“Mr. Shei!”
Time and again through the night following her arrival at Azurecrest, Helen’s lips soundlessly formed the name she had involuntarily spoken upon seeing the man in the doorway. She tossed restlessly on her bed, her mind in that curious state on the boundary line between slumber and wakefulness when the imagination forms shadowy images and one’s thoughts reach for elusive realities.
Now and then, as a wild strain of laughter shattered the silence, she sat up and stared into the darkness. A cold tingle would trickle down her spine as the sounds rose to a hysterical crescendo, then fell to a gentle tinkle that made her flesh quiver, and finally died down to a haunting echo. Then, her sense of horror engulfed by overwhelming drowsiness, she would fall back against the pillow and drift into a state of soothing stupor.
Finally dawn broke. Flickering wisps of sunlight fell on the floor, lighting up the dark corners and dispersing the evil host with which her imagination had peopled the gloom. A fresh breeze caressed her hot forehead and cooled the fever in her blood. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Outside, the sun was glimmering on treetops and long stretches of lawn. The bright, pleasant room afforded a sharp contrast to the strident discords and monstrous visions that had distressed her throughout the night.
Her recollections were still vague. Gradually a train of memories swept upon her. It all came back to her now—her arrival at Azurecrest, her failure to find The Gray Phantom, the strange laughter and the hideous face she had seen at the window, Miss Neville’s amazing story and the intercepted flight, and finally the appearance of the man at the sight of whom she had cried out the name of Mr. Shei.
Again her recollections grew dim. Things had gone dark before her eyes as soon as she had spoken the name. She had heard a jumble of voices, and she believed someone had forced a drink down her throat. A sedative, perhaps, for after that she had known nothing but the intermittent outbursts of laughter and their accompaniment of strange fancies. She shuddered as she remembered them. Several voices, she felt sure, had joined in the chorus of unnatural laughter. It could mean only one thing—that more than one inmate of the house was afflicted with the mysterious fever so vividly described by Miss Neville.
Her mind was clearing rapidly now. She realized she was surrounded by dangers which she could neither gauge nor understand. Of one thing only could she be certain. Her eyes, while resting on the man in the doorway, had pierced the veil of mystery which had concealed the identity of the mysterious Mr. Shei. The discovery, confirming a suspicion that had first come to her in the Thelma Theater, had shocked and bewildered her, and on the impulse of the moment she had heedlessly called out his name.
Now, in a calmer mood, she reproached herself for her indiscretion. She wondered whether Mr. Shei would dare let her live, now that she had penetrated his secret. If he were as ruthless and unscrupulous as she supposed him to be, he would in all likelihood seal her lips forever. She might promise not to betray him, but Mr. Shei was too shrewd and cautious to rely on promises. He would be more apt to adopt the only course consistent with his safety.
She shivered a little. Physical fear she had never known, for there was a strain of recklessness and audacity in her nature that blinded her eyes to dangers, but the thought of death gave her a chill. She did not know exactly why, but never before had life seemed as enticing as now. A determination to live spurred her mind to frantic effort. She would outwit Mr. Shei by her woman’s weapons. She had done some skillful fencing with them on several occasions in the past, and she could use them again. Already she was casting about for a plan. Perhaps, by a little clever acting, she could convince Mr. Shei that her calling of his name had been nothing but a hysterical outburst and without significance. If she succeeded in this, he would have no reason for taking her life.
The thought buoyed her. She turned a smiling face to the door as it opened and admitted a woman carrying a tray. She was thin and slatternly, and she sighed repeatedly while transferring the breakfast dishes to a table which she placed beside Helen’s bed.
“Eat, you poor thing,” she admonished, a world of melancholy in her tones.
Helen sipped the coffee. It was strong and fragrant and gave her a needed stimulus.
“Why do you call me ‘poor thing’?” she inquired.
The woman heaved another sigh. “I’m not saying. I can hold my tongue when I want to. That’s how I keep my job in this place. It’s a shame, though—really it is.”
“What is a shame?” Helen, looking into the slattern’s saturnine face, with its ludicrously doleful expression, felt an impulse to laugh in spite of her misgivings.
“You’re so young and pretty. That’s why I call it a shame. Oh, well, we all have to go that way sooner or later.”
Helen, unpleasantly impressed by the innuendo, tasted the toast. “Which way?” she asked in casual tones.
