CHAPTER XVII—THE DUKE’S MESSENGER
In vain the Phantom spurred his wits to find a way out, but the thought that hurt him most was that he was helpless at a moment when Helen Hardwick might be in danger.
What had happened to her? His imagination pictured one fearful possibility after another. The one that seemed most likely was that the Duke’s agents, aware of the Phantom’s interest in the girl, had lured her into a trap. The Duke, thorough and artful in all things, could be depended upon to miss no opportunity to make his revenge complete.
He tried to clear his mind of harrowing surmises. His situation was desperate, and now as never before he needed to think coolly and act quickly. At any moment Pinto might return, and the seconds were precious. The thought that sustained him was that his wits had never yet failed him in an emergency, and that always in the past he had contrived to squeeze out of tight corners by performing some astounding feat.
Yet, was his dismal afterthought, he had never before faced a situation quite like this. To escape with a lifeless form gyved to his hand was out of the question. He looked swiftly about the room, but saw nothing that suggested a means of deliverance. Even the pistol he had dropped had been removed by the thoughtful Pinto. If he escaped, was his conclusion, it would be only by a stroke of amazing luck.
Suddenly, as a new thought came to him, he thrust his free hand into his inside breast pocket. His face brightened a little. Pinto had overlooked something, after all. His case, with its assortment of carefully selected tools, was still there. Evidently Pinto had not thought it necessary to search his pockets. He took out the little box and ran his eyes over the snugly packed implements, each of which had been prepared with a definite purpose in view.
Quickly he tried several of his sharp-pointed tools in the locks of the handcuffs, but the mechanism was proof against manipulation, and he soon gave up the attempt. Next he picked out a small, fine-toothed saw, but he realized he would only be wasting time if he tried to cut through the chilled steel of which the links were made. It might be done if he had hours at his command.
A step sounded in the hall. One more hope remained. From his case he took a small capsule, pointed at one end and scarcely longer than a pin. It contained a combustible powder, and the Phantom had carried it with him for just such an emergency as this. Now he took one of Granger’s cigarettes from his pocket, inserted the capsule at one end, and put the cigarette in his mouth. Then he returned the case to his pocket and, just as the door came open, was making an elaborate pretense of hunting for a match.
He looked up with an air of unconcern—and in the next instant the cigarette dropped from his gaping lips. He had expected Pinto to walk in with one or more of his colleagues, but instead he saw the dwarfish creature who had handed him the paper bearing the Duke’s emblem.
For a few moments the little man remained in the doorway, sweeping the room with a quick, nervous glance, then closed the door and came forward. Mechanically the Phantom restored the cigarette to his lips while staring at the queer intruder. The electric light lent a yellow tinge to his shriveled face—a face so gloomy and sour that it gave the impression of never having been lit up by a grin. He drew a pistol from his pocket as he approached the Phantom.
“Well, Granger, you sure got into a mess,” he observed, speaking in a wheezy, drawling voice.
“So it seems,” agreed the Phantom, his mind working quickly. “Got a match?”
The weazened individual handed him one, but the Phantom seemed in no hurry to light his cigarette.
“I kinda thought you’d get yourself in bad, the way you carried on,” continued the little man, gazing indifferently at the body. “Didn’t you savvy the note I slipped you?”
“It was plain enough.”
“But you paid no more attention than if it had been an invitation to a dog fight.”
“I didn’t think there was any great rush,” said the Phantom cautiously. “I thought to-morrow would be time enough.”
“Time enough? He, he! Well, you’re a queer one, Granger. Guess you don’t know the big chief the way I do. When he sends for you it means he wants you right away. He’s already kinda leery about you and— But that’s your funeral. Hope for your sake you can square yourself with him. It’s a lucky thing I turned back and got on your trail after slipping you the note.”
The Phantom, wondering what had happened to the policeman, looked uneasily at the door. “Where’s Pinto?” he asked after a pause.
“The cop? Oh, I fixed him. Handed him one from the rear as he was starting down the stairs, and he never knew what struck him. Just gave a grunt and went down like a bag of cement. You see, I’d been standing at the door trying to get the hang of the gabfest between you and him. I couldn’t hear much—only a word now and then—but when the door opens and the cop walks out I know there’s trouble, and so I hand him one on the bean. Say, how much is that cop wise to?”
“Eh?” The Phantom stared for an instant, uncertain how he should play his rôle, but he quickly grasped the threads of the situation. “Oh, Pinto is away off on his hunches. Hasn’t the least idea I’m one of your gang, but thinks I am dragging a red herring across the Phantom’s trail. Rich—what?”
The other chuckled mirthlessly. “I’ll say it is. Well, the cop won’t do any talking for quite a long stretch, and when he comes to things will be kind of hazy in his coco. You’d better come along with me and make your spiel to the big chief. You’ll have to do some tall explaining, and, unless you can square yourself, you may wish the cop had got you.”
There was an ugly smirk on the man’s lips and he spoke the last words as if gloating over the ordeal in store for the other.
The Phantom shrugged his shoulders. “I can explain things to the big chief. What worries me is the bracelet on my wrist!”
“I’ll get the key out of the cop’s pocket,” announced the little man.
The Phantom gazed after him as he left the room. A little while ago he had told himself that only a stroke of magic could save him, and the weazened creature’s appearance at the crucial moment seemed almost miraculous. Yet he looked a trifle dubious.
“I’m coming out of the fire,” he mumbled, “but I haven’t the least idea what the frying pan will be like. The little rat may be hard to shake, and Pinto will spoil my alibi as soon as he comes out of oblivion.”
The small man returned and tossed a metallic object at the Phantom’s feet, then stood aside, with pistol leveled, while the handcuffs were being unlocked. His sharp eyes followed every move the Phantom made, but evidently there was not the faintest suspicion in his mind as to the identity of the man with whom he was dealing. In all likelihood he knew Granger but slightly and had never seen much of him.
“There!” exclaimed the Phantom as the link around his wrist parted. “Pinto will be the most surprised cop in creation when he walks in here and finds the bird flown. I’m dying for a smoke.”
