The doctor placidly finished his cigarette. The sleek, genial smile had not left his face for an instant, and his eye still held the same twinkle of languid amusement.
“Miss Hardwick is a very plucky young woman,” he murmured, “but evidently the spook chamber, as you so aptly termed it a little while ago, has proved too much for her nerves. The cry we just heard seemed to indicate that she was in great distress. Being alone in a dark room with nothing but skeletons for company is not a very pleasant experience for a woman.”
The Phantom’s face turned a shade whiter. For a moment he was dazed by the realization that Helen was undergoing the same excruciating ordeal to which he himself had been subjected. The ghostly spectacle had caused even his strong nerves to writhe and he shuddered at thought of the effect it must have on her more delicate organism.
“I gave you a little taste of it just to enable you to appreciate Miss Hardwick’s predicament,” continued the doctor in matter-of-fact tones. “The arrangement is simplicity itself. My excellent Jerome fixed it up. The scenic effects are so simple that a child could have handled them. Yet you will admit, I think, that they serve their purpose. I once knew a person—not a weakling, either—who went mad under similar pressure. It is strange how——”
Another shriek, not so loud as the first, but long-drawn and hoarse, interrupted him. He paused for a moment, eyeing the Phantom with a level glance while the scream lasted, then fell to polishing his lenses.
“As I was about to remark,” he went on, “it is strange how darkness and a touch of the grewsome affect one’s mind. The soul seems to shrink from such things. The reason, I think, must be atavistic. The poor wretch I was telling you about, the one who lost his mind——”
“Stop it!” cried the Phantom. His voice was husky. “Get her out of that room before she goes mad!”
Doctor Bimble seemed suddenly interested. “Do I understand that you are willing to listen to reason? Are you ready to reconsider the suggestion I made a while ago and which you so grandiloquently rejected? In other words, are you willing to tell me where your treasures are hidden?”
“Yes—anything! I’ll do whatever you ask. Only stop that infernal hocus-pocus at once!”
“Oh, very well.” There was a smile of keen gratification on Bimble’s lips as he got up and left the room.
The Phantom, every limb shaking, stared at the door through which he had passed. Suddenly his blood-streaked eyes grew wide. He remembered something that was almost as terrifying as the shrieks he had just heard. His thoughts went back to the moment when he had awakened in the dark room, and he recalled the snatches of conversation he had overheard.
One of the two speakers, he was now almost certain, had been Doctor Bimble. The voice had sounded familiar, and he would probably have recognized it but for the dazed condition he was in. One of the doctor’s sentences had burned itself into the Phantom’s brain:
“The young lady is here to serve our purpose. After that——”
He saw it all in a blinding flash that scorched like fire. With their usual cunning the Duke’s men had perceived that neither by torture nor by threats of death could the Gray Phantom be forced to comply with their desires. They had known that he held his life lightly and could suffer personal punishment like an Indian. And so their diabolically crafty minds had conceived the idea of letting Helen Hardwick’s agonized cries pierce his armor of pride and obduracy, thus accomplishing what could never have been accomplished by other means.
They had judged him accurately, was his grim reflection. Rather than see a hair of Helen’s head harmed he would gladly make any sacrifice. But the sinister significance of the doctor’s words had been plain. The Phantom would not insure Helen’s safety by accepting Bimble’s terms. Evidently, Miss Hardwick had come into possession of information which the gang feared she might divulge if set free, and consequently she was to be silenced forever as soon as Bimble’s purpose had been attained.
While he awaited the doctor’s return the Phantom thought quickly. By accepting Bimble’s terms he would only be hastening Helen’s doom, for the gang, having no further use for her after they had gained their ends, would probably put her to death quickly. On the other hand, by rejecting the conditions, he would at least gain time. In the meanwhile Bimble might inflict cruel suffering upon her, but his selfish interests would restrain him from taking her life, for, once he had done so, his sole hold upon the Phantom would be gone.
The reasoning was plain, but he found it hard to reach a decision. Perhaps death would be merciful in comparison with the tortures that Bimble might subject her to. He was caught between the jaws of a fearful dilemma, and the only sane course he could see was to play for time.
Doctor Bimble returned. “Why do women never swoon until the worst is over?” he questioned in whimsical tones. “Miss Hardwick is a surprising young lady, but she is not free from the foibles of her sex. She had no sooner been taken out of the dark room than she promptly collapsed.”
The Phantom held back the biting words on his tongue, but he could not forego a look of withering contempt.
“Do you know,” the doctor went on, “I am almost certain that Miss Hardwick knows where your retreat is located? In fact, she let slip something that convinces me she does. But do you suppose the stubborn little beauty would tell? Not she! I don’t believe the fear of eternal fires could force her to speak.”
He had guessed correctly, but the Phantom carefully refrained from signifying by a look or a word that it was so. Miss Hardwick knew about Sea-Glimpse, and it was with mingled feelings the Phantom heard of her refusal to reveal the secret. Had she become aware, through some process of divination, that her life would be forfeited the moment the information was in the doctor’s possession, or had she been guided by other reasons?
“So you see,” continued Bimble in smooth tones, “that you will save the little lady from all sorts of unpleasantness by acceding to my very reasonable terms. It would be a shame if such a charming woman should become a gibbering maniac as a result of obstinacy on your part. Where did you say this place of yours is situated?”
“I haven’t said yet.” The Phantom forced a laugh. “Before I do, you and I must have a definite understanding. Do you agree to set Miss Hardwick free the moment I have given you the information?”
“What an unreasonable question, my dear Phantom! I agree to do nothing of the kind. I shall keep Miss Hardwick here until I have satisfied myself that you have been dealing with me on the square and that the directions you have given me are accurate.”
“Fair enough. But after you have satisfied yourself in regard to my good faith, what then?”
“Then,” said the doctor, and there was not a trace of guile in his face, “Miss Hardwick shall be immediately released.”