“That would be telling.” A long sigh racked the woman’s scrawny chest. “I hear a lot of things around this place that I never tell. Better eat hearty, dear. It might be your last—— Gosh! I almost said something that time, didn’t I?”
Helen, conquering her forebodings, ate in silence for a time. The slattern’s funereal face and dismal insinuations were casting a spell of gloom over her which she found hard to shake off. Finally she tried a direct question.
“Do you mean that they are going to kill me?”
The woman clasped her hands across her chest and raised mournful eyes to the ceiling. “You mustn’t ask questions, poor dear. You’ll find out soon enough. Anyhow, there’s a better world than this.”
With this piece of doubtful consolation she gathered the dishes and, with another disconsolate sigh, walked out of the room. Helen tried to tell herself that the woman had merely been exercising her imagination and that her doleful hints had come out of thin air. The meal had refreshed her, and her spirits rose while she bathed her face in cold water and arranged her attire. Having finished, she viewed herself with satisfaction in the mirror. Her elastic health and strength had obliterated nearly every trace of her distressing night.
A knock sounded on the door, and Mr. Slade walked in. Helen instantly steeled herself for an ordeal. Slade, she had already guessed, was Mr. Shei’s right-hand man. He was smiling affably, but something told her that her life depended on the outcome of the interview.
“I trust you had a restful night, Miss Hardwick?” he suavely inquired after seating himself.
“I slept like a top,” Helen assured him with a smile that belied her real emotion. “You see, I was all fagged out when I retired. I have a faint recollection that I was a bit hysterical, too. I suppose it was on account of that affair at the Thelma Theater the other night. I received quite a shock.”
“Naturally,” assented Slade, regarding her with a mingling of admiration and doubt. “Yes, you seemed somewhat upset last night. You probably have no recollection of it, but you fainted completely away, and one of the maids put you to bed after the physician in attendance upon Miss Neville had administered a sedative. I don’t suppose you remember any of that?”
“It’s all news to me,” declared Helen innocently. “I’m sorry to have been so much trouble.”
Slade made a deprecatory gesture. He edged his chair a little closer to the small table at which Helen was seated. She felt his cold gaze searching her face, and to hide her confusion she began tracing figures in the dust that had accumulated on the surface of the table.
“Last night we were discussing The Gray Phantom,” Slade remarked, and she started a trifle at the mention of the name. “I regret I can give you no inkling as to his whereabouts. I suppose you are very anxious to find him?”
“Rather.”
“Isn’t it strange that he did not give you his new address?”
“He may have written and the letter gone astray,” suggested Helen. A flush had tinged the healthy tan of her cheeks the moment Slade introduced the subject of The Gray Phantom. Looking down at the table, she noticed confusedly that her hand had been influenced by the thoughts that were uppermost in her mind. In the thin layer of dust she had absently traced The Gray Phantom’s initials. It was a habit of hers, cultivated since childhood, to sketch figures and designs on whatever surface was handy, and she had often told herself she must overcome it.
“Perhaps,” was Slade’s comment. He looked at her in a way that caused her to wonder whether he had noticed the pencilings in the dust, and she erased them with a quick sweep of her hand. “By the way,” he went on, “our conversation last night was interrupted by a—a certain person. Remember?”
Helen knew that the critical moment had come. She made a pretense of searching her memory.
“I was very tired,” she said, carefully choosing her words, “and I recall very little of what happened. I seem to remember, though, that a motor horn sounded while we were talking.”
“Yes, and then?” Slade bent eagerly forward.
Helen’s strained face indicated intense mental effort. “Then—— Isn’t it odd that I don’t seem able to remember a thing after that?”
“It is,” admitted Slade, and there was a subtle change in the quality of his voice. “Perhaps I can refresh your memory. Suddenly a man’s figure appeared in the doorway. You stared at him in a way signifying that you had seen him before. Then you spoke a name.”
“A name?” echoed Helen. “What name?”
“A name that has been on a great many lips of late—Mr. Shei’s.”
“Isn’t that strange?” murmured Helen. “I wonder what on earth made me mention that name. I suppose, though,” she added quickly, “that it was because Mr. Shei’s name had been in my mind off and on ever since that terrible occurrence in the Thelma Theater. Yes, that must be the reason.”
