement room for religious purposes. He and his men wait until the group meets again and then burst in and arrest them at the height of their orgies. While Crummel is quizzing the Africans the janitor rushes in and tells of a mysterious filled sack in the courtyard. It is the lifeless, headless, bloodless body of Princess MBula. Now proceed:

Chapter 8:

ANOTHER MURDER SHOCKS HARLEM AS SLEUTHS FIND NEW CLUE TO KILLINGS

The Story So Far: Following the finding of the headless body of a young colored girl in a sack on Bradhurst avenue, Harlem thoroughfare, Detective Sergeant Walter Crummel, a colored sleuth, is assigned to the baffling case. From underneath the very noses of Crummel and his men, Princess MBula, an African, is kidnapped. Ronald Dane, a young white man found bound gagged in her apartment, yells a strange tale of their love and of being followed about Europe by members of the cannibalistic Guro tribe, ruled by the Princess' father. Crummel and his men raid a religious orgy of an African group in the apartment house basement and question them about the missing Princess, but while quizzing them, the janitor reports that he has found her body, headless, in a sack in the alley. No one has been seen, despite the cordon of officers surrounding the place. Crummel closely questions the janitor, but with slight results. He learns, however, that Karl, the iceman, a German, who lives in an apartment on the first floor, has only been in the house a month. He is about to visit the ice man's apartment when a piercing scream rings out in the basement and all the lights are suddenly extinguished. Now go on with the story:

Chapter 9:

SEARCH OF BASEMENT OF HOUSE OF TRAGEDY BRINGS STRANGE CLUES

The Story So Far: Following the finding of the headless, bloodless body of a young colored girl in a sack on Bradhurst avenue, Harlem thoroughfare, Detective Sergeant Walter Crummel, a Negro sleuth, is assigned to the baffling case, but fails to prevent the kidnapping shortly afterward of Princess MBula, an African, in whose apartment is found Ronald Dane, a handsome young white man, bound and gagged. Information gained from Dane leads Crummel and his men to raid a voodoo orgy of a group of Africans in the apartment house basement, but while they are being quizzed by the officers, the headless, bloodless body of the Princess is found in a sack in the alley. Questioning the janitor, Crummel learns that Karl, the German iceman, living in a one-room apartment on the first floor, has only been handling the ice for a month. Crummel is about to visit Karl for questioning when a piercing scream rings out in the basement and all the lights are extinguished. The fuze replaced, the detectives speed down the corridor in the direction from which the scream came. Entering the basement room of Charlie Wong, the Chinese laundryman, they find it in great disorder, Wong dead, his West Indian Negro wife gone, and their little son weeping, concealed in a laundry hamper. Figuring, because of the close cordon of police about the apartment house, that the murderer-kidnapper must be in the basement, Crummel and his assistant begin a minute search. Now proceed:

Chapter 10:

JANITOR'S WIFE, UNDER VOODOO 'SPELL', BARES VITAL CLUES TO CRIMES

The Story So Far: Following the discovery of the headless, bloodless body of a young colored girl on Bradhurst avenue, Harlem thoroughfare, Detective Sergeant Walter Crummel, a Negro sleuth, is assigned to the case, but fails to prevent the kidnapping of MBula, an African princess, in whose exotic apartment is found Ronald Dane, a handsome young white man, bound and gagged. Following a tip from Dane, Crummel raids an African voodoo orgy, but while so engaged the headless, bloodless body of Princess MBula is found in the alley. About to visit Karl, the German iceman, who occupies a one-room apartment on the first floor of the murder house, Crummel discovers that Charlie Wong, the Chinese laundryman in the basement, has been murdered and his West Indian wife spirited away. Knowing it to be impossible for the murderer-kidnapper to escape through the cordon of officers about the house, Crummel and Williams, his assistant, execute a minute search of the basement. From examining the baggage in the trunk room, he learns of a new tenant, Prof. Eric Grausmann, a German scientist studying Negro life in Harlem. Searching for the janitor's apartment, Crummel arouses the ire of his wife because he picks up her book on witchcraft. Now proceed:

Chapter 11:

SLEUTHS FIND HIDDEN TRAP DOOR BUT MORE MURDERS FOLLOWING

The Story So Far: When the headless, bloodless body of a young colored girl is found on Bradhurst avenue, Harlem thoroughfare, Detective Sergeant Walter Crummel, a Negro sleuth, is assigned to the case, and fails to prevent the kidnapping and murder of MBula, an African Princess. Following a tip from Ronald Dane, her wealthy white lover, Crummel raids an African voodoo orgy in a basement room of the apartment house, but without fruitful results. While in the basement Charlie Wong, the Chinese laundryman, is murdered almost under his nose and his West Indian wife spirited away. A minute search of the basement yields practically nothing. Searching the janitor's apartment in the basement, Crummel arouses the ire of the man's wife by picking up her book on witchcraft. Mollified, she promises to show him something. Going into a sort of trance, she leads him down the corridor, but collapses before revealing anything. The detective then enters the little room used to store ice by the iceman and there discovers an important clue. Rushing to the one-room apartment of Karl, the iceman, on the first floor, Crummel has the janitor unlock the door. He enters cautiously, but is suddenly attacked and knocked unconscious. Now proceed:

Chapter 12:

DETECTIVE CRUMMEL'S CLEVERNESS TRIUMPHS, MURDERERS TRAPPED

The Story So Far: The bestial murder of two Negro women on Bradhurst avenue, a Harlem thoroughfare, causes Detective Sergeant Walter Crummel, a famous Negro detective, to make a fruitless raid on an African voodoo orgy in an apartment house basement. This is followed by the murder of a Chinese laundryman and his West Indian wife almost under Crummel's nose. Suspicion points to Karl, the German iceman, who has a one-room apartment on the first floor. Crummel enters the apartment, is attacked and knocked unconscious. After waiting impatiently for ten minutes, Detective Williams, his assistant, enters the apartment, but finds no one there except Crummel, whom he revives. While Crummel searches for a possible means of egress from the apartment, Williams goes below into the iceman's storeroom and finds the policeman on guard has been murdered and stripped of his uniform and badge. Crummel finds a trapdoor in the floor of the apartment. And yet he admits that there is no legal evidence against the German iceman. Leaving the apartment with Williams, he goes around the corner purposely for five minutes and then returns, to find that the body of the laundryman's wife has been found. He decides to interrogate the venerable white scientist, Prof. Eric Grausmann, who lives in the next apartment to that of Karl, and is in Harlem studying the American Negro. Now finish the story: