The Phantom was amused, but also a trifle perturbed. The handicaps he had to overcome if he were to accomplish his purpose were rather staggering. But for the eccentric anthropologist’s hospitality he might even now be in the coils of the police. There was a troubled gleam in his eyes as he tossed the papers aside. For several minutes he sat on the edge of the bed, a thoughtful pucker between his eyes, abstractedly gazing down at the papers on the floor.
Of a sudden he roused himself out of a brown study. While his thoughts had been far away, his eyes had been steadily fixed on the two photographs in the center of the page spread out at his feet. Now a steely glitter appeared in his narrowing eyes and a smile spread slowly from the corners of his lips.
In an instant he was on his feet, glancing at his watch. It was almost ten o’clock. He hurried quietly to the door, listened at the keyhole for a few moments, then shot the bolt. From now on his movements were characterized by the brisk precision of one acting on an inspiration. Taking a sharp-edged tool from his pocket case, he stepped to the wash stand and mixed some lather. A few deft strokes and slashes, and his beard was gone. Since Patrolman Pinto had recognized him in spite of it, the beard was no longer useful, and the reddish and bristly mustache which he took from a wrapper in his metal case and affixed to his lips would serve fairly well as a temporary disguise. After a brief glance in the mirror, he put on his clothes and pocketed the articles on the dresser.
The Gray Phantom was ready for one of the maddest and most perilous enterprises of his career.
CHAPTER XIII—KIDNAPED
Somewhere a clock was striking ten as the Phantom withdrew the bolt and, silent as a cat, stepped out into the hall. He leaned over the balustrade and looked down. From the rear came an occasional tinkle of glassware. Doctor Bimble, never dreaming that his guest was foolhardy enough to leave his secure retreat a second time, was evidently at work in his laboratory. Noiselessly the Phantom stole down the stairs, carefully testing each step before he intrusted his weight to it. The door opened without a sound, and he darted a quick glance up and down the street.
A fine drizzle was falling and the sidewalks glistened in the lights from the street lamps and windows. There was a thin sprinkling of pedestrians in the thoroughfare. Outside a pool room across the street stood a group of loafers, and a band of gospel workers was addressing an apathetic crowd on the nearest corner. The Phantom was about to step away from the door when he saw something that caused him to press close to the wall.
“Our friend Pinto,” he mused as a thickset figure jogged past. “Seems a bit distracted this evening. Wonder what’s up.”
The policeman passed on with only a perfunctory glance in the Phantom’s direction. There was something about his gait and the way he swung his baton which suggested that his mind was not quite at ease. The Phantom waited until he had turned the corner, then crept out of the doorway, assuming an easy, swinging gait as he struck the sidewalk and turned west.
The streets had their usual humdrum appearance, but beneath the calm on the surface he sensed a tension and an air of repressed activity. It might have been only imagination, but he thought people were regarding each other with covert suspicion, as if friends and neighbors were no longer to be trusted. The Phantom sauntering along as if he had not a care in the world, turned into the Bowery and proceeded toward the nearest station of the elevated railway. No taxicabs were in sight, but he would be comparatively safe once he was aboard a train.
He whistled a merry little tune, but he was uncomfortably aware that the cut and quality of his clothes were attracting attention in that squalid neighborhood. Now he was only a few paces from the elevated stairs. The space immediately in front of him was brightly illuminated by a corner light, and each forward step was taken at great risk. He advanced with an air of unconcern, glanced languidly at the papers and magazines spread out on the news stall, and in another moment he would have been starting up the stairs.
Just then he felt the sharp scrutiny of a pair of eyes. Their owner, he fancied, was stationed in the dark doorway of an abandoned corner saloon, only a few steps from the foot of the stairway, but he dared not look back or sideways. In a second he had rallied his wits to the emergency. To show the slightest nervousness or seem in a hurry would instantly provoke a sharp command to halt. He purchased a newspaper, glanced disdainfully at the headlines on the first page, and was chuckling over a cartoon on the sporting page as he leisurely began to ascend the stairs.
A loud rumbling told that a train was approaching. The Phantom pursued his unhurried pace, conscious that the owner of the prying eyes had stepped out of the doorway and was regarding him suspiciously. Suddenly, as he reached a turn in the stairs, a cry rang out:
“Stop!”
The Phantom looked down with an air of idle curiosity, as if it were unthinkable that the command could be meant for him, and climbed on. He had almost reached the top when a second and more insistent cry sounded.
“Hey, there! I mean you!”
The Phantom climbed the remaining steps, reaching the ticket window just as a train roared into the station. Three sharp taps sounded against the sidewalk below, followed by a shrill blast of a police whistle. The Phantom dropped his ticket in the chopper and stepped out on the platform. The train gates were open and a few passengers were getting aboard. For a moment he hesitated; then he hurried swiftly to the end of the deserted platform and leaped out on the narrow walk used by track workers.
The train rolled out of the station. The Phantom, lying flat, guessed that the agent at the next stop had already been notified to hold it for search, and it was this circumstance that had decided him against getting aboard. From the street rose a great hubbub. He began to crawl along the narrow span, screened from sight by a heavy beam. Each moment was precious now, for soon the police would learn that the Phantom was not on the train, and then they would guess that he was hiding somewhere on the platform or the track.
He had crawled the length of half a block when he stopped and looked down. The commotion at the corner had ceased, but as he glanced behind him he saw that several dark forms were moving rapidly across the platform, as if looking for someone. At the point where he lay the street was dimly lighted and almost deserted. Agilely he swung his body from the walk, clutched the beam with both hands until he could obtain a foothold along one of the heavy iron pillars that supported the structure, then slid quickly to the ground. Standing in the shadow of the pillar, he looked about him. Apparently he had not been seen, but in a few moments a dragnet would be thrown around the vicinity, and he would have to exercise the utmost speed and caution if he was to escape.
Quickly he dodged into a side street. On the corner was a patrol box, and, even as he glanced at it, the bulb at the top of the pole flashed into a green brilliance. He knew what the signal meant. A general alarm had been sent out, spreading the news that the Gray Phantom had been seen. He hurried on, but he had not reached far when a patrolman appeared around the opposite corner, forcing him to take refuge in a dark cellarway. Luckily the green light had already attracted the policeman’s attention, and he hurried past the point where the Phantom was hidden, and made for the box on the corner. While the bluecoat was receiving his instructions from the station house the Phantom crawled out of his retreat and, clinging close to the shadows along the walls, hastened in the other direction.
He was very cautious now. Once out of the immediate neighborhood, the greatest danger would be past, but for the present every step of the way bristled with perils. A taxicab hove into sight as he reached an intersection of streets, but the chauffeur showed no inclination to heed his signal. The Phantom placed himself directly in the path of the onrushing vehicle. It stopped with a grinding of brakes, accompanied with a medley of oaths.
“What d’ye mean?” demanded the chauffeur. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”
“Double fare,” suggested the Phantom temptingly.