He rose to his feet and struck the match, glancing narrowly at the other as he lighted his cigarette. There was a look of habitual alertness in the little man’s glittering eyes, and the pistol in his hand more than equalized his physical disadvantage.
“Look here, Granger,” he said in harsh, wheezy tones, “I don’t quite know how to size you up, but you and the chief are going to have a chat directly. I’m putting my gat inside my pocket—like this. I’ll have my finger on the trigger all the time, so you’d better watch your step. We’re off.”
He motioned the Phantom to start. With a hard pull on his cigarette, the Phantom drew in all the smoke his mouth could hold, strolled forward with an easy swagger, and, turning abruptly on the little man, blew a cloud of smoke into his face.
The victim gasped, spluttered, and choked, then was seized with an attack of sneezing that racked his sides and convulsed his entire body. Spasm after spasm shook the puny figure until the little man was quite exhausted. Covering his nose and mouth, the Phantom stepped behind him and snatched the pistol from his pocket.
“The sneezing powder worked even better than the last time I tried it,” he observed with a chuckle.
“Ker-choooo!” was the other’s explosive comment. “Ker-chooooo!”
Slowly the acrid fumes drifted toward the ceiling. The little man, with tears streaming from his red-lidded eyes, lurched toward one of the rows of packing cases and leaned against it. The smoke was scattering, but repeated fits of sneezing were still jolting his frame.
The Phantom smothered the cigarette under his heel. A simple trick had turned the situation in his favor, but now he faced another problem. How to dispose of the little man and Pinto was a poser. The former did not worry him, for he had bungled his job miserably, and silence and discretion were highly esteemed virtues in the Duke’s organization.
It was different with Pinto. The policeman had seen through the Phantom’s disguise. Immediately upon recovering consciousness he would report that the Phantom was masquerading as Thomas Granger, and that would be the end of the ruse. The personality he had borrowed would no longer protect the Phantom, and he would once more be a hunted man and obliged to watch his step at every turn.
On the other hand, it was just possible Pinto would not tell what he had discovered. The policeman had a bad conscience, and that in itself made a difference. Besides, the Phantom had twice slipped out of his hands and he had achieved nothing whereof he could boast. His pride and his conscience, each a powerful factor, would be very likely to seal his lips.
Suddenly he smiled. To make doubly sure, he would provide Pinto with a third motive for maintaining silence. Without doubt the policeman shared the average man’s fear of ridicule, and the Phantom could work on that.
The sneezings had ceased. The victim, looking as though every ounce of strength had been drained from him, peered vacantly at the Phantom while the latter removed the second link from the dead woman’s hand. Exhausted by the sneezing fits and deprived of his weapon, he was as helpless as a snake stripped of its poisonous glands.
“Put your hands behind you,” directed the Phantom.
The little man made as if inclined to resist, but thought better of it and obediently put his hands at his back. He uttered a feeble yawp as one of the links was clasped about his wrist. With the other in his hand, the Phantom led him from the room and turned toward the stairs. A dark, inert heap lay at the head of the stairway, with legs sprawling over the steps. It was Pinto.
“Sit down,” ordered the Phantom.
The puny man looked about him dazedly, then sat down on the top step, uttering a weak protest as he found himself handcuffed to the unconscious man.
The Phantom examined Pinto’s head. A large swelling at the back told that the little man had put far more force behind the blow than one would have thought it possible for such a dwarfish creature to exert. The pulse was weak and fluttering, and the eyes had a rigid and glassy look. The Phantom had known of similar cases in which the victims had remained unconscious for days, and many things might happen before Pinto’s mind and tongue were functioning again. Upon awakening and being told that he had been found handcuffed to a rat of the underworld, the policeman, already troubled by an evil conscience and wounded self-respect, would hardly invite the taunts and jeers of his fellow officers by going into exact details. At any rate, the Phantom felt he was playing his best card.
“Say, Granger,” whined the little man, “ain’t going to leave me like this, are you? Not after I got you out of the fix you were in?”
“It is a bit rough on you, I admit, but you will have to make the best of it. Your reasons for getting me out of the scrape weren’t entirely unselfish. I believe it was your intention to put me on the carpet before the big chief.”
The other jerked his head in the direction of the storeroom. “They’ll say I croaked that woman in there,” he muttered.
“Not a chance. Examination of the body will show that the murder was committed more than twenty-four hours ago. What they probably will think is that Pinto caught you in the act of robbery and that you assaulted him after he had handcuffed you to him. One guess will be about as good as another, though, and you will have to lie yourself out of the mess somehow. I wish you luck.”
He started down the stairs, but in the middle he stopped and looked back. What if Pinto should never recover consciousness? If he should die before the two murder mysteries were fully cleared up, the Phantom’s efforts to exculpate himself would encounter a serious hindrance. But nothing was to be gained by worrying over what might happen, he told himself, and just now he had something far more serious to think about. His fears concerning Helen overshadowed all other things.
He went out onto the street. The morning was far advanced and the sun was struggling through a curtain of scattering clouds. The glaring headlines of the morning papers spread out on the news stands at the corner told how the Phantom, after having been seen at an elevated railway station the night before, had once more slipped through the dragnet. After a brief glance at the introductory paragraphs, he crossed the street and entered the telephone booth in the rear of a drug store. There he consulted the directory and called the number of the Hardwick residence.
A woman, evidently a servant, answered. The Phantom announced that he was a reporter on the Sphere and wished to speak with the master of the house. After a few moments’ wait a masculine voice came over the wire. It trembled a little, as if its owner was trying to control an intense excitement. Mr. Hardwick was at first unwilling to discuss the matter, but after repeated urgings admitted that he had requested the police to search for his daughter, who had been missing for two days. She had left home without explanations of any kind, and nothing had been heard from her since. As it was entirely unlike her to go away for any length of time without notifying her father, Mr. Hardwick feared something had happened to her.
The Phantom’s face had a blank look as he emerged from the booth. He remembered Miss Hardwick’s sudden and mysterious disappearance from Doctor Bimble’s laboratory. Something must have befallen her after leaving the scientist’s house, and the fact that she had not communicated with her father was disquieting.
He went out on the sidewalk and turned toward the corner. Of a sudden he was all caution and alertness. Someone was watching him.
CHAPTER XVIII—THE STARTING POINT
The Phantom feigned utter unconcern as he continued toward the corner. His acute senses had instantly registered the fact that he was an object of scrutiny. It vexed him not a little, for he was anxious to get on Helen Hardwick’s trail, and he had no relish for another adventure with the police. He looked about him out of the tail of an eye as he advanced with a leisurely swing.
It took him but a few moments to pick out the watcher from among the sprinkling of loungers and pedestrians on the sidewalk. The man’s dull face and stolid expression did not deceive the Phantom for a moment. He stood with his back against a shop window, and part of his face was hidden by a newspaper he pretended to be reading. The Phantom walked up beside him.
“You’re a detective, aren’t you?”
The man lowered the newspaper and gazed at the questioner out of deceptively sluggish eyes.
“What makes you think so?”
The Phantom chuckled, though he knew he was treading on dangerous ground. It was just possible that Granger, although he had not been long in the city and therefore could not have an extensive police acquaintance, had met this particular detective. A careful study of the man’s face reassured him, however.
“Oh, I spotted you easily enough,” was his answer. “I suppose you have heard of me. I am Thomas Granger, of the Sphere.”
The other gave a slight nod. A faint grin creased his face. “I’ve heard of you, all right. On the day you were pinched, they tell me, you had the beautifulest jag on that’s been seen in this town in many a day. Why don’t you put a fellow wise to your source of supply?”
“I may,” with a knowing wink, “if you promise not to jug me again.”
“Well, you needn’t rub it in, Granger. You look a lot like the Gray Phantom. If you didn’t have those glad rags on, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. I never met the Phantom face to face, but judging from his picture I should say you’re as much alike as two peas. By the way, my name is Culligore—Lieutenant Culligore.”
The Phantom repressed a start. He had seen the name in the earlier newspaper accounts of the murder and remembered that Culligore had been one of the detectives assigned to the case. He wondered whether it were possible that he and Granger had not met while the reporter was getting the facts of the tragedy for his paper. The detective’s face showed no sign of suspicion, but the Phantom noticed that he had an odd habit of rubbing his upper lip against the tip of his nose, and the little mannerism impressed him as significant of deep and devious mental processes.
“That reminds me!” he exclaimed suddenly, as if just recalling something. “There’s been a brand-new murder committed over at the Gage house.”
The detective lifted his brows.
“I was snooping around, hoping to find some new twist to the case,” explained the Phantom. “In a storeroom on the second floor I found the body of the housekeeper. She looked as though she had been dead a good many hours. Pinto is lying on the stairs with a bump on the back of his head, and he’s handcuffed to a little shrimp that looks like a dope fiend.”
Lieutenant Culligore stared as he heard the strange report. “Been drinking again?”
“Go and see for yourself.”
Culligore at last showed signs of activity. “Better come along,” he suggested. “If you’ve been telling me the truth, there ought to be a good story in it for you.”
“I’ve seen enough. Going back to the office to write it up.”
The two parted. As Culligore started to cross the street, he made a curious motion with his hand, and the Phantom fancied he was signaling someone on the other side. He walked briskly toward the elevated station. Evidently Culligore had put a colleague on his trail, thereby showing that he was not so unsuspecting as the Phantom had thought. He ascended the stairs and walked out onto the platform without a single backward glance, but his ears, trained to catch and classify the slightest sounds, told him a pursuer was behind him.
The train, a southbound one, was crowded with passengers. The Phantom selected a strap near the rear end of one of the cars. The many curious glances leveled in his direction told him he was being recognized as the newspaper reporter who had won fame by being mistaken for the Gray Phantom and whose photograph had appeared side by side with that of the notorious rogue. While ostensibly absorbed in an advertisement, he cast a sidelong glance at the platform of the car just ahead. The brief glimpse sufficed to identify his pursuer as a broad-shouldered individual in a brown suit, whose rather commonplace features were shaded by the brim of a derby.
The Phantom was in a quandary. He could accomplish nothing with a “shadow” at his heels, and there was something maddening in the thought that he was losing time while Helen Hardwick might be in danger. He could probably elude his pursuer without much difficulty, but that would be a confession that he had something to hide, and might possibly result in his being picked up on a general alarm. He was safe behind the personality of Thomas Granger only so long as he did not engage in suspicious conduct.
An idea flashed in his mind as he caught a glimpse of the skyscrapers of City Hall Park. He would take the bull by the horns, he decided. The safest and surest way of averting suspicion from himself was to play his borrowed rôle boldly and thoroughly. He would proceed at once to the offices of the Sphere and make a judiciously colored report of the latest affair at the Gage house. It was a dangerous experiment, but the Phantom believed he could carry it out. A bold play, a bit of clever acting, and the usual accompaniment of good luck were all that was necessary.
He was still conscious of pursuit as he alighted and turned in the direction of the Sphere Building. A glance at the bulletin board in the rotunda showed him the location of the editorial rooms, and he ascended in the elevator. The mirrors lining the walls of the cage threw back at him a reflection showing signs of suspense, worry, and want of sleep. His face was drawn and furrowed, and the usual luster of his eyes was a trifle dimmed, but these symptoms might also be indications of heavy drinking, and they enhanced his resemblance to Granger.
The building throbbed with the pulsations of presses. From above, like a continuous rattle of shrapnel, came the din and clatter of the linotypes. Faint odors of ink and whiffs from the sterotyping and photo-engraving plants hung in the air.
The Phantom stepped out with a jaunty appearance, though inwardly he was quailing a trifle. A sign on frosted glass told him which door to enter, and a red-haired youth presiding at a desk in an anteroom grinned broadly as he passed through. A dozen typewriters jabbered noisily in the room beyond. As the Phantom walked in, a spectacled, shirt-sleeved man seated at a desk near the entrance looked up and regarded him with twinkling eyes.
“‘Lo, Granger,” was his good-humored greeting. “Understand ‘Old War Horse’ tied a can to you last night.”
“Did he?” asked the Phantom, guessing that the individual referred to was the autocrat who had ordered Granger bounced. “It was a large night, and I don’t remember the minor details.” He looked uncertainly about the room, as if his vision was a trifle clouded. “Where is the old fire-eater? Don’t see him around.”
“Of course, you don’t.” The spectacled man laughed. “Old War Horse is in bed, where he belongs. I guess you haven’t quite recovered your bearings yet, or you’d know that Slossdick is on the day shift. I see him looking this way, as if he had designs on you.”
The Phantom trailed the spectacled man’s glance to a glass-partioned cubby-hole at the other end of the room, where a bald and sharp-nosed man sat at a desk. He advanced airily, grinning in response to the knowing winks and well-meant banter that followed him, and boldly approached the scowling personage at the desk.
“Don’t you know you’re fired?” demanded Slossdick, jabbing at a page of “copy” with his pencil.
“Am I?” inquired the Phantom innocently. He spoke with a little catch, as if he had a slight cold, and he avoided the sunlight streaming in through the window. “It hadn’t occurred to me.”
“No? Old War Horse had you kicked out, didn’t he? You’d been insulting him again, I understand.” Slossdick’s devastating pencil ripped an entire paragraph out of the copy before him. “What’s biting you this morning?”
“Nothing,” said the Phantom blandly. “Just thought you might like to know that there’s been another murder at the Gage house.”
The slashings of Slossdick’s pencil ceased abruptly. He swept the Phantom’s face with a quick, searching glance. Briefly the impostor told as much as he thought prudent, describing the scene in the storeroom and at the head of the stairs, without telling of his own part in the night’s events or of Pinto’s mysterious conduct. He was not yet ready to accuse the policeman openly, and for the present it suited his purpose to leave the affair vague and mysterious.
There was a flicker of interest in Slossdick’s eyes. “Housekeeper murdered and policeman lying at the head of the stairs handcuffed to a dope. Rattling good yarn, Granger. But”—and a look of doubt crept into his face—“we’ve had nothing from the police on this.”
“Good reason. The police didn’t know of it till a few minutes ago. If you hurry, you will beat the other papers to it.”
Slossdick snatched up the telephone and called a department. “First page make-over,” he snapped when the connection had been established. Then, turning to the Phantom: “Think you can see the typewriter keys this morning?”
The Phantom quavered inwardly. Typewriting was not among his accomplishments, and the entire proceeding was strange to him. He hesitated, noticing that the rumble of the presses had already ceased.
“Well, never mind,” grumbled Slossdick, his pencil already at work on an eight-column caption. “Give the dope to Fessenden and let him write it. Then go home and get some sleep. You look as if you needed it. And, for the love of Mike, steer clear of the booze! Fessenden!”
In response to the explosive shout, a lanky and dyspeptic-looking man appeared at the door to the cubby-hole. After receiving a few terse directions from Slossdick, he led the Phantom to his desk and sat down before his typewriter. He inserted a sheet of paper in the machine while listening, and his fingers were racing over the keys even before the Phantom had finished his recital.
“Bully yarn you’ve turned up,” came his appreciative comment over the clatter of the keys. “A peach!”
The Phantom walked away. The story would, of course, rouse another storm of indignation against himself, but there was no help for that. On the whole, he had bettered his chances and enhanced his temporary safety by giving the Sphere a start of twenty minutes or half an hour in its race against competing newspapers.
His shadow was nowhere in sight as he emerged from the building. Either the man’s suspicions had been disarmed by the Phantom’s move, or else he had grown tired of waiting and dropped into a near-by restaurant for a bite of food. Standing at the curb, the Phantom glanced stealthily to right and left. There was no sign of espionage in either direction. At last he was free to begin his search for Helen Hardwick, but the trail seemed to have neither beginning nor end. In vain he searched his mind for a starting point.
His hands were in his pockets, and presently his absently groping fingers touched a piece of paper. He drew it out, starting as his eyes fell on the ducal coronet.
“Guess I’ll see Granger,” he reflected. “I have a strong hunch he is my starting point.”
CHAPTER XIX—THE BIG STORY
“How is your guest, Peng Yuen?” was the Phantom’s first question after entering the shop on Pell Street.
The Chinaman’s eyes widened. “The guest? Ah, yes, I remember. I think the gentleman is well.”
“Has he telephoned anyone, or sent out any messages?”
“No; he has remained in his room all the time. He asked me this morning for something to read, and I gave him a translation of ‘Chin-Kong-Ching.’”
“Good. I have come to have a talk with him.”
“Very well.” The slight figure, arrayed in loose-fitting, straw-colored garments, stepped to the wall with the softly gliding gait characteristic of his race. He pressed a button, and the Phantom passed through an opening which instantly closed behind him.
Granger, lying on a couch, looked up drowsily. The little room had neither windows nor visible door. Air was wafted in through a mysterious recess in a corner of the ceiling, and a shaded lamp shed a greenish light over the scene. The walls were covered with yellow satin embroidered with quotations from Chinese philosophers. On a table standing near the couch were the remnants of a breakfast.
“Fairly comfortable, I see.” The Phantom sat down. His glance, though seemingly casual, was taking in every detail of the reporter’s appearance, “How are you feeling?”
“Rotten!” Granger rubbed his eyes and scowled disgustedly. “I asked the chink for something to drink, and he brought me a mess that tasted like vinegar and molasses. Then I dropped a hint that I would like some reading matter, and he handed me a book that put me to sleep before I had turned the first page. Say, how much longer are you going to sport my clothes and wear my name?”
“No longer than I have to. Your name suits me well enough, but our tastes in clothes differ.”
Granger grinned. He was comfortably stretched out on his back and his eyes were lazily studying the arabesques in the ceiling.