“On your word of honor?”
“On my word of honor.”
“Snake!” the Phantom was tempted to say, but he pretended to be satisfied. Already his mind was inventing a ruse. He would gain several hours of valuable time by inveigling the doctor into a search for a place that had existence only in the Phantom’s imagination. In the meantime several things were likely to happen. It was just possible that Granger had been able to trace the movements of the limousine and would come to the rescue. At any rate, the Phantom believed that if he could but stave off the crisis for a while his customary luck would once more reassert itself.
His mind worked fast. Doubtless the doctor knew that he had arrived in New York less than twenty-four hours after the Gage murder. Allowing for slow and infrequent trains and the time required for news to reach out-of-the-way places, he would have to choose a point that was not more than ten or twelve hours removed from New York. With a mental picture of the map before his eyes, he outlined a highly imaginative route to the doctor.
Bimble made a few notes. Then he looked up, and for once there was an ominous glint in the usually placid eyes.
“My men will start at once,” he announced. “They will be instructed to wire me as soon as they have reached their destination. I hope, for Miss Hardwick’s sake, that you have not tried to deceive me.”
With that he was gone; but the softly spoken words, edged with just the faintest trace of a sinister note, lingered for a long time in the Phantom’s memory.
The Phantom awoke with a start, vaguely conscious that he had been sleeping for several hours. Shortly after his interview with Doctor Bimble, he had been removed to a small dark room with a single shuttered window, through which no sunlight or air entered. The ropes around his wrists and ankles had been removed, but his movements were restricted by a chain only a few feet long, one end of which was padlocked to his right leg while the other was clamped to the wall.
Jerome, more tight-lipped than ever, had brought him a meal, and he had eaten with relish, after which he had lain down on the cot and gone to sleep. A lessening of his mental tension had come with the conviction that Helen was in no immediate danger and would be safe until the doctor heard from his messengers, which he probably would not do until after midnight.
He had slept soundly, and now he was refreshed in body and mind. He inspected his surroundings with a keen eye. The little room was admirably adapted to the purposes of a cell. Even if he were inclined to shout for help, the shutters doubtless would render such an effort useless. The room was sparsely lighted by an electric bulb in the ceiling, and he noted that the door, walls, and floor had a substantial appearance. The only objects within his reach were the cot and a table.
His face fell as he took an inventory of his pockets, noticing that all that remained of his belongings was a watch and a handkerchief. His wallet, with Dan the Dope’s pistol, was gone, and so was the little metal box that on so many occasions had enabled him to squeeze out of tight corners. The chain was not heavy, but strong enough to resist all the force he could muster, and each end was fastened in a way that left him no hope of escape.
“The worthy doctor is taking no chances,” he muttered. “He has left me as helpless as a newborn babe. Wonder where I am.”
He had no idea where the black limousine had taken him, for it had traveled a devious course, and he had been chloroformed before it reached its destination. He was certain he was not in Doctor Bimble’s house, for he had searched that dwelling from cellar to attic and there had been no room in it that resembled this one. Probably he was in some other house controlled by Doctor Bimble or one of his associates.
After all, where he was did not matter, greatly. The one thing that concerned him was his helplessness, for evidently the doctor had taken every conceivable precaution against his prisoner’s escape. Everything considered, it was as hopeless a situation as the Phantom had ever faced.
A glance at his watch told him it was nearly four o’clock. He had eight hours in which to accomplish the seemingly impossible before the doctor should learn from his agents that they had been sent out on a wild-goose chase. He shuddered as he contemplated what would be the consequences if he failed. Yet, he told himself, the course he had taken was the only one possible under the circumstances. If he had directed the doctor’s agents to Sea-Glimpse, Helen’s usefulness to the organization would have been ended, and then——
He turned quickly as the door opened, admitting Doctor Bimble, with a newspaper in his hand.
“Thought you would be interested in the news about Pinto,” began the doctor, advancing somewhat cautiously and taking care not to step within the narrow half circle that bounded his prisoner’s movements. The Phantom regarded him languidly, for his mind was on other things.
“Has Pinto recovered consciousness?” he asked indifferently.
Bimble nodded. “Much sooner than the doctors expected, and he has celebrated his return to consciousness by making a rather interesting statement.”
“Not a confession?” The Phantom was still speaking in dull tones. In the last few days he had almost lost sight of the purpose that had called him to New York. The danger threatening Helen Hardwick had seemed far more important than the mystery of the two murders.
“Well, you might call it that, though it probably isn’t the kind of confession you have in mind. Pinto has made a clean breast of everything, but he still insists that you murdered Gage.”
“That’s a contradiction,” mumbled the Phantom. “He is not making a clean breast of things so long as he denies his guilt.”
“His statement sounds fairly convincing, nevertheless. He admits practically everything except that he committed the murder. For instance, he frankly admits that he concealed the body of the housekeeper and——”
“That in itself is evidence of his guilt.”
“But Pinto has what looks like a satisfactory explanation. He seems to be an honest, hard-working, unimaginative fellow, not overintelligent, and deeply devoted to his wife and baby. You probably know the type. He says that for months before Gage was murdered he had a queer premonition that something of that kind was to happen, and he never passed the house without an uneasy feeling. I suppose what he really means is that he had noticed signs of strange doings about the place, and that without analyzing his impressions he found it getting on his nerves.
“Pinto reiterates his previous assertion that Gage made a dying statement accusing you of the crime. He admits, however, that he felt nervous about the whole affair. The poor fellow was in a very trying position. After forcing the door, which was bolted on the inside, and listening to Gage’s dying words, he made a careful examination of the room, paying particular attention to the little window which was so narrow that no grown person could possibly have crawled through it. He did not understand how even an accomplished person like the Phantom could have committed the murder and escaped from the room.