A sharp glance shot out from beneath the visor of the driver’s cap. “Where to?”
“South Ferry,” said the Phantom, though his actual destination was a good distance short of that point.
“All right,” with a shrewd glance at his fare. “Get in.”
He held the door open and the Phantom entered the cab. They had proceeded only a short distance, however, when the passenger pinned a bill to the cushion, cautiously stepped out on to the running board and hopped off in the middle of a dark block. He had not quite approved of the chauffeur’s looks.
Just ahead of him lay the wholesale section of Broadway, at that time of night as gloomy and lifeless a stretch of thoroughfare as can be found in all New York. The Phantom walked briskly to the corner and was turning south when he all but collided with a red-faced heavy-jowled policeman.
“Pardon,” he said lightly. Quickly he stuck a cigar between his lips, tugging at his mustache with one hand and exploring his vest pocket with the other. “By the way, officer, happen to have a match?”
The officer produced the desired article, and in return the Phantom proffered a cigar while he lighted his own. With a hearty “Thank you, sor,” the policeman put the weed in his pocket and trudged on, deciding he would smoke the affable stranger’s cigar when he went off duty. He didn’t, however. After straightening out certain tangles in his mind and arriving at certain conclusions, Officer McCloskey resolved to keep the cigar as a souvenir of the occasion when he accommodated the Gray Phantom with a match.
Chuckling at the happy circumstances that some policemen are more gullible than others, the Phantom hurried forward in the shadows of tall brick buildings. He thought he had left the zone of greatest danger behind him, but the utmost caution was still needed; the crucial test would not come until he reached his destination. As often before, he was relying for success and safety on the fact that he was doing the very thing a hunted man was least likely to do.
A hansom drawn by a scraggy nag came toward him and drew up at the curb on his signal. He fixed an appraising look on the driver, a despondent-looking individual in sadly dilapidated livery, whose sole concern in his prospective passenger seemed to have to do with the collecting of a generous fare.
“Drive me to the Sphere office,” directed the Phantom, satisfied with his inspection of the man on the box.
He climbed in, and a crack of the whip startled the nag into activity. The Phantom, tingling with a familiar sensation, leaned back against the cushion and watched long rows of somber buildings stream past. He was bent on a madcap adventure, and the details of his plan were still vague, but if the scheme succeeded he would have gained an important advantage. His task, besides being difficult and dangerous, was also somewhat strange to him. Many sensational ventures embellished his past, but he had never until now essayed a kidnaping, at least not under circumstances like these.
The vista brightened. A short distance ahead loomed the Municipal Building and the Woolworth Tower. Serenely the cab jogged into City Hall Park, carrying its passenger into a brightly lighted square that even at night stirred with activity and bristled with a thousand dangers. The hansom stopped, and the Phantom gazed a trifle dubiously at a tall building from which issued the clatter of linotype machines and the dull rumble of presses.
“Here we are, sir,” observed the jehu expectantly, speaking through the trap over the passenger’s head.
The Phantom did not move. The entrance of the Sphere building was brightly lighted and people were constantly passing in either direction. On the corner, keenly scanning the face of each passer-by, stood a lordly policeman. The Phantom counted his chances, knowing that much more than his personal freedom was at stake. The mustache, his sole disguise, seemed inadequate. He might be recognized by anyone in the passing throng who chanced to give him a second glance, and he would face another ticklish situation when he was inside the building.
“Didn’t you say the Sphere, sir?” inquired the driver.
The Phantom was about to reply when fate unexpectedly stepped in and solved his problem. A few vigorous expressions spoken in loud and boisterous tones drew his attention to the doorway. A gaudily garbed person who seemed to be in an advanced stage of inebriation was being propelled through the door by a stocky man with a reddish and determined face. As he caught a glimpse of the tipsy individual’s features, the Phantom started and wedged his figure into the farther corner of the hansom.
From his well-filled wallet he took a bill and thrust it through the trap. The jehu took it, stared for a moment at the numeral in the corner, which was imposing enough to corrupt stancher souls than his, then listened attentively to the instructions his fare was giving in low and hurried tones.
“I get you, sir,” was his comment. “Leave it to me.”
In the meantime the stout person had given the tipsy one a final departing shove, and now he stood aside, with thumbs crooked in the armpits of his vest, his face glowing with the consciousness of a job well performed. His victim picked himself up with great difficulty and looked about him with groggy eyes while loudly proclaiming how he would avenge the affront.
“Cab, sir?” invitingly inquired the jehu.
The inebriate one careened forward, blinked his eyes and, with head wagging limply from side to side, gave the hansom a slanting look. Evidently it met his approval, for he nodded and staggered closer. The driver jumped from the box and obligingly assisted his new fare to the seat. A moment later the cab was dashing away from the curb, followed by the amused glances of several spectators.
The tipsy passenger, sprawling lumpishly in his seat, rolled a little to one side as the conveyance turned a corner. To his amazement his head struck someone’s shoulder; then a firm, low voice spoke in his ear:
“Tommie Granger, you’re just the person I have been looking for.”
CHAPTER XIV—THOMAS GRANGER
Slowly and with difficulty the intoxicated man straightened himself and looked unsteadily at his companion. They were in a dark street and their faces were indistinct.
“Shay,” demanded the tipsy one, “thish ish my cab. Get out!”
“Now, Granger,” replied the Phantom with a chuckle, “you surely don’t mind giving a fellow a lift? By the way, where do you think you are going?”
“Home, but——”
“You forgot to tell the driver your address.”
“Dam’ the driver! He ought to know enough—hic—to take a fellow home when he’s soused. Where elsh would I be going? Huh?”
“But your address——”
“Dam’ my address! It’s nobody’sh business. I live where I please—see? I’m drunk. I get drunk when—hic—whenever I feel like it. Know where to get the sh-stuff, too. Alwaysh carry a bottle on my hip. Want a drink?”
“Never touch it. Thanks, just the same. What was the matter back at the office? They were treating you rather roughly.”
Granger seemed to recall a grievance. He made an effort to draw himself up. “I inshulted the city editor and—hic—he told the watchman to bounce me. I alwaysh inshult people when I’m soused. Did I ever inshult you?”
“Not yet, Granger.”
“Maybe I will shome day. Shay, tell the cabby to turn back. I wanta go back to the offish and clean out that bunch of stiffs.”
“Now, Granger——”
“Lemme go! I’ll show ’em they can’t treat me that way. Lemme go, I tell you! Hey, cabby, reversh the current.”
Granger sprang from the seat, lurched against the side of the cab, and would have hurled himself against the pavement had not the Phantom jerked him back. The drunken man lunged out with arms and legs, but he subsided quickly as he felt something hard pressing against his chest.
“Cut out the nonsense!” The Phantom spoke firmly and incisively. “I have you covered, and I won’t stand for any foolishness.”