“Theonlyreason, Miss Hardwick?”
“What other reason could there be?”
Slade smiled in a way that awoke Helen’s dislike. “Well, it’s conceivable that you were under the impression that the man in the doorway was Mr. Shei. That would not only have explained your excitement, but also give ample reason for uttering his name.”
Helen opened her eyes wide. “But—but I don’t even remember seeing the man,” she protested artlessly, “so why should I suppose him to be Mr. Shei?”
“The fact remains that you spoke Mr. Shei’s name just before you fainted away. Let’s get at the subject from a different angle, Miss Hardwick. Do you know who Mr. Shei is?”
Helen, having a curious feeling that her life was trembling in the balance, shook her head.
“You don’t know his other name—the name by which he is known to the world at large?”
Again Helen made a negative gesture, and in the same instant she became aware that Slade’s frosty gaze was following the movements of her right hand. Before she realized what was happening, he had left his chair and stepped up behind her, and now he was leaning over her shoulder and looking down at the table.
“So, you lied,” he muttered in tones that sent a shiver through her body, at the same time pointing to the table.
Helen looked down. She gave a violent start. While she had been fencing verbally with Slade, her hand had betrayed her. In her preoccupation she had not realized that another couplet of initials had appeared in the dust. With a sensation of defeat and despair she stared down at the telltale characters—the first letters in Mr. Shei’s other name.
At noon of the same day a scene equally tense, but of quite a different character, was being enacted in the library of W. Rufus Fairspeckle.
Dazedly The Gray Phantom set the telephone down. In tones too low for the older man to catch, he mumblingly repeated the startling message that had just come to him over the wire: “Mr. Shei speaking. If you value Miss Hardwick’s life, I would advise you to abandon your present plans.”
One by one, and in the order in which they had been spoken, the words trickled into his benumbed consciousness. He had heard Mr. Shei’s voice over the wire. He had been mistaken, then, and the shrunken and wizened man seated before him with eyes staring and mouth agape could not be Mr. Shei. Even the evidence of the typewritten slips lying on the desk seemed to mean nothing against the fact that the notorious rogue had just communicated with him by telephone.
“What—what’s the matter?” stammered Mr. Fairspeckle, who, not having the faintest inkling as to the nature of the message received by The Phantom, was at a loss to understand the latter’s demeanor. “Anything wrong?”
The Phantom scarcely heard him. The significance of the last part of Mr. Shei’s message came to him in a flash. In a twinkling his mind was functioning again. His eyes were threatening, like miniature thunder clouds. A new and dynamic impulse seemed to dominate his whole being. He snatched up the telephone directory and found a number. Then he fairly hurled himself at the telephone, frantically jigged the hook up and down, shouted a number into the transmitter, and waited breathlessly till the connection was established.
A woman’s voice, evidently that of a servant, answered. Miss Hardwick was not in, she explained, and when pressed for further information admitted that she had not been seen since breakfast the previous day. Mr. Hardwick, ill at ease because of his daughter’s absence, was instituting inquiries for her in various directions, and the servant did not know where he could be reached.
The Phantom’s eyes blazed as he set the instrument down with a slam. Mr. Fairspeckle, a flabbergasted look in his bulging eyes, seemed utterly at a loss to comprehend what was going on. For a moment The Phantom eyed him narrowly, then cast a bewildered glance at the typewritten slips, and finally turned abruptly on his heels and dashed from the room.
No one interrupted him. He suspected that Haiuto was lurking somewhere in the background, but he saw nothing of the sly-footed servant as he rushed from the apartment and, forgetting the existence of the elevator, scurried down three flights of stairs. The ferret-eyed individual whom he had seen from the window was still standing at the opposite curb, but he did not deign a single glance in The Phantom’s direction. Block after block, spurred on by a medley of anguishing doubts and suspicions, The Phantom continued his heedless progress, conscious only of the one agonizing thought that something had happened to Helen Hardwick.
Presently he awoke to a realization of the futility and recklessness of his conduct. His fears for Helen Hardwick had blunted his wits and stultified his reason, making him forget his old-time caution and nimbleness of mind. To no purpose he was rushing blindly into a net of dangers. With a mutter of disgust at his childish impetuosity, he drew in his steps and turned into a convenient doorway. A glance up and down the street assured him that, thanks to luck alone, his headlong course seemed to have attracted no attention. He scanned the crowd on all sides, but there was no sign of either espionage or pursuit. He had vaguely expected to be followed by the keen-eyed watcher he had seen on the sidewalk outside the Whipple Hotel, but the man was nowhere in sight. For the present, at least, The Phantom was safe. Now he must think clearly and act coolly.