“Then, all of a sudden, Pinto got panicky. Even his crude intellect perceived that it looked as though nobody but himself could have committed the murder. He thought of his wife and his baby, and he did not relish the idea of being tried for murder. As he saw it, he might easily be convicted and sent to the chair. However, his fears proved unfounded, for nobody accused him of the crime, and Pinto could breathe freely once more.”
“But what about the housekeeper?” inquired the Phantom, gradually becoming more interested.
“I am coming to that. After the murder of Gage Pinto got into the habit of visiting the house between rounds. He was still hoping to discover a way whereby the Phantom could have escaped from the room. Late one night, according to his statement, he found the housekeeper’s body in the same room where Gage had been murdered. He says the body was still warm, so the woman could not have been dead long. At the discovery all his fears returned with trebled force. The supposition, he thought, would be that the murderer of Gage had also killed Mrs. Trippe. The Gray Phantom was supposed to be in jail at the time and therefore could not be accused of having murdered the housekeeper.
“Pinto was in a terrible quandary. Since, as he thought at the time, the Phantom could not have murdered Mrs. Trippe, it might be questioned whether he had murdered Gage. The whole case might be reopened, in which event he feared the finger of suspicion must inevitably point to him. Again Pinto thought of his wife and baby, and, the more he thought of them, the more nervous he became. He did a foolish thing, as men often do when fear conquers reason. He could think of nothing to do but cover up the crime until he could get a chance to think the thing over, and so he carried the body upstairs and concealed it behind some packing cases. Later, after it developed that the Phantom had not been in jail and had no alibi, he saw no reason for concealing the body longer. He explains at length what happened when he went to the storeroom to drag it out and was interrupted by you.”
Bimble smiled blandly, but he was studying the Phantom’s face out of the corner of an eye. “What do you think of Pinto’s confession?”
The Phantom considered while he glanced at the papers Bimble handed him. The statement was there, just as summarized by the doctor. Granting a crude intellect and a mind not too analytical, he thought it quite possible that an innocent man might act exactly as described in Pinto’s statement. Further, the story had all the earmarks of truth, for a guilty mind would have tried to invent a less grotesque tale. Of a sudden the Phantom found that all his calculations and theories in regard to the murder had been upset by Pinto’s surprising and unexpected explanation.
“Why ask me?” was his reply. “You know the murderer.”
“Perhaps. I was just curious to hear what you would think.”
There was a wrinkle of perplexity on the Phantom’s brow. Assuming that Pinto was innocent, the difficulties in the way of solving the mystery and exculpating himself had been vastly complicated.
“If Pinto didn’t do it,” persisted the doctor suavely, “who do you suppose did?”
The Phantom could not tell why, but the question gave him a mental jolt. In the past few hours his concern for Helen had claimed all his thoughts, and before that he had been so firmly convinced of Pinto’s guilt that there had been no room in his mind for other suspicions. The possibility that someone other than the policeman might be involved had not occurred to him.
He looked up and found the doctor’s soft eyes searching his face with an odd intensity. Bimble seemed intent on ascertaining what deductions his prisoner would make from Pinto’s statement, and apparently this had been the only reason for his call.
“My question seems to have stumped you,” he observed.
The Phantom shrugged his shoulders. “With Pinto eliminated, I’m entirely at sea. In view of the bolted door and the size of the window, I don’t see how anyone else could have murdered Gage, unless——” He checked himself abruptly, and of a sudden he saw a great light. In the next instant a smile masked his agitation. “Unless,” he finished with a chuckle, “I did it myself.”
Bimble seemed satisfied. “Excellent logic, my friend,” he murmured as he stepped to the door. With his hand on the knob he turned and fixed his gaze on the Phantom’s face. “I shall pay you another visit as soon as I hear from my men.”
His tone carried a sinister emphasis, but the Phantom scarcely noticed it.
“With Pinto eliminated,” he said half aloud when the door had closed, “only one other person could have committed the murders. And I know that person!”
With quick and nervous steps the Phantom walked back and forth within the narrow semicircle allowed him by the chain. The solution of the mystery had come to him in a flash of intuition, but his elation had been brief. It was now half past eleven, and after cudgeling his wits for hours, he found the problem of how to extricate himself and Helen from their predicament as insolvable as ever.
Soon Bimble would receive word from his messengers that they had been hoaxed, and then Helen would be subjected to another agonizing ordeal in the dark room. The Phantom shuddered as his imagination pictured her strapped to the chair in that chamber of ghastly things. Again he looked sharply about the room, hoping against hope that something would suggest a way of escape to him.
He found nothing. The only objects were the cot and the table, and they offered no solution whatever. His pockets contained nothing but a handkerchief and a watch, together with the cigarettes and matches Jerome had brought him with his dinner. At least a score of times during the late afternoon and evening he had given the chain a minute inspection, only to be convinced that it could not be tampered with. With the aid of a small nail or a penknife he might have been able to pick the lock that held it to his ankle, but not even a pin had been left him.
The Phantom was all but ready to admit defeat. His only fortifying thought was that he had never yet been the loser in a game of wits, and that for Helen’s sake he could not fail now.
He rose quickly from the cot as the door opened and Doctor Bimble strode into the room. His face was dark, and a look of sullen anger had taken the place of his usual smile.
“You lied!” he declared gruffly. “I half suspected you would, but I hardly thought you would attempt anything so clumsy as this. What have you gained by it?”
“Time,” said the Phantom, pretending a coolness he did not feel.
The doctor laughed derisively. There was a dull flush in his cheeks and an ugly glitter in his eyes, but again he took care not to step within the Phantom’s reach.
“Time! Bah! Really, Vanardy, you’re simpler than I thought. Just as if a few hours more or less could make any difference! You will either tell me what I want to know, or, Miss Hardwick will go to the madhouse or the grave. She will be as harmless in one place as in the other. I trust you understand?”
“Your meaning is perfectly clear.” The Phantom spoke in level tones. “If you would come a step closer, I should take extreme pleasure in beating you within an inch of your life. But you have no inclination in that direction, I see. Like most of your kind, you are a coward.”