The touch of steel against his ribs seemed to have a sobering effect on Granger. For a few moments he stared sulkily at his companion, then he settled himself against the cushion, and his mind appeared to be groping its way out of stupefying fumes. The cab was pursuing a zigzagging route through crooked and dimly lighted streets, the jehu having been instructed to drive at random until he received further orders. The Phantom’s mind worked quickly while he pressed the pistol against his captive’s chest. A new problem confronted him. He had kidnaped his man, but where was he to take him? The logical answer was Sea-Glimpse, but the trip would consume too much time, to say nothing of the risks involved. Doctor Bimble’s house? The Phantom shook his head even as the idea occurred to him. The anthropologist was too erratic a man to inspire confidence, and the Phantom needed someone whom he could trust absolutely.
Presently he felt Granger’s eyes on his face. The cool night air, together with the steady pressure of the pistol, was rapidly driving the alcoholic vapors from the reporter’s brain, and now he was subjecting his captor to a blinking, unsteady scrutiny, as if he were just beginning to suspect that something was amiss.
“Is this a pinch?” he asked, his tones still a trifle thick.
The Phantom laughed. “No, Granger. I’m not an officer. Besides, why should I be pinching you?”
“For being drunk and disorderly and carrying a bottle on my hip.”
“Those heinous crimes don’t interest me. Anyhow, I understand journalists are more or less privileged persons. I am merely taking you to a safe place, where you won’t go around insulting people and getting your head smashed.”
Granger fell into a moody silence, and the Phantom thought he detected signs of a growing uneasiness about his captive. Evidently the period of depression that follows artificial stimulation was already setting in. Because of the darkness and his befuddled state of mind, the reporter had not yet recognized the man at his side, but his gaze was taking on a keener edge and would soon penetrate the thin disguise afforded by the mustache. The Phantom felt the need of a quick decision.
A clock struck one. In scrupulous obedience to his orders the jehu was urging his nag over the darkest and most dismal streets he could find. The Phantom looked out, and a glance at a corner sign told him that they were crossing Mott Street and were not far from the heart of old Chinatown. A recollection flashed through his mind, and in its wake came an idea.
“Stop,” he called through the trap. The hansom jolted to the curb and halted. The street was silent and the sidewalks, as far as eyes could reach, were deserted. There was a thin, lazy drizzle in the air and the atmosphere was a trifle heavy.
“Listen, Granger,” he spoke sharply. “We are getting out here, but I intend to keep you covered every instant. The slightest sound or the least false move will cost you your life. Is that clear?”
The reporter’s response was surly, but the Phantom knew that his warning had had the effect he desired. Holding the pistol with one hand, he took out his wallet with the other and selected a bill. Then he stepped down on the curb, ordering the reporter to follow.
“Here, cabby.” He extended the bill, which, with the other the Phantom had previously given him, was surely enough to make the jehu forget any little irregularity he might have observed. With a fervent “Thank you, sir,” he whipped up the scrawny nag and drove away.
“Now, Granger.” The Phantom spoke in low but commanding tones. “My life depends on the success of this little undertaking. I’ll shoot you the instant you show the least intention to spoil my plan. Understand?”
Granger nodded, seemingly convinced that he was dealing with a desperate man and that, for the time at least, it behooved him to obey orders and ask no questions. The Phantom wound his arm about the other’s back, firmly jabbing the muzzle of the pistol against the fellow’s armpit, thus giving the appearance of steadying a slightly incapacitated friend.
They approached the center of Chinatown, keeping in the shadows whenever possible. Granger was sullenly silent, and he seemed to be hoping and watching for a sign of relaxing vigilance on his captor’s part. The Phantom understood, and as they left the shelter of darkness and turned the corner at Pell Street, he pressed the pistol a little harder against the reporter’s armpit.
A slumberous gloom hung over the district, as if the famous old quarter were brooding over memories of a lurid past, when terror stalked in subterranean crypts and strange scenes were enacted under cover of Oriental splendor. There were a few stragglers in the streets and some of the shops and restaurants were lighted; but, on the whole, the section presented a dull and lifeless appearance. The Phantom scanned the signs and numbers as he hurried along with his captive, keeping the latter close to his side, and constantly on the alert against lurking dangers.
Finally he stopped before one of the smaller establishments and, after descending a few steps, knocked on the basement door. Signs painted across the window in Chinese and English announced that the place was occupied by Peng Yuen, dealer in Oriental goods. Once, years ago, while the district was ripped and rocked by one of its frequent tong wars, the Phantom had chanced to do Peng Yuen a great favor, and the Chinaman had sworn undying gratitude and promised to show his appreciation in a practical way if the opportunity should ever come. A strange friendship had developed, and Peng Yuen, though wily and rascally in his dealings with others, had impressed the Phantom as a man whom he could safely trust.
The front of the store was dark, but through an open door in the rear came a shaft of light. As he waited, the Phantom threw an uneasy glance up and down the street. Luck had been with him so far, but the tension was beginning to tell on his nerves.
A puny figure crossed the path of light, then the door opened a few inches, and the two arrivals were given a keen, slant-eyed scrutiny. The Phantom knew a little Chinese, and a few words spoken in that tongue had a magic effect on the man inside. With a curious obeisance, he drew back and motioned them to enter. The Phantom, pushing his quarry ahead of him through the door, spoke a few more words in Chinese, and their host pointed invitingly to the door in the rear.
The three entered, and Peng Yuen, arrayed in straw-colored garments embroidered with black bats, shot the bolt. His face was as impassive as that of the image of Kuan-Yin pu tze which stood on a shelf over a lacquered teak-wood cabinet, and he was so slight of stature that it seemed as though a puff of wind would have blown him to the land of his ancestors. The air in the little den was heavy with scents of the East.
The light, filtering through shades of green and rose, gave Granger his first clear view of the Phantom’s face. With a start he fell back a step and stared at his captor out of gradually widening eyes. The last signs of stupor fled from his face, and a startled cry rose in his throat as the Phantom smilingly snatched the false mustache from his lips.
The Chinaman, standing with arms folded across his chest, viewed the scene with supreme indifference. Granger slowly ran his hand across his forehead, as if wondering whether his senses were playing him tricks. His lips came apart, and a startled gleam appeared in his bleary, heavy-lidded eyes.
“The—the Gray Phantom!” he muttered shakily, wetting his lips and falling back another step.
The Phantom looked amused. “Just think what a scoop you’ve missed, Granger.” He turned to the Chinaman. “Peng, you old heathen, I guess you know they are accusing me of murder?”
“So?” said Peng Yuen in his slow, precise English. “I did not know. I never read the newspapers.”
“Then, of course, you are not aware that the police are conducting a lively search for me?”
“My friend,” said the Chinaman, unimpressed, “I have told you that I do not read the papers.”
The Phantom searched the almond-shaped eyes for a sign of a twinkle, but found none.