“Anyhow, my clothes are harmless. That’s more than can be said for my name. On the square, I am surprised to see you this morning.”
“Why so?”
There was a twinkle in the reporter’s eyes as he turned them on the Phantom. “Because you went in for a lot of trouble when you annexed my identity. I was pickled last night, and you took my breath away when you yanked off the mustache. Till then I hadn’t had the faintest idea that my abductor was the Gray Phantom. If I hadn’t been so flabbergasted I might have given you a friendly tip.”
“A tip?”
“To the effect that Tommie Granger was a marked man. I’ll tell you something interesting if you promise not to fall out of the chair. I am a member of the Duke’s gang.”
The Phantom’s brows went up. For several hours he had been aware of Granger’s membership in the criminal organization, but the glib admission surprised him. He had intended to pull the Duke’s communication out of his pocket with a dramatic gesture and startle a confession out of the reporter and he was wholly unprepared for the latter’s frank and voluntary avowal.
“Surprised you, didn’t it?” Granger chuckled as if mildly amused. “I can hardly get used to the idea myself. Membership in that gang of cutthroats and grafters is nothing to be proud of, exactly. I’ve always had a sneaking admiration for the Gray Phantom, but the Duke’s different. He’s smooth and artful enough, but he’s made of coarser stuff.”
“Yet you are a member of his organization?”
“Sounds contradictory, doesn’t it? Well, since I have told you the beginning, I’ll have to tell you the rest. The cause of it all dates back to my birth. I came into the world with the face I’m wearing to-day, though it’s undergone a process of beautification in the intervening years. You see, my face is the mainspring that has determined most of my actions in recent years—some of the more important ones, anyhow. I wouldn’t be a newspaper man to-day if I had been born with a different face.”
“I don’t see the connection.”
“Let me tell you how it came about. On seven different occasions, and in as many different places, I have been mistaken for the Gray Phantom and put in durance vile. The clippings in my scrapbook tell all about it. I was in Cheyenne, Wyoming, the first time it happened, and after I had satisfied the police dunderheads as to my identity, the editor of one of the local papers asked me to write up my impressions while in jail and tell how it felt to be mistaken for a celebrity like the Gray Phantom. I did, and that gave me a taste for newspaper work. The editor gave me a job on the spot and I’ve——”
“But what has all this to do with your membership in the Duke’s gang?” interrupted the Phantom impatiently.
“Everything. I’ve been plugging away at the newspaper game ever since I got my start in Cheyenne. I never stayed long in a place, for I have something of a roving disposition and like change of scenery now and then. My face got me in bad almost wherever I went. I had no sooner struck a new town than some ambitious dick thought he saw a chance to get famous by pinching the Gray Phantom. Of course, that always meant a stretch in the lock-up—anything from two days to a week. I used to lie awake nights imagining that I was in reality the Gray Phantom and dreaming of great criminal exploits. That got me interested in crime and criminals, and I began making a study of the subject.
“Finally, I drifted into New York and landed on the Sphere. One night while prowling about the Chatham Square section I dropped into a Turkish coffee house. It was a low joint, a hangout for thugs and thieves. While sipping my coffee I made a study of the different types around me. One fellow interested me in particular. He was an evil-looking cuss, but there was something about him that fascinated me. He looked something like a Stevensonian pirate, and he had a great scar over his left eye. Presently I began to notice that he was looking my way now and then, and finally I motioned to him to come and sit beside me. We talked in whispers, like everybody else in the joint, and by and by he asked me if I was not the Gray Phantom.
“He seemed disappointed when I told him I was only the Phantom’s double. We talked on for a while, and the next night we met again in the same place. The fellow piqued my curiosity, and I tried to draw him out whenever I had a chance. I knew he would shut up like a clam if I told him my profession, so I let him think I was a crook, though I didn’t go into details. We met night after night, and each time we were more confidential. I could tell he had something on his mind that he didn’t know just how to put into words, and of course, I did my best to lead him on. He approached the subject by slow and easy stages, dropping a cautious hint now and then. Finally, when he had convinced himself that I was to be trusted, he told me he belonged to a big criminal band and asked me if I would like to join.”
“So that’s how you happened to become a member of the Duke’s organization?” observed the Phantom.
“To cut a long story short, that was the way it happened. I thought I could work the salamander stunt—play with fire without getting burned. The idea of getting on the inside of a big gang of crooks and studying its members at close quarters appealed to me. Aside from that, I saw a chance to turn up a big story for my paper, for it was my intention to get the goods on the gang and, eventually, hand it over to the police. But”—and a rueful smile wrinkled Granger’s face—“I soon discovered that one can’t play with fire without getting scorched.”
“That explains,” mumbled the Phantom thoughtfully, at the same time extending the communication handed him by the Duke’s messenger. “There’s a message worked into the design which is readable only under the lens. It’s a pleasant reminder of what happens to traitors.”
“Yes. I know. I received several such reminders before you came along and borrowed my clothes and name. I wasn’t really a traitor, though. I merely refused to obey certain orders they gave me.”
“You might have known that you would be expected to take part in the gang’s activities. You didn’t expect to be a member only in name?”
“Well, I thought I could stall for a while, till I got the dope I wanted. You see, I was hoping they wouldn’t ask me to do any of the rough stuff till I had been a member for a while. I soon discovered my mistake.”
“And so the big story will never materialize?”
“I’m afraid it won’t. My obituary is the only kind of story that’s likely to grow out of this adventure of mine. The Duke’s crew doesn’t stand for any nonsense. I’ve been told that members who don’t obey orders usually disappear under mysterious circumstances. I never got next to the inner circle of the gang. I suppose they didn’t trust me because I took a drink too many now and then. Anyhow, I didn’t get the stuff I was after. I was a sort of probationer, reporting to one of the big chief’s lieutenants, and I didn’t get as much as a glimpse of the inner sanctum.”
“Too bad, Granger.” The disappointment written on the reporter’s face seemed so ludicrous that the Phantom could not repress a smile. “Maybe it isn’t too late yet. By the way,” starting suddenly from his chair, “have you any idea where Helen Hardwick is?”