“Words never hurt.”
“Furthermore,” continued the Phantom, “you will be in jail before Miss Hardwick goes to either of the places you have just mentioned.”
“Jail?” The doctor stared as if he thought the statement utterly preposterous. “Jail! Ha, ha! Good joke coming from a man who can’t move six feet.”
“Enjoy it while you can. As you may remember, I perpetrated the same kind of joke on the Duke, and he doesn’t seem to relish that brand of humor.”
The doctor winced as if an unpleasant thought had been suggested to him, then walked stiffly to the door. “Remember,” was his parting shot, “if you persist in your obstinacy, it will be either the madhouse or the grave for Miss Hardwick.”
He slammed the door as he went out, and the Phantom’s face sobered the moment he was alone. His threat had not been altogether an idle one, for it had driven a wholesome misgiving into the doctor’s heart; yet the Phantom was painfully aware that he was in a desperate situation. Throwing himself on the cot, he turned the problem over and over in his mind. Black as the outlook seemed, he could scarcely believe that all was lost. He still had faith in his star, and it was this that had braced him and enabled him to speak with such confidence in Doctor Bimble’s presence.
After a while something drew his gaze to the window. He listened intently. A faint scraping sound reached his ears, and it occurred to him that it had been going on for several minutes, though he had been too preoccupied to notice it until now. He got up and stepped as close to the window as the chain permitted. Now he heard it again—a slow, dull grinding and scraping that remotely suggested that someone was attacking a metallic object with a blunt tool.
He waited breathlessly. Evidently someone was trying to enter the room, and he wondered whether the intruder was coming as friend or foe. Perhaps the amazing luck that had so often turned a critical situation in his favor was once more coming back to him.
A click sounded, then the boards in front of the window came apart, and the Phantom gasped as Thomas Granger jumped into the room.
“You!” he exclaimed.
“Not so loud!” whispered the reporter. He was still wearing the Phantom’s clothing, and the garments were wrinkled and streaked with dirt. “The house is full of members of the Duke’s gang. Holy smoke, you’re certainly in a fix!”
He stared at the cabin, then looked quickly about the room. “Don’t ask me how I found you. I had a devil of a time, and it’s a longer story than I’ve got time to tell. Lookouts are stationed in front and in rear, and it was only by sheer luck and some quick fist work that I got through. How am I to get you out of here?”
The Phantom regarded him thoughtfully. “Didn’t you know that Doctor Bimble was the Duke’s chief representative?” he asked.
“Never had the faintest idea.”
“This room is in the rear of the house, I believe.”
“Yes, but——”
“You were lucky to locate my window as easily as you did.”
“That wasn’t luck. I tried several before I found yours. Twice I bumped into the Duke’s men. I hate to think what that bunch would do to me if they caught me.” He made a wry face. “But this isn’t getting you out of here. We’ll have to get a move on.”
Strangely enough, the Phantom seemed absolutely calm and in no hurry whatever. “I haven’t been able to get my bearings,” he announced. “Where is this house?”
“Next door to Doctor Bimble’s.”
The Phantom started. “The one with boarded windows and doors?”
“That’s the one. The front is boarded-up, and from the street it looks like a vacant house. Nobody would suspect that it was the headquarters of the Duke’s gang. I suppose Bimble owns or controls both houses, and there is probably a connecting passage somewhere.”
The Phantom knitted his brows. He had seen no such passage when he searched the Bimble residence. However, that proved nothing, for it might be so carefully concealed that a hasty search would not reveal it. The arrangement, he thought, was rather ingenious. No one who had seen the anthropologist’s home, where everything suggested artlessness and love of simple comforts, would have suspected that the occupant was using the adjacent house for the conduct of criminal enterprises.
“Miss Hardwick is somewhere in the building,” he remarked. “Her safety is the first consideration.”
“Worse still. You and I might be able to fight our way through, but with a woman on our hands it’s almost certain death. It wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t so many against us. I have only one gat. How about you?”
“A watch, a handkerchief, a package of cigarettes and some matches are my sole possessions just now.”
The reporter scowled. “The Duke’s men would be sure to pounce on us before we could get her out of the house, and I don’t suppose Miss Hardwick is bullet-proof.”
“What would you suggest?”
Granger reflected. “Have you any friends in town?”
“As far as I know, Peng Yuen is the only one. There may be others, but I wouldn’t know where to find them.”
“Peng Yuen doesn’t look much like a scrapper. We can’t appeal to the police, for they are after you just as hard as the Duke’s men are. I’d give half my life to be able to meet that bunch in a fair and even fight. Too bad you haven’t any friends handy. Say”—and Granger looked as though he had suddenly snatched an inspiration out of the air—“what about the place where you live? Haven’t you got some friends there?”
The Phantom looked thoughtful. Rumor had it that he had taken a few carefully selected members of his former organization with him to his place of retirement. His lips twitched a little.
“It would take sometime to get them here,” he murmured, “and we must act in a hurry.”
“But it’s our only chance. We’ll wire them to get a fast car and burn up the roads. I’m rather stuck on the idea of organizing an expedition and rushing to the rescue of a fair lady in distress. Write out your telegram, and I’ll sneak out and file it.”
The Phantom, chuckling as though he had caught the contagion of the other’s enthusiasm, made as if searching his pockets for pencil and paper. “All right. I guess, after all, it is the only thing we can do. A pitched battle in the heart of New York will be something of a novelty. Have you a pencil and a scrap of paper?”
Granger stepped up to the table and handed out the desired articles. With the reporter standing at his elbow, the Phantom placed the paper on the table, poised the pencil over it, and stood as if framing a message in his mind. Suddenly, with a motion as quick as that of a metallic spring, his hand darted out and gripped Granger’s. Then, with another surprisingly swift movement, he jerked the reporter down on the cot and shoved a knee against his chest.