“Peng Yuen, you are lying like a gentleman. It grieves me to shatter such beautiful ignorance, but it must be done. I did not commit the murder of which I am accused. For reasons of my own I desire to find the murderer and hand him over to the police. I am seriously handicapped by the interest the authorities are taking in me, which makes it unsafe for me to move a single step. I have thought of a ruse by which that obstacle may be removed.”
The Chinaman lifted his brows inquiringly.
“This gentleman,” continued the Phantom, indicating the inebriate, “is Mr. Thomas Granger, a reporter on the Sphere. As you may have noticed, he looks something like me. The police, deceived by the resemblance, took it into their heads to arrest him. He was able to give a satisfactory account of himself, of course, and his finger prints quickly convinced the authorities they had made a mistake. They are not likely to make that kind of mistake a second time. You follow me, Peng Yuen?”
The ghost of a grin flickered across the Chinaman’s face. “Your words, my friend, have their roots in eternal wisdom.”
“Thanks for that kind thought, Peng Yuen. I knew you would see the point. Granger has seen it, too, though his mind is not functioning with its usual brilliance to-night. He has consented to disappear for a few days and has agreed to let me borrow his identity in the meantime. As the Gray Phantom I can scarcely move a step. In the rôle of Thomas Granger, newspaper reporter, I shall be able to move about unmolested. What, Granger—not backing out of the bargain, I hope?”
A seemingly careless gesture with the pistol, together with a warning look, quickly silenced the protests on Granger’s lips. After a few moments of fidgeting and indecision, he accepted the situation with a good-natured grin, as if its humorous side had appealed to him.
“Excellent!” drawled the Phantom. “I knew you would be reasonable. Now we strip.”
He handed the pistol to Peng Yuen, placed his metal case on the table, and began to remove his clothes. Granger followed his example, and in a few minutes the two had exchanged garments. The reporter was addicted to vivid hues and extreme designs. At first the Phantom felt a trifle uncomfortable in the strange garb, but he knew it was necessary to the rôle he was assuming. He studied the reporter carefully while he took a number of tubes and vials from his case. Granger was a younger man, his eyes were of a slightly different hue from the Phantom’s, and there were other differences which were easily discernible to the keen eye.
The Phantom, viewing himself in a cheval glass, daubed a dark tint over the gray at his temples. With an occasional backward glance at the reporter, he dappled his cheeks with a faintly chromatic powder, traced a tiny line on each side of the mouth, poured a little oil on his hair and patted it till it lay smooth and sleek against his head, performing each touch with such a delicate skill that, though the resemblance was greatly enhanced, there was scarcely a suggestion of make-up.
“What do you think, Peng Yuen?” he inquired, turning from the cheval glass.
A look of admiration came into the Chinaman’s usually woodenlike face. Even the voice was Granger’s. The expression around the mouth and the eyes and the characteristic set of the shoulders were adroitly imitated, and already the Phantom had picked up several of the reporter’s mannerisms.
“It is good,” murmured Peng Yuen, putting the maximum of approval into the minimum of words.
The Phantom was beginning to show signs of restlessness. He glanced at his watch, then fixed the Chinaman with a penetrating look.
“Peng Yuen,” he said, “in the good old days there were hiding places on these premises where people could disappear.”
“It may be so.” The Chinaman’s face was expressionless. “I do not recollect.”
But even as he spoke, a touch of his fingers produced an opening in the wall. The Phantom motioned, and with a shrug of the shoulders the reporter stepped through the aperture. A moment later a sliding panel had shut him from view.
“The Phantom has disappeared,” mumbled the Chinaman. “Except when I bring him food and drink, I will forget that he exists. Going so soon, Mr. Granger?” The bogus journalist grinned as he gripped Peng Yuen’s thin, weazened hand. He squeezed it until the Chinaman winced, then hurried out into the dark, dripping night, turning his steps in the direction of the house on East Houston Street.
CHAPTER XV—A WARNING FROM THE DUKE
The Phantom walked briskly, with an easy, carefree swagger, breathing freely for the first time since the beginning of the strange events that had attended his efforts to solve the mystery of the Gage murder. In the rôle of an irresponsible journalist with a weakness for strong liquor he could feel reasonably secure, for the police had been so cruelly nagged and ridiculed that they would think twice before repeating their sad blunder.
“Stop!” commanded a voice as he swung into Houston Street. The Phantom halted and smiled impudently into the face of a plain-clothes man who emerged from a dark doorway to look him over.
“Oh, Granger,” muttered the officer disgustedly after a glance at his showy attire and a sniff of the whisky with which the Phantom, making use of the reporter’s bottle, had prudently scented himself. “Sober for a change, I see. Where do you get the stuff, anyhow?”
“That would be telling. Any news of the Phantom?”
“Naw! We thought we had him a while ago, over at a Third Avenue L station, but he blew away. I s’pose you’re out to nab him and get a scoop for that yellow rag of yours.”
“Maybe,” said the Phantom cheerfully. “It would be quite an event in my young life. I’ll be on my way, if you’re sure you don’t want to take me to headquarters and get another sample of my finger prints.”
“Aw—beat it!” muttered the detective, touched in a sore spot. The Phantom chuckled and moved on. His new rôle promised to be amusing as well as profitable, and the ease with which he had passed the first test gave him added confidence. Twice within the next fifteen minutes he was stopped and questioned, only to be dismissed with a disgusted grunt or a facetious remark.
As he crossed the Bowery a stocky figure in patrolman’s uniform appeared around the corner and moved down the street a few paces ahead of him. After studying his gait and bearing for a few moments, the Phantom knew it was Officer Pinto. He slackened his pace and followed, stepping softly so as not to attract the policeman’s attention.
Pinto’s steps faltered as he approached the middle of the block, and he walked with a shuffling and uncertain air. Finally he stopped, and the Phantom thought he was gazing at a window directly in front of him. He tiptoed a little closer, and now he saw that the building on which the officer’s attention was fixed so intently was none other than the murky and silent structure that had been occupied by Gage and his housekeeper.
The policeman drew a little closer to the window, then stood rigid and motionless, as if the building were exerting a peculiar fascination upon him. At that moment the Phantom would have given a great deal to know what was going on in the mind of the man he was watching. He could make a guess, but guesses were unsatisfactory. At length the officer shrugged his shoulders, as if to shake off something that oppressed him, then tried the lock in matter-of-fact fashion and moved on down the street.
The Phantom hastened after him. He was no longer trying to avoid detection, and his footfalls sounded clear and sharp in the quiet street. The policeman stopped, looked back, and peered sharply at the oncomer.
“Granger—huh!” he snorted after giving the Phantom a derisive once-over. “Say, does your ma know you’re out as late as this? Getting all them glad rags mussed up in the rain, too! What’s the idea?”
“The Phantom has got my goat,” confessed the pseudo reporter. “It isn’t natural for a man to pop in and out the way he does without getting caught.”
“Well, what are you going to do about it?” grumbled the patrolman, resuming his walk.
