Death out of Thin Air Read Free Page A

experience of his Great Underwater Bank-Safe escape.
    As Chan had done, he strode across to the window and leaned out. The traffic, five stories below, moved slowly in the five o’clock jam. Lights in the buildings opposite were beginning to come on.
    â€œWith that locked door of mine,” he said, “and Jerry on guard outside, it leaves just one exit from this room. The window.”
    Chan said, puzzled, “But isn’t that just how the bat—”
    â€œThe bat?” Diavolo asked. He shook his head. “Vampire bats, Chan, suck the blood of their prey like leeches. But that’s a slow death, not the quick one this girl got. She seemed all right when she came in, didn’t she?”
    Chan nodded.
    â€œThen the bat didn’t kill her,” Don went on. “Anyway, it would have to be much larger….” He stopped, scowling. Then slowly, as if talking to himself, he added, “Maybe I’m crazy. I thought this was New York City, not 17th century Middle Europe.”
    He blinked and shook his head as if discarding some thought that he would rather not believe. But his glance was worried. “Chan,” he said then. “We’ve got work to do. The publicity this will get us is not the kind we want. Get Woody Haines on the phone. We’ll call the police as soon as I’ve had a look around.”
    Chan went to the phone and Diavolo flipped a handkerchief from his pocket. He wrapped it around his hand and stooped to the green suede purse that lay where it had fallen near the body. He unsnapped the catch and looked inside. He fished gingerly among the usual contents of a woman’s bag and then brought out one thing that was distinctly unusual.
    It was a slip of paper torn from a memo book and one side was covered with a fine feminine script.
    Diavolo read it aloud. Even Chan’s Oriental calm was faintly disturbed.
    About 1732 a veritable epidemic of vampirism terrorized Hungary. It was reported that in many villages shadowy figures haunted the churchyards and even penetrated into houses, sucking the blood of their victims who were mysteriously thrown into a hypnotic sleep.
    â€” Summers, The Geography of Witchcraft .

    Don looked across at Chan, a strange expression on his bronzed face. Chan regarded him in turn, immobile now; but his coal-black slanted eyes glistened.
    Diavolo looked at the paper again, and reread it.
    Chan, at the phone was saying, “Thank you. Please have Mr. Haines call Don Diavolo at the Manhattan Music Hall as soon as he comes in.”
    Don’s fingers turned the sheet of paper over. His glance rested on the half dozen words that were written there just as a sharp rapping came from the corridor door.
    A voice called, “Open Sesame! The majesty and power of the Press awaits without.”
    Diavolo’s eyes studied the new inscription on the paper. Without looking up he said. “That’s Woody. Let him in.”
    Chan crossed to the door and swung it inward. J. Haywood Haines came in. He was known to his friends as “Woody” and to most of Broadway as the reporter whose Behind the Scenes column in the New York Press usually had the lowdown on inside stories.
    He nodded gaily at Chan, sailed his fifteen dollar pearl-gray hat across to the divan and announced:
    â€œDon Diavolo, I want you to meet the star deducer of the New York Homicide Department, Inspector Church.”
    Don Diavolo, squatting on his heels by the body, the girl’s open purse at his side, was remembering the time his parachute had nearly failed to open. He felt that way now.
    Inspector Church never acknowledged that introduction. He was too busy staring at the body. He was, to put it, mildly, pop-eyed.
    Then he said, “Oh, I see. You’re rehearsing.”
    Diavolo stood up, palming the slip of paper. “I only wish I were, Inspector,” he said calmly. “ You couldn’t have dropped in at a better time.”
    He