“Tommie Granger,” he said in low, measured tones that throbbed with exultation, “I’ve been waiting a long time to lay my hands on the murderer of Gage and Mrs. Trippe.”
The reporter’s face went white.
With lips gaping, he lay rigidly still, staring into the Phantom’s hard face. There was a look of great fear in his eyes, and for several moments he seemed incapable of motion. Then he began to wriggle, twist, and squirm, but his efforts were rendered futile by the knee on his chest and the firm clutch in which his hands were held.
“When did you guess it?” he muttered, forcing a sneering grin to his face.
“Just a little while ago. I’ve acted the simpleton throughout the whole affair. I was so sure of Pinto’s guilt that it never occurred to me to suspect anyone else. The moment Pinto was eliminated, I knew you were the murderer. I saw then what I should have seen at once—that Gage was murdered by a man who looked so much like me that, when Gage saw the face of the scoundrel, he was sure it was the Gray Phantom. That’s why he told Pinto that I was the murderer.”
Granger drew in his breath and opened his mouth as if to shout for help, but the knee pressing against his chest strangled the cry.
“It was all very cleverly arranged,” the Phantom went on, “I suppose you were selected for the job because you happen to resemble me. The very entertaining story you told me at Peng Yuen’s was probably a skillful blending of truth and fiction. How you happened to join the Duke’s gang and how you carried out its orders under cover of your profession really make no difference. The only thing that matters is that you’re going to the chair for those two murders.”
The reporter, gathering his wits, gave a contemptuous laugh. “The chair, eh? Not just yet, I guess. Several things are likely to happen to you first.”
“That remains to be seen. You are fairly clever, Granger, but your cleverness won’t help you now. You hood-winked the police very neatly. They had the murderer once, but they felt so sure I was the man they wanted that they let you go as soon as you had satisfied them you were not the Gray Phantom. It was a fairly good joke. I perpetrated another good joke myself when I went to you and borrowed your identity, never guessing that you were the murderer. You took it all in good part, because you couldn’t do anything else, but all the while you were scheming to hand me over to the Duke’s crowd.”
“It was rich! You were so easily taken in that I had to laugh whenever you turned your back.”
“I admit it. The reason you took me in so easily was partly because you were a member of an honorable profession, and partly because of the note handed me by Dan the Dope, which seemed to prove that you were on bad terms with the Duke’s crowd. That appeared to confirm your story that you had joined the organization for the sole purpose of obtaining inside information. The details of your relations with the gang are not clear to me yet, but neither are they important. If you don’t mind, I’ll relieve you of this handy little implement.”
With a deft motion he reached into Granger’s pocket and extracted the reporter’s automatic. Then he removed the knee from the man’s chest and covered him with the weapon.
“The cutest trick of them all,” he continued with a grim chuckle, “was your crawling in here to-night through the window and pretending to have eluded the Duke’s sentinels. Of course, the sole object of your dramatic entrance was to inveigle me into revealing the whereabouts of the place where I live. I suppose the worthy doctor had begun to despair of his ability to worm the information out of me by the original plan. It threatened to take too long and entail too many risks, and so he thought he would try a short cut. You led up to the proposition very adroitly, but I saw through the ruse almost at once.”
Granger, having got a precarious grip on his nerves, laughed shakily. “You’re a first-class guesser—but guessing won’t get you out of this fix. It isn’t very likely you’ll ever see daylight again. As for the dear girl——”
“Leave her out of it!” commanded the Phantom curtly. He thought it unlikely Miss Hardwick would be molested further until Bimble had learned the result of Granger’s mission. In the meantime, he told himself, he must make the most of the slight advantage he had gained. He studied the reporter keenly, and all at once an inspiration came to him. “Miss Hardwick,” he went on in casual tones, “has an amazing knack of taking care of herself. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if she had already found a way out of the amiable doctor’s clutches.”
“Hardly!” Granger gave another hoarse, sneering laugh. “She’s smart, all right, but the big chief knows it, and he isn’t taking any chances. He has locked her up in the basement, in a room barely large enough to turn around in, with a stout door and no window.”
“The basement, eh?” The Phantom seemed not at all interested. “This room we are in is on the second floor, isn’t it?”
“Third,” said Granger, after puzzling for a moment over the question.
“Good!” The Phantom smiled. “You have told me exactly what I wanted to know, Granger, and since you couldn’t know the object of my questions, I believe that for once you have spoken the truth. Kindly elevate your hands.”
A thrust with the pistol emphasized the command, and Granger sullenly obeyed. With his free hand the Phantom explored the reporter’s pockets until he found a small silver-handled knife.
“My property, I believe,” he murmured, examining the tool with a critical eye. “It’s one of the things you acquired when we swapped clothes and identities. A very handy article, Granger. I’ve been wishing all night for something of this kind, but the doctor thoughtfully emptied my pockets. Sit very still, Granger.”
He spoke with a brisk, cutting emphasis. Moving to the other end of the cot and keeping one eye on Granger, he opened the knife and with the sharp-pointed blade began to pick at the lock that held the chain to his ankle. The pistol lay close at his side, ready to be picked up at a moment’s warning. In a short time the lock had yielded to the deft touch of his fingers, and his ankle was free before Granger quite realized what he was doing. A shout rose in the reporter’s throat, but in an instant the Phantom’s fingers were at his windpipe.
“Quiet!” he warned. “I don’t care to be interrupted just yet. Granger, I don’t like the togs I’ve been wearing the last few days, and you have worn mine just about long enough. We are going to make a quick change. Strip!”
The reporter glared, but his lips trembled and the shaking of his limbs indicated that he was in need of his favorite stimulant.
“Hurry!” urged the Phantom, making a little flourish with the pistol. “Bimble is likely to walk in on us at any moment to see what is keeping you so long. Will you strip voluntarily, or must I tap you on the head and undress you? I don’t like to be rough.”