The Phantom fell into step beside him, now and then casting a sidelong glance at his sour and uncommunicative face. All of a sudden he wondered whether the policeman was aware that a second murder had been committed in the Gage house, and again it struck him as bafflingly strange that no mention had been made of the finding of the housekeeper’s body. What had become of it, and how much, if anything, did Pinto know?
“Something seems to be eating you,” he observed casually, trying to adopt a phraseology suited to his rôle. “You were staring at that window as if you expected old Gage’s ghost to take a stroll. What were you thinking of, Pinto?”
The policeman gave a quick, searching look. “Say, you’ve been watching me, ain’t you? What’s the big idea? And how do you know my name?”
The Phantom laughed engagingly. “How touchy we are to-night! I wasn’t watching you, exactly. Just strolling along, hoping to bump into the Phantom and cover myself with glory. Then I saw you, and I couldn’t imagine what you were seeing in that window. As for knowing your name, I happen to be aware that the officer on this beat is one Joshua Pinto and that he was called by the housekeeper the night Gage was murdered.”
The patrolman, evidently satisfied with the explanation, mumbled something under his breath.
“But you haven’t answered my question,” persisted the Phantom, speaking in gently teasing tones. “I am still wondering what you were thinking of while standing in front of the window.”
“Why, I was—just thinking, that’s all.”
“How illuminating! I wonder if, by any chance, your profound meditations had anything to do with the present whereabouts of Mrs. Mary Trippe, Gage’s housekeeper.”
The patrolman came to a dead stop. Of a sudden his face turned almost white and his eyes grew wider and wider as they stared into the questioner’s face.
“What—what d’you mean?” he demanded thickly.
The Phantom laughed easily. “Why, Pinto, you’re the scaredest cop I ever saw. Your nerves must be in a bad way. I was only wondering if you’ve seen anything of Mrs. Trippe lately.”
“My nerves are a bit jumpy,” admitted Pinto. He was moving again, but there was evidence of weakness in the region of his knees. “They’ve been that way ever since I had a touch of indigestion last month. What was it you asked me about Mrs. Trippe?”
“I walked over there yesterday afternoon, meaning to ask her a question or two in connection with the murder. I couldn’t find her, and the neighbors said they hadn’t seen her for a day or two. Got any idea where she is?”
“No, I haven’t.” Pinto was speaking in calmer tones now. “Likely as not she’s visiting friends or relatives somewhere. Wimmen don’t like to stay in a place where there’s been a murder.”
“Something in that. By the way, Pinto, when were you last inside the house?”
Again, for a mere instant, the patrolman’s steps faltered. He threw the man at his side an uneasy glance. “Why, let me see. It was the day I had the Phantom locked up in the bedroom and he gave me the slip. Why did you want to know?”
“No reason in particular. I was just thinking that—But my mind’s wandering. Got a bit tanked early in the evening. Guess I’ll turn in. See you later.”
With a yawn, he turned back, fancying there was a note of relief in the policeman’s farewell. He smiled as he walked along. His conversation with Pinto had cleared up one point in his mind. The officer knew something of Mrs. Trippe’s fate. The dread he had evinced at mention of the housekeeper’s name proved that, and his prevarications and evasions were further evidence. The plea of indigestion and nervousness, coming from one of Pinto’s robust physique, was highly amusing.
Yet, illuminating as his verbal fencing match with the patrolman had been, it had merely confirmed suspicions already firmly rooted in the Phantom’s mind. As yet he had not a single iota of concrete evidence, and there were several snarled threads that had to be untangled before he could accomplish much. For instance, there was the mystery surrounding the murder of Mrs. Trippe and the equally perplexing riddle of what had become of the body. Both of them must be solved before he could go far toward attaining his object.
He stopped, noticing that his mental processes had guided his steps toward the Gage house. It was still drizzling, and he was tired and hungry and wet, but the problem on which he was engaged drove all thought of rest and food from his mind. The blackness overhead was slowly breaking into a leaden gray, and from all directions came sounds of awakening life. He walked up to the door, believing that the answers to the questions that troubled him were to be found inside the house.
Then, out of the shadows, as it seemed to him, came an undersized creature with a slouching gait and glittering cat’s eyes peering out from beneath the wide brim of a soft hat. The Phantom felt a slight touch on his elbow, and for an instant the sharply gleaming eyes scanned his face, then the queer-looking character shuffled away as swiftly and silently as he had appeared.
The Phantom was tempted to follow, but just then he noticed that a piece of paper was cramped between his fingers. He unfolded it and examined it in the meager light. All he could see at first was something crude and shapeless sketched with pencil, but gradually the blur dissolved into a symbol which he recognized.
It was a ducal coronet. The Phantom smiled as he looked down at the emblem of his old rival and enemy, the Duke. The paper handed him by the curious messenger was a reminder that the hand of his antagonist was reaching out for him, that though the Duke himself was in prison, his henchmen and agents were active, being at this very moment on the Phantom’s trail.
He put the paper into his pocket, and in the same moment the amused smile faded from his lips. For a time he had forgotten that, to all practical purposes, he was no longer the Gray Phantom, but one Thomas Granger, journalist. His lips tightened as again he gazed at the tracings on the paper. Did it mean that the Duke’s emissaries had seen through his disguise and alias, or did it mean—his figure stiffened as the latter question flashed in his mind—that Thomas Granger was a member of the Duke’s band?
In vain he pondered the problem, unable to decide whether the paper had been intended for himself or for Granger. If for himself, it seemed a somewhat idle and meaningless gesture on the Duke’s part, for his old enemy surely could gain nothing by sending cryptic messages to him. On the other hand, assuming that the reporter was the intended recipient, what hidden meaning was Granger supposed to read into a ducal coronet?
He tried to dismiss the problem from his mind until he could have a talk with Granger, but thoughts of the mysterious message and the strange messenger pursued him as he once more turned to the door. The entrance to the store was padlocked, but the lock on the side door yielded readily to manipulation with one of the tools in his metal case. A quick glance to left and right assured him he was unobserved. Closing the door and taking out his electric flash, which he had transferred among other things to the suit he was now wearing, he ran up the steep and creaking stairs.
He stood in a long and narrow hall. At one end was a stairway, presumably leading to the store below, and along the sides of the corridor were three doors. Opening one of them, he played the electric beam over the interior, for he did not think it safe to turn on the light. It was a small, tidily furnished bedroom, and the prevalence of feminine touches hinted that it had been occupied by the housekeeper. In the neatness and immaculateness of things there was not the slightest suggestion of tragedy, and he looked in vain for a sign that the occupant had been snatched from a humdrum life to a horrible death.
Yet, as his eyes flitted over the room, he felt a vague and haunting sense of oppression. It must be the air, he thought, which was heavy and stale, as if the window had not been opened for several days. The note handed him by the queer messenger was still a disturbing factor in his thoughts, and he took it from his pocket and examined it in the light of his flash.