For a moment or two the reporter lay rigid on his back; then he jumped up and stared in dumfounded amazement at the Phantom.
“Why do you ask?” he inquired hoarsely, after a pause during which each man looked the other straight in the eye.
“Answer my question and I’ll tell you my reason for asking it.”
Granger swallowed hard. “Has anything happened to Miss Hardwick?”
“She has disappeared. Left her home two days ago and hasn’t been heard from since. Her father has asked the police to search for her.”
“Good Lord!” Granger groaned. “This is awful!”
The Phantom gripped his arm. “Tell me what you know,” he commanded. “Your looks show that you are not entirely ignorant of the matter.”
The reporter’s face twitched. “I can guess what’s happened to her,” he declared, speaking in thick accents, “but I haven’t the least idea where she is.”
“Well, what do you think has happened to her?”
“She’s been kid—kidnaped.” As if to steady his nerves, Granger picked up a cigarette and lighted it.
“How do you know that?”
“Because I”—Granger drew in a whiff of smoke—“because I know the Duke’s crowd wanted her abducted. They asked me to do it, and I balked. I couldn’t—well, it simply went against the grain to do a thing like that. It was my refusal to do as they told me that got me in bad with the gang.”
The Phantom’s blood was slowly receding from his face. For a moment he sat rigid, lips tightly compressed, as if stunned. “Why did the Duke’s crowd want Miss Hardwick kidnaped?”
“That I can’t tell you. The leaders simply issue orders; they never explain their motives. I haven’t the faintest idea what their reason for abducting Miss Hardwick could be.”
Silence fell between them. The Phantom’s steely gaze continued to search the other’s face. Though evidently shocked by the news of Miss Hardwick’s disappearance, the reporter did not once lower his eyes.
“They must have got somebody else to do it after I refused,” he muttered, slowly getting a grip on himself. “Wish I had a drink.”
The Phantom was hardly listening. His knitted brows told that his mind was struggling with a problem.
“Know an officer named Pinto?” he asked abruptly.
“I think I’ve heard of him.”
The Phantom gave a brief summary of his adventures since arriving in the city. Granger listened attentively, his eyes expressing a mingling of astonishment and admiration. They opened wide as the narrator described the scene in the storeroom and Pinto’s peculiar behavior, and he chuckled appreciatively at the account of the impostor’s visit to the Sphere office.
“That’s the Phantom all over!” he remarked when the story was finished. “It’s the nerviest thing I ever heard of. But what you have told me only puts a few extra kinks in the mystery.”
The Phantom nodded thoughtfully. “How well do you know Miss Hardwick?”
“Scarcely at all. I have never met her. She called me up at the Sphere office the day after the murder and asked me a lot of questions. I referred her to Doctor Bimble.”
“So she told me.”
“Bimble is a nut, but he has done several brilliant things along lines of criminology. I was busy the day Miss Hardwick called me up, and I got a little jolt when she told me her name. The thing was natural enough, of course, but it seemed a bit weird to be talking to the person I had been asked to kidnap. Well, I thought the easiest way to dispose of her was to suggest that she see Bimble.”
The Phantom looked puzzled. “You never saw Miss Hardwick, and you have talked with her only over the telephone,” he murmured. “That being the case, I wonder why Pinto asked me, while we were in the storeroom this morning, if I knew what had become of Miss Hardwick.”
“Rumor has it that a romantic attachment exists between Miss Hardwick and the Gray Phantom. Pinto must have heard something about it.”
“But at the time he put the question he had not the faintest idea that I was the Gray Phantom. He still thought I was Thomas Granger. It was my way of responding to the question that aroused his suspicions. Now, he must have had some reason for supposing that Thomas Granger knew something of what had happened to Miss Hardwick.”
Granger considered. “Miss Hardwick may have told him about consulting me. But I think it just as likely that Pinto was playing a bit of clever strategy—that he had already suspected your identity and sprung that question about Miss Hardwick in the hope that you would betray yourself.”
“Perhaps.” The reporter’s theory seemed so natural that the Phantom wondered why it had not occurred to him before. “If that was his purpose, the trick worked beautifully. Tell me, was it before or after the murder of Gage that the Duke’s men came to you with the kidnaping proposition?”
Granger stared hard for an instant; then a glint of admiration appeared in his eyes. “Gray Phantom, you ought to have been a detective. That’s as neat a piece of mental acrobatics as I’ve seen in many a day. The proposal came to me a few days before Gage was murdered.”
“But the two plots might have been hatched simultaneously?”
“They might. I see what you are driving at. You think the two plots were related to a single object. Perhaps you are right.”
“Granger, you don’t think I murdered Gage?”
“No,” after a long pause; “but neither can I tell you who did. You, of course, are going on the presumption that Pinto is the culprit.”
The Phantom looked a trifle bewildered. The reporter had read his mind.
Granger chuckled. “I can see in which direction your mind is working. You think the bolted door and other circumstances prove that no one but Pinto could have committed the murder. You believe that after killing Gage he murdered the housekeeper in order to silence her. Pinto’s queer conduct, especially the stunt he pulled off in the storeroom this morning, is sufficient proof, to your way of thinking, and you base your entire case on the guess that Pinto is a member of the Duke’s gang.”
“Don’t you agree with me? I read between the lines of your stories in the Sphere that you did not share the generally accepted opinion.”
Granger looked up quickly. “The devil you did! I didn’t mean to air my private opinions. It must have been a subconscious process. To be perfectly frank, I don’t know whether I agree with you or not. I have an idea of my own on the subject, but it’s vague as yet. Maybe I’ll tell you later.”
The Phantom shrugged his shoulders. “The mystery of the murders doesn’t interest me particularly just at present. Granger, if you were in my position, how would you go about finding Miss Hardwick?”