The reporter seemed impressed by the argument. With surly acquiescence he kicked off his shoes and started removing his suit. The Phantom, a thin smile hovering about his lips, followed the other’s example, keeping the pistol within easy reach while the exchange was in progress. In a little while he was once more garbed in the familiar gray which was his favorite color.
“This is better!” he commented. With an absentminded air he picked up the chain. For a moment or two his fingers toyed with the lock; then, stooping quickly, he looped the end of the chain around Granger’s leg. The reporter growled out a curse as the lock snapped shut.
“Put your hands behind you!” commanded the Phantom, again making a menacing gesture with the pistol. The reporter, his ashen face twitching, glowered savagely as he obeyed, and in a few moments the strings had been removed from his shoes and twisted tightly about his wrists. Finally the Phantom tore a strip from the table-cloth, fashioned it into a gag and thrust it between the reporter’s teeth.
“I’m really very much obliged to you, Granger,” he murmured dryly as he put the revolver and the knife into his pockets. “If you hadn’t come to me with that barefaced hoax, I should still be wearing a chain around my ankle. Too bad I can’t offer you a drink. You seem to need one.”
With elastic step he walked to the door. There he pushed a button, and the room went dark. There was a glow in his cheeks and a tingle in his veins as he stepped out in the hall, closing the door behind him. Looking up and down the silent corridor, he saw a stairway at the farther end, and hastened in that direction. At the head of the stairs he all but collided with Doctor Bimble.
“Well, Granger?”
The Phantom thanked his lucky star that the lights in the hall were dim. Under the circumstances, it was the most natural thing in the world for Bimble to suppose that he was addressing the reporter. He knew that Granger had been wearing the Phantom’s clothes, and the latter was supposed to be chained securely to a wall.
“No luck,” announced the Phantom, simulating Granger’s manner of speech. “I gave him exactly the line of talk you suggested, but he spotted the trick right off. He wouldn’t listen to me at all.”
Even in the dusk the Phantom saw a spiteful look creep into the doctor’s face.
“Doesn’t he still think you are on his side?”
“He seems to have his suspicions,” answered the Phantom, carefully weighing his words, “but he is keeping them to himself. I tried my darndest to flimflam the information out of him, but it was no use. He’s about the smoothest article I ever came across.”
The doctor nodded curtly as he swung around and started to descend the stairs, the Phantom following.
“I’ll break him yet,” muttered Bimble vindictively. “In a few moments he’ll hear a tune that he won’t like. Miss Hardwick is going to make another trip to the spook chamber, as our mulish friend so aptly termed it. I guess he will come across with the information when he discovers that we mean business.”
They reached the floor below. As they passed a light in the hall, the Phantom saw a look of venomous determination in the doctor’s face, and he knew that a terrible ordeal would be in store for Helen if Bimble was permitted to have his way. The anthropologist opened a door, and the Phantom glanced into the room over his shoulder. About a dozen men, the expressions on their faces ranging all the way from low cunning to sullen brutality, sat at a long table playing cards.
“Jepson!” called the doctor, taking a bunch of keys from his pockets.
A tall, raw-boned individual with features suggestive of a gorilla’s rose from the table and approached them, with dragging gait.
“I want you and Granger to bring Miss Hardwick here immediately,” directed Bimble handing Jepson one of the keys.
The tall man nodded and slunk away. The Phantom, keeping in the shadows as much as possible, followed him down two flights of stairs. Here and there, at a turn in the halls or stairs, they encountered soft-footed, wary-eyed men who passed them in silence.
“The whole crowd seems to be about to-night,” observed the Phantom.
“Sure,” said Jepson. “The big chief don’t like to take chances. He means to rush a bunch of us to the Phantom’s place as soon as he finds out where it is. There may be a scrap when we get there.”
“Quite likely.” The Phantom repressed a smile. There was a fever in his veins, and he wished Jepson would walk faster. They descended into the basement, sparsely lighted by a small bulb suspended over the stairs, and Jepson picked his way carefully over the floor. Finally he stopped before a door, inserted a key in the lock, and walked in.
The room was dark, but a quick gasp, resembling a sudden intake of breath, told the Phantom it was occupied. His body tingled with suppressed excitement. Jepson was standing in the doorway, and a light scraping sound indicated that he was running his hands over the wall in search of a switch.
As light flooded the narrow room the Phantom stifled an exclamation. In a chair at the wall sat a slender figure, rigidly still save for the trembling of the hands clasped across the bosom. Long waves of lustrous hair framed a face white as alabaster, and the large brown eyes were staring at Jepson with an expression of dread. There was a quiver in the distended orbs, as if a frightful recollection were lingering in their depths.
She shrank back against the chair as Jepson lumbered toward her. For a moment longer she remained motionless, then a long-drawn moan sounded in her throat, and with hands thrust out she sprang from the chair.
“You sha’n’t take me back there!” she cried in tones edged with fury and terror. “I won’t go back! I won’t!”
“Easy now, lady! No use kicking up a fuss.” Jepson roughly seized her arm, squeezed it until she uttered a sharp cry of pain, and started dragging her toward the door.
Then, of a sudden, the Phantom’s fist shot out. Hard as steel, it delivered a stinging, crunching blow between Jepson’s eyes, and the big brute dropped to the floor like a dead weight. The girl stood immobile, staring at the twisted shape at her feet as if unable to understand what had happened. Then, very slowly, she raised her eyes until they met the Phantom’s.
“You?” She spoke lowly, as if not quite recognizing him at first. Dazedly she drew her hand across her forehead. “Are you the Gray Phantom or——”
“I am the Gray Phantom. Don’t you know me—Helen?”
She gazed at him long and searchingly. A soft gleam penetrated the film of terror in her eyes.
“Yes, you are the Gray Phantom.” The words sounded hushed and strained. She came a step closer and placed her cold hand in his. There was a faint, tremulous smile on her lips. “Can you forgive me—for doubting you?”