He could not rid himself of the suspicion that Helen’s volatile nature and venturesome disposition had led her into some fearful predicament. He knew she had an infinite capacity for handling difficult situations, but the knowledge gave him scant comfort. He revolved the problem of her disappearance in his mind. She had been missing for more than twenty-four hours. He sensed a dim significance in the fact that she had passed out of sight the morning following the tragedy at the Thelma Theater, and of a sudden he asked himself whether there could be any possible connection between her disappearance and the death of Virginia Darrow.
Several circumstances lent plausibility to the theory. Chief among them was the mysterious warning The Phantom had received from Mr. Shei, the man who was generally believed to have been implicated in Miss Darrow’s death. The Phantom’s mind was working swiftly now, leaping barriers and rushing straight to conclusions. It was Helen’s play, he remembered, that had been produced on the night of the tragedy, and it was very probable that she had been present at thepremièreperformance. Knowing her as he did, he thought it conceivable that she had come into possession of some vital facts bearing on the tragedy. Her inquisitive mind, though untainted by vulgar curiosity, was always dipping into mysteries of one sort or another, and it was possible that on this occasion her natural bent had led her into conflict with Mr. Shei.
Almost before he realized what he was doing, The Phantom was in a taxicab, shouting to the chauffeur to drive him to the Thelma Theater. It seemed the logical starting point in his search; at least, he did not know where else to begin, and by visiting the scene of Miss Darrow’s death, he might be able to pick up some clew to Helen’s movements.
The doors were open, and he thought this somewhat strange in view of the fact that a poster on the outer wall announced that the performances of “His Soul’s Master” had been discontinued, but the circumstance did not linger long in his mind. The box office and lobby being empty, he passed unchallenged into the auditorium. For a few moments, while his eyes grew accustomed to the dusk, he stood just inside the door, trying to call back to mind each detail of the tragedy as it had been narrated in the newspapers, and presently there came to him a conviction that he was not alone, but that someone was watching him intently.
He could not account for the impression, for no sound reached his ears, and the interior was only a mass of gently undulating shadows in which he saw no indication of another’s presence. The atmosphere was somewhat oppressive, and a multitude of faint scents lingered in the air, hinting that the theater had not been ventilated since the last performance. Glancing sharply into the gloom about him, The Phantom groped his way down the center aisle, then explored the passageways at each side of the house, and finally looked into each of the boxes. His search availed him nothing, and at length he was forced to admit that his imagination had tricked him.
Walking to the rear of the house, he stood with his back against a pillar, and gazed toward the last row of seats to the left. It was there, according to the diagram he had seen in one of the papers, that Virginia Darrow had sat when seized with the strange fit of laughter. Again he wondered what bearing the woman’s death might have on Mr. Shei’s latest venture. The connection, if there was one, seemed so remote that he came to the conclusion that Mr. Shei must be at work on a very intricate and deep-laid scheme. Then it occurred to him that his speculations, founded on insufficient facts, were a waste of time. They were not helping him to solve the mystery of Helen Hardwick’s disappearance.
As was his habit when he wished to concentrate his mind on a problem, he took a cigarette from his case, then struck a match against the sole of his shoe. Absently he held the fluttering light to the tip of the cigarette, and inhaled. Suddenly he sprang aside, for a sound, all but too faint for his ears to detect, had warned him of danger, and in the same instant a sharp crack and a flash of fire leaped out of the darkness. Then an object whizzed past his head and with a thudding sound imbedded itself in the pillar against which he had been leaning.
In a moment he had extinguished his cigarette. He could see now that its glowing point, together with the match, had made him a target for the person who had fired the shot. The bullet had passed so close to his head that, but for his quick and agile backward spring, it would undoubtedly have killed him. His narrow escape had an exhilarating effect, and he dashed toward the point where he had seen the flash of fire, determined to capture the would-be murderer. It was his impression that the shot had been fired only a dozen feet away, and he did not think the man could have escaped.