The reporter considered for a long time. “My first step would be to get in touch with the Duke’s gang and try to ascertain where Miss Hardwick is being concealed. That’s a large order, and you will find it fairly exciting. The Duke, I’ve been told, hates you as he never hated anyone before, and he’s almost as dangerous behind prison bars as outside. He froths at the mouth whenever he mentions your name to the other prisoners. Your borrowed personality won’t give you a great deal of protection, for there are a lot of sharp-eyed men in the Duke’s crowd, and, besides, you’re in almost as great danger whether you appear as the Gray Phantom or as Tommie Granger.”
The Phantom waved his hand deprecatingly. “I have considered all that. The question is, how am I to get in contact with the gang.” He peered reflectively at the man on the couch; then an idea came to him. “How did the heads of the organization communicate with you? To whom did you report and from whom did you receive your orders?”
“From my acquaintance of the Turkish coffee house.”
“The piratical-looking fellow?”
Granger nodded.
“How can I find him?”
“The coffee joint is in Catharine Street, not far from East Broadway. You can easily locate it, and you will probably find your man there about ten or eleven at night. But hadn’t you better take me along?”
The Phantom shook his head emphatically. “You have just told me to what extremes you are willing to go in order to get a good story for your paper. The capture of the Gray Phantom would make an even bigger story than the one you were after. I can’t quite trust you, Granger. You love your liquor not wisely but too well, and you’re likely to give the show away. Besides, it wouldn’t do for us two to be seen together.”
“That’s so,” said Granger resignedly. “Well, anyhow, you might send me something for a bracer.”
The Phantom promised to try. He got up and rapped on the wall, eyeing Granger steadily as he stepped through the opening that appeared as if by magic. But the reporter, evidently realizing that any attempt to escape would be useless, made no move.
An opium lamp was sizzling in a corner of the room. At a table sat Peng Yuen, his face as impassive as granite. If he had overheard any part of the conversation he showed no sign of it.
“You need food and sleep,” he remarked tonelessly, pointing to the table, on which a meal was spread out.
The Phantom thanked him and sat down. He was famished and fagged out, and he could accomplish nothing until night came, so he gladly accepted the Chinaman’s hospitality. As he ate, Peng Yuen regarded him stolidly while he smoked his acrid pipe of li-un. He did not speak until the Phantom had finished his meal.
“‘The Book of the Unknown Philosopher,’” he remarked, without looking directly at his guest, “says that the overwise sometimes go far afield in search of truths that may be found at home.”
The Phantom looked up, bewildered. “I suppose there is a priceless gem of wisdom hidden somewhere in that sentence, but I don’t see how it can apply to me.”
The Chinaman gave a queer laugh, half chuckle and half grunt, and deep in the almond-shaped eyes lurked a faint, shrewd twinkle.
CHAPTER XX—THE MISSING SKELETONS
Dusk was falling as the Phantom, refreshed by Peng Yuen’s excellent cooking and several hours of sound sleep, left the shop in Pell Street and cautiously picked his way through the reek and noise of the Chinese quarter. He still felt a twinge of apprehension whenever he thought of Helen Hardwick, but his nerves were steady once more, and he had the springy step and the clear, alert eye of the man who feels sure of his ability to meet any emergency.
His fears were allayed somewhat by the comforting thought that Helen was as capable and keen-witted as she was reckless and audacious. She was what the Phantom termed a thoroughbred. She had nerve, spirit, and subtlety, and on several occasions she had evinced an amazing capacity for handling a difficult situation. Besides, she had a robust vitality and an athletic physique that in no wise marred her womanly charms.
The Phantom walked slowly, turning the complex situation over in his mind, for it was still too early to go to the coffee house in Catharine Street. At a corner news stand he bought an evening paper, glancing at the headlines as he walked along. The murder of the housekeeper was given glaring prominence because of the general belief that it had been perpetrated by the Gray Phantom. The motives ascribed to him were somewhat sketchy, but the police seemed convinced that he was bent on a campaign of terror, and there was anxious speculation as to where his bloodstained hand would appear next. In the meantime, the search was being continued at fever heat, and the detective bureau expected to make an important announcement within a few hours.
The Phantom smiled as he read. He had expected that the death of the housekeeper would be charged to him, and he had drawn fortitude from the firm belief that in a short time he would prove his innocence.
The odd predicament in which Pinto had been found was described facetiously and at great length. The paper treated it as a mystery that might not be solved until the officer, who had been taken to a hospital suffering from a severe concussion of the brain, recovered consciousness. His partner in the droll situation had stubbornly refused to render any explanation, and was being held for investigation pending Pinto’s recovery. He had an unsavory record, according to the police, and was known in the underworld as “Dan the Dope.”
The Phantom was satisfied. From Dan the Dope he had nothing to fear, and Pinto, even if he were inclined to tell what he knew, would not be able to speak for some time. He was passably safe as far as the police were concerned, and a little extra caution and vigilance would checkmate the designs of the Duke’s henchman. As far as he was able to tell, neither side suspected that the Gray Phantom was masquerading as Thomas Granger.
He had still more than an hour to while away, and a hazy thought in the back of his mind guided his steps in the direction of Doctor Bimble’s house. Everything seemed to indicate that Helen had disappeared shortly after leaving the anthropologist’s laboratory, and he might be able to pick up some clew in the neighborhood that would help him to trace her movements. He looked about him cautiously as he walked along, surmising that the vicinity was being watched by spies of the Duke.
At the corner nearest the Bimble residence he turned into a cigar store and purchased a package of cigarettes. He loitered near the door while smoking one, amusing himself by studying the faces of the passers-by, and presently a tall, angular figure approached from the other end of the block. At a glimpse the Phantom had recognized the inscrutable features of Jerome, the anthropologist’s servant. The man walked hurriedly, looking straight ahead, and in a few moments he was out of sight.
A vagrant impulse told the Phantom to start in pursuit of him and see whither he was bound, but he realized that he had no reason for doing so. He had sensed something mysterious about Bimble and his servant, but his interest in them was little more than an idle curiosity. If he had any suspicions at all, they were of the intangible and intuitive sort and afforded him no basis for action.