“One little whisper from your lips makes everything right,” he murmured softly, gently drawing her from the room and locking the door.
“I couldn’t help it,” she whispered. “Everything seemed to point to your guilt.”
“It did,” admitted the Phantom, “and I don’t blame you. I suppose Granger lied to me when he told me he got into disgrace with the Duke’s gang because of his refusal to abduct you. He’s a skillful mixer of truth and fiction. What happened to you? Who kidnaped you?”
“One of Doctor Bimble’s men, I suppose. I slipped out of the laboratory while you and the doctor were reading the paper. I was sick at heart. What you had told me while we were in the closet expressed my feelings. It seemed as though an idol had fallen off its pedestal and broken to bits, like ordinary clay. Well, I had almost reached the front door when someone sneaked up behind me, thrust a black cloth down over my head and carried me upstairs. I must have been chloroformed, for shortly afterward I lost consciousness.
“The next day Granger called on me in the little room where they were keeping me. I think his object was to learn the location of Sea-Glimpse. I was—well, I was stubborn and wouldn’t tell him. I received a shock the moment I saw him and noted his striking resemblance to you. All at once I knew he was the murderer. It came to me in a flash, and of a sudden I understood the meaning of Gage’s statement.”
“There must be such a thing as feminine intuition, after all,” was the Phantom’s comment. “Of course you told him to his face that he was the murderer?”
“I guess I did. The words seemed to tumble out of themselves. I think I told Bimble the same thing that evening. He seemed greatly alarmed.”
The Phantom started. “Intuition is sometimes a very dangerous faculty,” he murmured. “It is very likely to—But this is no time for talking. Jepson will be dead to the world for some little time, but the house is bristling with gangsters. I must get you out of here somehow.”
He looked quickly about the dimly lighted basement. There was a window on each side, but both were covered by shutters and iron grilles, and the only exit seemed to be the stairs.
“What about yourself?” asked the girl.
“Oh,” with a low laugh, “I have a task that yet remains to be finished. But you——”
Suddenly a little gasp slipped from the girl’s lips, and she seized his arm convulsively. Her gaze was rigid, and the Phantom looking in the same direction, saw Doctor Bimble standing in the stairs with a leveled pistol in his hand.
“Don’t stir!” was the anthropologist’s crisply spoken warning. “You will please note, my dear Phantom, that I’m not aiming at you, but at Miss Hardwick. She’ll be dead the moment you make the slightest move!”
The Phantom scarcely breathed. He stood utterly still while the doctor came down the remaining steps and halted at the foot of the stairs. The pistol, pointed at Helen with a steadiness that bespoke a deadly aim, inspired him with a sense of awe a thousand times greater than if it had been leveled at himself.
The girl’s hand was still on his sleeve, and, without looking directly at her, he knew that she was facing the menacing pistol without flinching. Her slight touch on his arm gave him a feeling of tenderness and strength. Already his wits were at work. In his hip pocket was the weapon he had taken from Granger, but he could not reach for it without jeopardizing the girl’s life.
“Cruel trick you played on Granger,” observed the doctor, standing a dozen feet away. “I don’t know how you managed it, but you seem to have a special talent for such performances. Fortunately one of my men happened to enter the room in which you left the poor fellow, and he saw how things were. Well, Phantom, one thing is sure, you have played your last trick.”
The Phantom maintained his attitude of immobility, but Bimble’s words had given him an inward twinge. As far as he could see, the doctor had appraised the situation with accuracy. The windows, with their shutters and iron bars, seemed impregnable. The murky walls and the low ceiling gave forth an impression of solidity that accentuated his sense of bafflement. The way to the stairs was barred by Bimble with his pistol, and the rooms and corridors above were swarming with the Duke’s men. And meanwhile the Phantom dared not bend a muscle, for fear of causing Helen Hardwick’s death.
“You will admit that you are very neatly cornered?” taunted the doctor.
“It would seem so,” admitted the Phantom dryly, “but I have been cornered many times before. There’s nothing very original in the situation.”
“No, nothing except that you wriggled out of the others, while this one will hold you till I am through with you. Don’t you think it would be the part of wisdom to submit and tell me what I want to know?”
“Never!” declared the Phantom with emphasis.
“Wouldn’t it be better?” whispered Helen. “He’ll kill us both unless we do.”
“It’s his intention to kill us, anyway,” the Phantom whispered back. “The only reason he hasn’t killed us already is that he hopes to persuade us to give him the information he wants. Afraid?”
“Not for myself. But you——”
“Then step behind my back as quickly as you can.”
The girl looked up at him with an expression of uncertainty.
“Hurry!” whispered the Phantom. “It’s our only chance.”
She hesitated a moment longer; then, with the swift motion of a startled doe, she darted aside and stood at his back. The blue steel of the pistol barrel flickered for an instant as the doctor transferred his aim to the Phantom. Evidently the sudden movement had disconcerted Bimble.
“A fairly clever maneuver,” he acknowledged, “but you have gained nothing by it.”
“I am satisfied,” declared the Phantom, his spirits rising again. “You can’t reach Miss Hardwick with a bullet without first perforating me, and you have no intention of killing me until you have learned what you want to know. Eh, Bimble?”
The doctor’s lips twisted into an ugly sneer. “We shall see,” he muttered irately. “You are a clever man, Phantom, but your cleverness can’t help you now.”
He plucked a small metallic instrument from his vest pocket and brought it to his lips. Three short, shrill whistles pierced the silence. With a gratified grin on his lips the doctor restored the little metal tube to his pocket. The third blast had no sooner sounded than a tumult of discordant noises came from above. Bimble looked gloatingly at the Phantom as the sounds drew nearer. A man ran down the stairs, quickly followed by a second and a third. Others kept arriving, in groups of three or more, until the Phantom had counted twenty-four.