At first he saw nothing but the crude pencil tracings in which he recognized the emblem of the Duke, but presently, as he gave closer attention to the outlines of the design, he detected tiny waves and jags that impressed him as being there for a purpose. He placed his magnifying lens between the electric flash and the paper, and now the uneven strokes dissolved into uncouth but fairly legible letters. He chuckled as he perceived that the Duke, always a lover of the theatrical, was in the habit of communicating with his agents by means of writing that had to be read through a magnifying lens.
Quickly he deciphered the script hidden in the ornate tracings. His face grew hard as a welter of ideas and suspicions surged through his mind. The message read:
Traitors sometimes die. Report at once.
The six words seemed to throb with a sinister meaning. They started a long train of thoughts in the Phantom’s mind. For one thing, they proved that the message was intended for Granger, since there was no reason why the Duke should accuse the Gray Phantom of treachery. They also made it clear that the reporter was a member of the Duke’s new organization and that by some faithless act he had incurred the displeasure of the leaders of the band.
The Phantom loathed a traitor, but the Duke himself was no stickler for fair methods, and that a member of his gang should have been caught in a perfidious act was not particularly surprising. As the Phantom saw it, the chief importance of his discovery lay in the fact that he was still laboring under a serious handicap. He had thought that in assuming the guise of a newspaper reporter he would insure himself against molestation from all sides, but now it appeared that the man whose identity he had borrowed was an object of suspicion and possible vengeance. The threat in the first sentence of the message was clear and to the point.
He scowled darkly at the message, then folded it carefully and put it in his pocket. He still had an advantage, he told himself, for he was safe so far as the police were concerned. What he had to guard against was the stealthy machinations and intrigues of the Duke’s band. On the whole, it was fortunate that the note had fallen into his possession, for forewarned was forearmed. Increased alertness and a few extra precautions would see him clear of the pitfalls.
Extinguishing his flash, he left the room and descended the stairs at the end of the hall, emerging behind the counter in the front of the store. He walked down the narrow aisle between the show case and the shelves that lined the wall. The door to Gage’s bedroom was unlocked, and he entered. A shaft of gray light slanting in beneath the window shade gave blurry outlines to the objects in the room. He passed to the window and pulled the curtain aside. It was a dull, bleak dawn, as dismal and gray as the one that had greeted him twenty-four hours ago when he crawled out of the tunnel.
His inspection of the room shed not the faintest ray of light on the questions in his mind. He searched carefully, sweeping the dark corners with his flash, but nothing appeared to have been touched since his last visit. Of the tragedy he had witnessed, not the slightest sign was to be found. Yet the scene was so vividly impressed on his mind that he felt as though the very walls were alive with the echoes of the dying woman’s groans. He could still see the quickly moving hand that had held the knife.
“Whose hand?” he asked. It had been a mere flash, and, as far as he could recall, there had been nothing distinctive about it. It was not likely he would recognize the hand if he should see it a second time; yet the question was already settled in his mind. The housekeeper herself had given him the answer to it in the few words she had gasped out just before the blow was struck:
“He’s killing me! He’s afraid I’ll tell!”
She had referred to Pinto, of course, for her previous words and looks, the Gray Phantom thought, had clearly shown that she suspected the policeman of having murdered her employer. It was a safe inference, then, that Pinto had slain the housekeeper in order to seal her lips forever, and the Phantom wondered whether the patrolman was not also responsible for the barricade at the end of the tunnel. It seemed plausible enough. Pinto must have known that there had been a witness to his deed, though he probably did not know that this witness had seen only a hand and a knife. It was even possible that the policeman had seen more of the Phantom than the Phantom had seen of him. At any rate, he was doubtless aware that the housekeeper’s words had been addressed to someone hidden in the opening back of the revolving frame. Fearing that this person would betray him, he had quickly slammed the frame into place, after which he had run around to Doctor Bimble’s cellar and blocked the mouth of the passage, intending that the witness to his crime should smother to death.
So much seemed clear; at least it furnished a hypothesis in the light of which the strange events of the night before were explainable. The only puzzling factor in the situation was the disappearance of the body. The Phantom, cudgel his wits as he might, could see no other solution than that the murderer must have removed it. No one else would have been likely to do so. If the body had been found by anyone else the matter would have been promptly reported to the police, and without doubt another crime would have been chalked up against the Gray Phantom. Scanning the mystery from every angle, the Phantom could see no other explanation than that the body had been concealed by the murderer.
“But why?” he asked himself. So far as he could see, the murderer could have had no reason for covering up the crime, which in the absence of contrary proof would have been imputed to the Gray Phantom. The police and the press would have jumped instantly to the conclusion that the arch-rogue had followed up the killing of Gage with the murder of the housekeeper, and their fertile brains could easily have invented several plausible motives. This, to all appearances, would have suited the murderer to perfection. Why, then, had he gone out of his way to keep the crime secret?
The Phantom’s mind churned the problem for several minutes before the answer came to him. As is often the case, it was so ludicrously simple that he wondered why he had not seen it at once.
“Clear as daylight!” he decided. “The murderer knew the crime couldn’t be fastened on me, because I had an alibi. I was in jail, so to speak, when the murder was committed. Of course, I was in jail only by proxy, the real prisoner being Tommie Granger, but the murderer didn’t know that until later. He thought I was locked up, and that was enough for him.”
The Phantom backed out of the room. His visit to the scene of the two murders had helped him to clarify certain problems, but he had accomplished nothing definite. His suspicions in regard to Pinto had become stronger, but as yet he had not a shred of actual proof against the man. He considered what his next step should be as he walked across the store and started up the stairs. For several reasons, he decided, he must have a talk with Thomas Granger at once.
He paused for an instant outside the housekeeper’s bedroom, then walked on to the next door, which opened into a kitchen. The third door, the one farthest down the hall, gave access to a large room, and the tall tiers of boxes and packing cases indicated that Gage had used it for storage purposes. Abstractedly he let the gleam of his electric flash glide over the floor and the long, jagged cracks in the begrimed ceiling. He was looking for nothing in particular, and apparently there was nothing to find.
Yet, as he started to walk out, something held him. He could not analyze the sensation at first, but it was one he had experienced before, and it was associated in his mind with dreadful and awe-inspiring things. He could not name it, but it gave him the impression that he stood in the presence of death.
He started forward, but of a sudden he checked himself and listened intently to sounds coming from the direction of the stairs. They were short, creaking, and irregular sounds, like those produced by a heavy man when he tries to walk lightly, and they gave the Phantom an impression of hesitancy and furtiveness.
The stealthy footfalls drew nearer. Quietly the Phantom pushed the door shut, took the pistol from his pocket, and stepped behind a row of packing cases. The footsteps were now almost at the door. An interval of silence came, as if the person outside were hesitating before he entered, then the door came open and a dark shape prowled across the floor.
CHAPTER XVI—THE OTHER LINK
The room was in total darkness save for a tiny sliver of light filtering in through a crack between the packing cases stacked against the window. The prowler advanced gropingly after closing the door behind him, and from time to time he cleared his throat with little rasping sounds, as some persons do when laboring under intense excitement.