In the gloom he could not distinguish objects clearly, and he dashed headlong against a post. The contact sent a stinging sensation through his head, and in the same moment a figure glided silently past him and was swallowed by the shadows at the other side of the house. Again The Phantom rushed forward. A swiftly moving object, a shade darker than the surrounding dusk, was discernible down the aisle leading to the boxes at the right. The Phantom darted after it, but when he reached the point his quarry had disappeared. For an instant he stopped, uncertain which way to turn, and in the midst of his perplexity the varicolored lights along the walls were flashed on.
The Phantom whirled round. Near one of the exits in the rear of the house stood a tall, slenderly proportioned man. His long, glossy hair was rumpled, and even at a distance The Phantom could see that his features, so regularly molded as to give an impression of effeminacy, were intensely pale. He approached swiftly. The two men eyed each other intently before either spoke.
“You are Mr. Starr, I believe?” began The Phantom, recognizing the other from photographs he had seen in the newspapers.
Starr nodded. His right hand was clutching a revolver. Coming closer, The Phantom noticed that his nose was discolored and swollen, probably the result of the attack that had preceded the disappearance of Virginia Darrow’s body.
“I owe you an apology for intruding like this,” he went on, “but the formalities can wait. There was a shot fired here a few moments ago, and I believe it was meant for me.”
“I was at work in my office upstairs when I heard something that sounded like a revolver shot,” explained Starr. “I armed myself and came down to investigate.” His voice, at other times perfectly modulated, was a little husky, and he seemed unduly conscious of his disfigured nose. He maintained a tight grip on his pistol while regarding The Phantom with a look of suspicion.
“We ought to search the house at once,” suggested The Phantom. “The scoundrel can’t have gone far.”
Starr readily acquiesced, but from time to time while they went on with the search The Phantom felt the other’s stealthy gaze searching his face, and each time he saw a look of dawning recognition in Starr’s eyes. He thought nothing of it, for the capture of the man who had fired the shot seemed of far greater importance. Deep in his mind was a faint and remote hope that the fellow, if caught, might be persuaded to tell something of what had happened to Helen Hardwick.
They searched every conceivable space in the auditorium, back of the stage, and finally in the storerooms and dressing rooms down below, but without avail. As they abandoned their quest The Phantom thought he saw signs of increasing nervousness on Starr’s part.
“Strange how the scoundrel disappeared,” he remarked when once more they stood in the back of the auditorium.
“No stranger than what happened here night before last.” Starr spoke with a touch of petulance in his voice and manner. “Mr. Shei and his henchmen seem to have a knack of walking through solid walls. What I object to most is his evident determination to make my theater the scene of his diabolical activities. By the way,” and he fixed The Phantom with a look of mingled perplexity and suspicion, “haven’t you and I met before?”
“Not in person, unless I am mistaken.” The Phantom, alert against the slightest threatening move on the other’s part, smiled faintly. “The newspapers have been kind enough to give me some publicity from time to time, and you may have seen my photograph. Suppose we let it go at that.”
“As you wish, of course,” murmured Starr, his lips twitching, “but we shall be able to talk to better advantage if we first complete the introductions. I was almost certain I recognized you at first glance. You are The Gray Phantom. But don’t get startled,” he quickly added as The Phantom suddenly stiffened. “My interest in life is purely esthetic. I am trying, in my small and humble way, to uplift the drama from the sordid depths into which it has fallen through the stupidity and avarice of managers. The capture and punishment of criminals interest me not at all. To be perfectly frank with you, as between the police and a fascinating rogue like yourself, my sympathies are with the latter.”
He made an expressive gesture, and The Phantom watched with interest the slight, quick and marvelously impressive motions of his hands. Though this was his first meeting with the man himself, the gestures, as well as the characteristic backward toss of the head, seemed oddly familiar.
“I think you are mistaken about one thing,” Starr went on, his nervousness returning. “Is there any reason why anyone should wish to put you out of the way?”
“None that I know of,” replied The Phantom thoughtfully. “I suppose I have enemies, but it didn’t occur to me that anyone was after my life until that shot was fired.”
“And weren’t you a bit precipitate in jumping at the conclusion that the bullet was intended for you? Suppose you give me the details.”
The Phantom told him the meager facts of the firing of the shot.
