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.
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.
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.
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.”