The Phantom, wedged in a narrow opening between two rows of boxes, presently heard a faint scraping, as if the intruder were passing his hand back and forth in search of a light switch. All he could see was a shadow moving hither and thither in the gloom, but the prowler’s quick breathing and jerky footsteps told that, whatever might be his errand, he was going about it in a state of great trepidation.
A sudden flash of light caused the Phantom to press hard against the wall, for he wished to ascertain the other’s business before making his presence known. He judged from the sounds made by the prowler that he must be at the opposite side of the room, and a succession of loud, creaking noises indicated that he was dragging some of the cases away from the wall. After a little the sounds ceased and the only audible thing was the prowler’s hard panting, mingling now and then with a low, hoarse mutter.
The Phantom stood very still. A curious feeling was stealing over him. It was the same weird and oppressive sensation he had experienced shortly after entering the room, but now it was more pronounced, filling him with a sense of awe which he could not understand.
The prowler’s footfalls, moving toward the door, broke the spell. The Phantom, casting off the uncomfortable sensation with a shrug of his shoulders, stepped out from his hiding place just as a hand gripped the doorknob.
“Hello, Pinto!” He spoke in a drawl, toying carelessly with his pistol. Out of the corner of an eye he slanted a look at an object lying on the floor. It had not been there when he entered.
The patrolman’s face had been white even before he spoke; now it was ashen and ghastly. His eyes, wide with horror, bored into the Phantom’s face. Several times he moistened his twitching lips before he was able to speak.
“Where did you co—come from?” he gasped.
“Why, nowhere in particular. Just taking a walk. Changed my mind about going home. But don’t look at me as if I was a ghost. Makes me nervous. Great heavens, what’s this?”
He started at the grewsome heap on the floor as if he had just now chanced to cast eye upon it. Pinto made a heroic effort to steady himself. His quavering gaze moved reluctantly toward the motionless form lying a few feet from where he stood.
“That’s—that’s Mrs. Trippe,” he announced, twisting his head and working his Adam’s apple as if on the point of choking.
“So I see.” The Phantom stepped closer to the body, regarded it gravely for a few moments, then lifted his narrowing gaze to the policeman’s twitching face. “Where did it come from, Pinto?”
The officer was gradually gaining control of himself. He took out his handkerchief and mopped his perspiring forehead. “Awful sight—ain’t it, Granger? I thought I heard some kind of racket just as I was passing the house. I tried the doors, and the one at the side was unlocked. I thought it was queer, for I had made sure it was locked when I passed the other time, so I ran up the stairs and looked around. When I came in here and turned on the light, I found that thing lying there. It broke me all up. Fine scoop for your paper, Granger, if you grab it before the other reporters do.”
Smiling, the Phantom looked Pinto squarely in the eye. “Your story needs a little dressing up. It doesn’t hang together. Maybe you would have been able to think up a better one if your nerves hadn’t been on the jump. For one thing, Pinto, no cop goes into hysterics at sight of a dead body unless his conscience is giving him the jimjams. For another, you didn’t find the body where it is lying now. Unless I am very much mistaken, you dragged it out from behind those packing cases.”
He pointed to a corner of the room where several large boxes had been displaced. The shamefaced expression of a man caught in a clumsy lie mingled with the look of dread in Pinto’s countenance.
“What you driving at?” he demanded with a feeble show of bluster.
The Phantom’s mind worked quickly. In the last fifteen minutes his suspicions in regard to Pinto had become a certainty. The policeman’s conduct left not a shred of doubt as to his guilt, but the evidence the law would require was still lacking. Pinto would soon gather his wits and invent a more plausible explanation than the one he had just given, and on an issue of veracity between the Gray Phantom and an officer of the law, the latter would have all the advantages. The Phantom, swiftly appraising the situation, saw that his only hope lay in subtler tactics. Perhaps by adroitly working on the policeman’s evident pusillanimity he could induce him to make a clean breast of it.
“The game’s up, Pinto,” he said sternly. “You murdered Mrs. Trippe, just as you murdered Gage. Better come clean.”
A ghastly grin wrinkled the patrolman’s face. “Think so, eh? You newspaper guys think you’re pretty wise, don’t you? Well, what proof have you got?”
For answer the Phantom decided on a random thrust. He took a pencil and a sheet of paper from his pocket and, placing his pistol on a packing case, roughly sketched a ducal coronet. He held the design close to the patrolman’s eyes.
Pinto glanced at the sketch. With a hoarse cry he shrank back a step, but in a moment, by an exertion of will power, he had partly mastered his emotion. He guffawed loudly.
“Looks like a crow’s nest to me,” he gibed.
“You recognized it just the same, Pinto. Your face told me you did, so there’s no use denying it. You’re a member of the Duke’s crew. You had orders to kill Gage, and you did. It was fairly clever, too, the way you arranged things so suspicion would fall on—ahem, on the Gray Phantom. But the housekeeper somehow saw through you. She was wise to you. And so, fearing she might tell what she knew and send you to the chair, you killed her, too. Then——”
“You’ve got some imagination, you have!” jeered the policeman, struggling hard to maintain a grip on himself.
“Then,” continued the Phantom coolly, “you carried the body up here and hid it. Not a very clever move, but you were scared at the time, and people do queer things when they are panicky. You realized the Phantom couldn’t be blamed for the murder of Mrs. Trippe, for he was in jail when the job was done. Anyhow, everybody thought he was, which amounted to the same thing. You were in no condition to reason things out, and the only safe way out of the mess you had made seemed to be to hide the body. It would postpone discovery of the murder for a while and give you a chance to think. The hiding place you picked wasn’t a very good one, but it was the best you could find in a hurry.”
“Yeah?” taunted Pinto. “Been hitting the booze again, ain’t you?”
“No; I’m sober for once. Well, Pinto, after our little talk a while ago you were a bit worried. You knew someone would find the body sooner or later, and you thought things would look better all around if you were the one to find it. Anyhow, there was no reason for keeping it hidden longer after it turned out that the police had nabbed the wrong man and the Phantom had no alibi. I suppose if I hadn’t stopped you when I did, you would now be at the telephone reporting your discovery to the station house.”
As he spoke, the Phantom studied every change of expression in the other’s face. Pinto winced as if each word had been a needle prick, but he seemed to be drawing on a reserve force of fortitude, for his courage was rising rather than ebbing.
“After pulling all that dream stuff,” he said sneeringly, “mebbe you’ll come across with the evidence.”
“Sure thing.” The Phantom’s tones belied his crumbling hopes. He realized he had no evidence, and Pinto showed no signs of breaking down. “If what I’ve said doesn’t hit the bull’s-eye, why did you sneak in here and drag the body out from behind the packing cases? You seemed to be making a bee line for it. How did you know it was there?”