After a few minutes another figure appeared down the block, and the Phantom pressed close to the wall at his back. Even at a distance he recognized the enormous head, the jutting stomach, and the absurdly thin legs of Doctor Bimble. With a beatific smile on his face, and looking neither to right nor left, the anthropologist walked past him, evidently bound in the same direction as his servant.
Again the Phantom felt an instinctive urge to follow. It struck him as rather queer that master and servant had not come out together, but then he told himself that the circumstance was probably meaningless and that his imagination was magnifying trifles. He crossed to the opposite side of the street and turned east, scanning the dark front of the Bimble house as he strolled along.
Coming directly opposite the residence, he paused in the doorway of a delicatessen store and looked across the street, scrutinizing the gloomy and unprepossessing dwelling with an interest for which he could not account. It seemed strange that Doctor Bimble should have chosen such an unattractive location, but he remembered that the scientist had said something about wishing to live in an out-of-the-way place where he would be safe against intrusions on his privacy and where he could conduct his researches in peace and quiet.
The house, flanked by a lodging house on one side and on the other by a three-story structure of residential appearance, whose boarded-up windows and doors hinted that it had stood vacant for some time, was dark from attic to basement. Presumably Doctor Bimble and his man were out for the evening. The house and its neighbors on each side held the Phantom’s gaze with a persistence that he could not understand. He sensed an incongruity of some kind, and for a while he tried in vain to analyze it. Finally, as he centered his attention on the building to the west, the one with the boarded windows and doors, it came to him. It seemed strange that a structure of that kind should be standing vacant in the midst of a housing famine, when even the least desirable dwellings commanded extravagant prices.
The Phantom laughed, a little disgusted with himself for allowing another meaningless trifle to perplex him. As likely as not the house was vacant for the simple and sufficient reason that it had been condemned by the building commissioner. His gaze wandered to the door of the Bimble residence, and a disturbing thought caused the chuckle to die in his throat.
Only the other day Helen Hardwick had walked out of that door, he remembered, and from that moment on her movements were veiled behind a curtain of mystery. Which way had she turned, what had happened to her, and where was she now? Had she been forcibly abducted as she stepped from the house, or had someone lured her into a trap?
There had been nothing about her disappearance in the newspaper the Phantom had just read, and he surmised that Mr. Hardwick had used what influence he had to keep the matter out of the press. The door across the street still held his gaze; and of a sudden, out of the jumble of his fears and perplexities, came another harassing thought.
What if Helen had never walked out of the door across the way? What if she should still be inside the house?
The Phantom’s eyes narrowed as the suspicion came to him. It was groundless, so far as he could see, and there was no reasoning behind it. It had come out of nowhere, like a stray figment of the imagination, yet it tormented him with an insistence that he could not shake off.
He walked to the end of the block, then crossed the street and moved up the side on which the Bimble house stood. There were a few pedestrians in the street, and to attempt to force the main door might prove unsafe. The basement entrance was dark, and in a moment, concealed by the shadows, he was at work on the lock. It yielded so easily to his deft manipulation that he could understand how the prowlers of whom Bimble had complained had managed to enter the house.
Pulling the door shut, he took out his electric flash, determined to settle his suspicions by making a systematic search of the house. He proceeded swiftly but with care, searching every nook and cranny and occasionally tapping the walls and floors to make sure there were no hollow spaces. He explored cellar and basement without finding anything of suggestive nature, then walked up the same stairway he had ascended after his first trip through the tunnel.
He was now in the laboratory, sweeping floor and walls with the electric torch. At first glance it looked exactly as it had when Helen met him at the head of the stairs with a leveled pistol, yet he sensed a difference almost at once. His eyes flitted over the long workbench with its collection of chemical apparatus, over the black-framed photographs and X-ray prints, and then he glanced at the tall cages along the wall, in which the skeletons stood, erect and grim as ghostly sentinels.
It was then his mind grasped the difference. On his first visit there had been at least a dozen skeletons in the room; now he counted only seven. The famous Raschenell, to whom Bimble had pointed with so much pride, was among the missing ones. He paused only for a moment to wonder what had become of the others, for Bimble and the servant might return at any time and interrupt his search, and he wished to be at the Turkish coffee house not later than half past ten.
He inspected room after room, but without result, finally mounting to the attic and making the same thorough investigation there. He had found nothing whatever to reward him for his efforts. He came to the conclusion that his suspicions had been entirely unfounded, for if they had had any basis in fact his investigation would have uncovered some clew or hint pointing in that direction. One thing had been accomplished, however, was his reflection as he walked down the stairs. He had eliminated Doctor Bimble from the range of his suspicions and would waste no more time and effort trying to explain the eccentricities of a scientist.
Deciding to leave the way he had entered, he crossed the laboratory and moved toward the stairs. With his hand on the doorknob, he looked back and once more let his electric torch play over the floor and walls. Again, without exactly knowing why, he counted the cages, vaguely feeling that there was a hidden significance in the depletion of the grisly company.
Finally, he extinguished his flash and resolutely turned away. Again he was berating himself for bothering his mind over trivial things. Doubtless Doctor Bimble had a sound and simple reason for removing a number of the skeletons. As he walked down the basement stairs he resolved to banish the anthropologist and his collection from his thoughts.
An odd sense of apprehension took hold of him as he reached the bottom step. He looked about him sharply; the darkness was so thick that he could see nothing. He pricked up his ears and listened, but he could detect no sound except those coming from the street. Yet he had a feeling that he was not alone, that another being was lurking somewhere in the darkness. It was a familiar sensation and he had learned to heed its warning, for he had experienced it before in moments of danger.
He stepped down on the floor, at the same instant reaching for the pistol he had taken from Dan the Dope. Before he could draw the weapon a voice spoke sharply:
“Stay right where you are, friend!”
Then a click sounded, followed by a blaze of light. He turned quickly in the direction whence the voice had come. He saw the glint of a pistol barrel pointed toward him with a steady hand, and behind the pistol stood Lieutenant Culligore.