Like a great human fan, the crowd spread out in a triangle along the walls and about the foot of the stairs. As each man took his place in the line, the Phantom gave him a quick appraising glance. In their faces he read low cunning, brutish instincts, and stolid obedience to orders, but the keener wit and subtler intellect which the Phantom had always demanded of his men were lacking.
He read each face as if it were an open page, and finally his gaze rested on Doctor Bimble. The anthropologist was a craftier man by far than his subalterns, but at a glance the Phantom’s keen eye picked out the weak spot in his moral fiber. Already a plan was forming in his mind. All he was waiting for was a favorable combination of circumstances that would enable him to act.
The pistol in the doctor’s hand was still pointing straight at the Phantom’s chest. Bimble’s expression was a repulsive mixture of cruelty and smug satisfaction.
“I trust you are convinced that resistance is useless, my dear Phantom,” he declared in drawling tones. “There are more than twenty of us, as you see.”
“Excellent!” remarked the Phantom. “I am glad to see so many of you here.”
“Glad?” The doctor seemed a little dumfounded. “Why, pray?”
“Because having you all here in this room will make my task much easier.”
“Your task?”
The Phantom laughed easily. “You must surely know that it is my intention to hand you all over to the police?”
Bimble stared. Twice he opened his mouth, but no words came. The Phantom’s cool audacity seemed to have silenced his tongue.
“Are you crazy?” he asked at length.
“Never was saner in my life. It is my firm intention to turn every one of you over to the police. That’s why I am glad to see so many of you gathered in one room.”
He smiled as he spoke, but his heart was not in his smile. He was turning an audacious plan over in his mind, but he was not at all sure that he would have a chance to put it into execution. At his back he heard Helen’s quick, nervous intakes of breath, and he turned his head slightly.
“The Gray Phantom’s star has never yet set,” he whispered.
A low, quavering laugh was the girl’s response.
Bimble was still staring at him as if doubting his sanity. “You think you are going to turn us over to the police!” he exclaimed. “Ha, ha! Still in a jocular mood, I see. It won’t last long. For the last time I ask if you will accept my terms.”
The Phantom sent him a contemptuous glance. “One doesn’t make terms with sneaking hyenas like you,” he declared.
“Very well.” Bimble ran his eye over the triangle of faces, and his gaze fell on a stout, tough-limbed man with a reddish face.
“Wilkes,” he directed, “pull that devoted pair apart and carry the young lady to the room upstairs where the skeletons are. Be careful not to get in front of my pistol.”
The stout man stepped out of the line. A coarse grin wreathed his face as he approached the Phantom and the girl from the side.
“Get back!” whispered the Phantom to Helen. Slowly, step by step, the two moved backward until Helen stood against the wall. Then the Phantom, looking straight into the muzzle of Bimble’s pistol, reached back and wound his arms around the girl’s slender waist.
“Pull us apart if you can,” he told Wilkes as he interlocked his fingers behind Helen’s back.
The stout man stopped and scratched his head, as if confronting a problem too complex for his wits to solve. A look of diffidence crossed Bimble’s face as he noticed that the Phantom had once more balked him.
“Knock him down if you can’t part them any other way,” he commanded wrathfully. “Tap him on the head with something.”
Chuckling, Wilkes drew a long revolver from his pocket, gripping it tightly by the barrel as he cautiously approached the Phantom from the side. Helen gasped.
“Keep cool!” whispered the Phantom. “And whatever happens, stay right at my back.”
He watched Bimble’s pistol out of one eye, while with the other he followed Wilkes’ movements. For an instant, as Wilkes swung the heavy weapon over his shoulder, he tensed his muscles for action. Then, with a motion so swift that the eyes of the onlookers could scarcely register it, his arm darted out and gripped the other’s wrist just as the revolver was about to crash down on the Phantom’s head.
Once more his arm shot out and with a quick and powerful wrench he swung Wilkes directly in front of him, coiling the fingers of one hand around the man’s neck and windpipe. In almost the same instant he whipped out his pistol and, using the bulky figure of Wilkes as a shield, took aim and fired.
Bimble uttered a sharp yell of pain. The pistol dropped from his fingers, and he looked dazedly at his blood-spattered hand.
“Fairly good shot!” ejaculated the Phantom with a chuckle. At his back was Helen, trembling with excitement, and in front of him stood Wilkes, spluttering and gasping for breath as a result of the Phantom’s clutch at his throat.
The whole episode had been enacted within the space of a few seconds. The Phantom had acted so swiftly and taken them all so completely by surprise that on one had had time to interfere. Now, before the men huddled against the wall and in front of the stairs could gather their wits, a powerful shove sent Wilkes sprawling headlong to the floor, and in another moment the Phantom had seized Helen’s hand and made a rush for Bimble.
He snatched up the pistol the doctor had dropped as the bullet struck his wrist, and handed it to Helen.
“Shoot the first man who makes a move,” he directed, “and shoot to kill!”
Helen looked into his cool, determined eyes, flashing with the ecstasy of combat. With a faint audacious smile on her lips, she drew herself up and handling the weapon with the sure touch of an expert, faced the staring and muttering crowd. For a few moments the men stood immobile, as if the swift succession of events had cast a numbing spell over their bodies and minds; then, with ominous grumblings and curses, a few of the more daring ones started forward.
In the meantime the Phantom had jabbed his pistol against Bimble’s body with a force that brought a sickly groan from the doctor’s lips. He glanced aside out of the corner of an eye as a crack and a gleam of fire issued from Helen’s weapon. A bullet in the fleshy part of the hip had checked a furtive movement on the part of one of the gang, and instantly the others, impressed by the girl’s exhibition of marksmanship, fell back.
The Phantom nodded approvingly. His glittering eyes and a smile on his lips gave no hint of what he felt.
“Let me warn you that Miss Hardwick is an expert,” he remarked coolly. “She once got a perfect bull’s-eye at six hundred yards.”