“So that’s what you call evidence!” Pinto sneered. “I guess if it comes down to brass tacks, my word’s as good as yours. Now that you’ve got all that stuff off your chest, mebbe you’ll answer a question or two, and you might begin by telling what you’re doing here yourself.”
“A reporter goes everywhere.”
“Reporter—huh! You’ve been on the Sphere four weeks, and soused half the time. You came here from Kansas City. You worked on a newspaper there only a week or two, according to the dope the department got. Seems you’ve been tramping around a lot in your days. Mebbe you’re an honest-to-goodness reporter, and mebbe you’re not. I’ve got a hunch of my own.”
“Let’s hear it,” said the Phantom lightly, though inwardly he felt somewhat uneasy. Pinto’s gaze, constantly searching his face, was growing keener with every passing moment.
“Well, it looks mighty queer to me that you showed up in this burg just a few weeks ahead of the Phantom, especially since you two look so much alike. What’s queerer still is that you got pinched the other day just when the Phantom was as good as caught in the net. He would have been hauled in if you hadn’t been grabbed by mistake.”
“So, that’s it.” The Phantom chuckled amusedly. “Just because it happened that way, you’re thinking that I am acting as a foil for the Gray Phantom.”
“You got me just right, Granger. I’m thinking that, though I’m not saying much about it yet. Here’s another little thing I’d like to get your opinion on.” He came a step closer, looked hard at the Phantom, and put the question sharply. “What’s become of Helen Hardwick?”
“He-Helen Hardwick?” The Phantom stood rigid, mouth gaping and eyes staring.
“She’s the one. They say the Phantom has a crush on her and that it was on her account he handed the Duke that wallop some months ago. She’s supposed——”
The Phantom, his face deathly white, clutched Pinto’s arm in a grip that made the policeman squirm. “What about Miss Hardwick?” he demanded hoarsely. “Has anything happened to her? Speak, man!”
Pinto freed his arm and gave him a searching look. “All I know is that she’s missing, and I thought mebbe you——”
“Missing?” echoed the Phantom sharply. “What do you mean? Speak up!”
In his excitement he did not see that the look of perplexity in Pinto’s eyes had given way to a cunning twinkle. In another moment the policeman had acted with a precision and a swiftness that indicated he was a far shrewder man that his looks led one to think. In an instant the pistol had been beaten from the Phantom’s numb hand and in the space of a few seconds a steel link was gyved around his wrist.
“There, Mr. Gray Phantom!” exclaimed the policeman with a triumphant chuckle. “I guess you won’t get away from me this time!”
The Phantom, at last sensing his danger, jumped to one side, but already the other link was fastened around the policeman’s wrist. Pinto’s words regarding Helen Hardwick had stunned him momentarily, and he had not seen his peril until it was too late. Now he was a prisoner, handcuffed to his captor!
“This is more like it!” exclaimed the policeman, kicking aside the pistol his prisoner had dropped and shoving his own weapon against the Phantom’s diaphragm. “I’ve had a hunch all along that, if you weren’t the Phantom himself, you were his alibi. I’m wise now, all right. You gave yourself away when I spoke the name of the moll. You turned white to the gills and almost jumped out of your shoes. Guess you forgot to play your rôle that time, Mr. Phantom. Granger, not being in love with the lady, wouldn’t have thrown a fit like that. Well, we’re off for the station. You can hand ’em the spiel you gave me, and see how much they believe of it.”
“Before we start, tell me what you know of Miss Hardwick,” pleaded the Phantom, for his own plight still seemed of secondary importance.
Pinto shrugged his shoulders. “She’s vamoosed; that’s all I know. Come along. Mebbe she’ll drop in and see you when you’re in jail.”
“Jail!” He braced his weight against the pull at his wrist. “I’m not going to jail—not while Miss Hardwick’s in trouble. You may be a little stronger than I, Pinto, but I’m in better trim, and you can’t budge me.”
The policeman tore at the link, but in vain. The Phantom dropped to the floor, dug his heels into a crack between two boards, and resisted with all his might. Pinto puffed and cursed, but he might as well have tried to lift himself by his own boot straps, and his efforts were further hampered by the necessity of keeping the pistol aimed with his free hand. The glint in his captive’s eyes hinted that he was but waiting for a chance to land a blow with his fist between the policeman’s eyes.
“Say, what’s the use stalling?” argued Pinto, resorting to diplomacy while regaining his breath. “The game’s up.”
The Phantom knew it, but he was playing for time. Some unexpected turn might yet reverse the situation and give him the upper hand.
“You’re done for, and you know it,” said the policeman impressively. “Might as well give in.”
“Wrong, Pinto. You seem convinced that I’m the Gray Phantom, and you ought to know that the Phantom never gives in. I can sit here as long as you can. Don’t you think we had better compromise?”
“Compromise—your grandmother!” grumbled Pinto. “You’ll never get out of this.”
Still pointing the muzzle at his prisoner, he brought the butt of the weapon close to one of his pockets. Two fingers reached down and extracted a police whistle, and in an instant it was between his lips, giving forth a shrill blast. He waited expectantly for a few moments. Again and again the whistle shrieked, but no response came.
The Phantom grinned. “The acoustics are not all that might be desired. The windows are closed, and there are several heavy walls between here and the street. I fear, Pinto, that your lung power is going to waste.”
Disgustedly Pinto dropped the whistle. He considered for a moment, then a grim smile lit up his face.
“You’ve sung your last tune, Mr. Phantom,” he muttered. “There’s always a way to handle the likes of you.”
As he spoke, he quickly shifted his hold on the pistol, and in another moment the handle crashed down on the prisoner’s head. Of a sudden the Phantom felt himself grow limp. A laugh broke hoarsely through the gloom that descended upon him. He heard a voice, but it sounded faint and remote, as if coming to him across a vast chasm.
“Guess you won’t get out of that!”
Then, miles away, a door slammed. He exerted a supreme effort to shake off the numbness brought on by the unexpected blow. His eyes fluttered open. His mind struggled out of the blinding haze. The light was still on, and his staring eyes flitted slowly about the room. It seemed only a moment ago that the door had slammed. Pinto was nowhere in sight, and for a moment he wondered at this.
Then, his mind clearing, it came to him that the policeman had gone out to summon assistance. He had had his lesson, and this time he was taking no chances with so dangerous and elusive a prisoner as the Gray Phantom. Doubtless he would be back in a few moments, and then——
He raised himself to a sitting posture. A hideous recollection electrified his body and mind. Helen Hardwick was missing, Pinto had said. Perhaps she was in trouble; perhaps some desperate danger confronted her. He must find her at once, and he must get out of the room before Pinto returned with reënforcements.
He tried to rise, but something restrained him. It was the steel link around his wrist. Only a moment ago, so it seemed, the other link had been fastened to Pinto’s hand. Now——
A groan of horror broke from his lips as he saw the thing to which he was linked by a band of steel. Pinto had, indeed, taken no chances. Even if the Phantom could get out of the room, his hand would be chained to the cold, dead hand of the housekeeper.