“There you are!” exclaimed Starr when he had finished. “The fellow couldn’t see your face. All he saw was the match, and he used that as a target, knowing you were holding it directly in front of your face while lighting the cigarette.” He took a few quick, nervous steps back and forth. He clenched and unclenched his hands as if trying to quell a rising trepidation. Suddenly he paused directly in front of The Phantom. “That bullet was not intended for you, but for me,” he declared emphatically.
“Are you sure?”
“Not sure, but I have the best of reasons for supposing that such is the fact. I have had several intimations of danger in the past few weeks, but it isn’t necessary to go into details. Since night before last I have wondered what prompted Miss Darrow to send me the facetiously worded note hinting that Mr. Shei was in the house. If she were alive I am sure she could tell us several interesting things about—— But what’s the good of supposing? Miss Darrow will never be able to tell what was in her mind when she wrote me that note. Only one thing is certain. She was killed because she had, in some unexplained manner, learned Mr. Shei’s identity.”
The Phantom regarded him narrowly. “Some people seem to be of the opinion that I am Mr. Shei.”
“Rot! The similarity between your tactics and those of Mr. Shei is only superficial. The essential difference ought to be plain even to a stupid headquarters detective. Besides, you never took life or—— But the idea is too absurd to waste breath on. Let us be practical. You have not yet explained why you are honoring the Thelma Theater with this visit.”
The Phantom was about to reply when one of the doors in front was pushed open and the shadow of a masculine figure fell across the floor. After a glance into the face of the newcomer, The Phantom sensed danger and tried to retreat into a corner where the dim light held out a faint hope of brief security. But it was too late.
“Stay right where you are,” commanded the man who had just entered. “Didn’t know The Gray Phantom was back in town. Step out here where I can look at you.”
The Phantom shrugged his shoulders and stepped forward, concealing his misgivings behind a smiling and carefree exterior. He knew Lieutenant Culligore from past encounters with the man, and he had learned to respect him for his shrewdness as well as his sense of fairness. Now he looked straight into the muddy and deceptively lazy eyes of the man from headquarters. Once The Phantom had assisted him in solving a singularly perplexing mystery, but he knew that Culligore was not the kind of man to let sentiment interfere with duty.
There were times when it was difficult for The Gray Phantom to realize that he was still an outlaw and that several prison sentences were hanging over his head. The poignant fact came back to him now as he gazed into the eyes of one of the keenest man hunters of the detective bureau.
“You sure have nerve,” observed Culligore, a trace of reluctant admiration in his tones. “Don’t you know there’s a warrant out for your arrest?”
“Several of them, I believe,” calmly replied The Phantom.
Lieutenant Culligore took a cigar from his vest pocket and lighted it with elaborate care. Then he turned to Starr.
“Mr. Shei’s gang certainly handed you an awful wallop the other night,” he observed, gazing frowningly at the disfigured organ. “That’s a peach of a nose you’ve got.”
Starr flushed angrily, but controlled himself.
“I’ve got a few words to say to this gentleman privately,” Culligore went on, inclining his head toward The Phantom. Starr, accepting his dismissal as gracefully as his indignation permitted, walked out. Culligore’s small eyes, twinkling humorously through a cloud of tobacco smoke, followed his progress till the door closed behind him, then he slowly turned toward The Phantom.
“Starr is my idea of a perfect gentleman,” he musingly observed. “He can get mad clean through and still keep his coat on. Was the shot fired at you or at him?”
“Shot?” For a moment The Phantom stared bewilderedly. “How did you know?”
“My sense of smell is fairly good,” said Culligore, sniffing. “I noticed there was powder smoke in the air the moment I walked in. What became of the bullet?”
The Phantom explained. With a listless air the lieutenant examined the point where the leaden slug had entered the pillar. “I’ll bet a pair of pink socks that the rascal who fired the shot is a safe distance from here by this time. What I’d like to know is whether he was aiming at you or at Starr.”
“Starr thinks the bullet was meant for him,” said The Phantom thoughtfully. “He may be right, but I have my doubts. He is the imaginative type that believes he is being pursued by secret enemies and all that sort of thing. On the other hand, I can’t see why anybody should waste a chunk of good lead on me, unless——” He stopped short as an idea suddenly occurred to him.
“Unless Mr. Shei should have a goose to pick with you,” Culligore filled in, and The Phantom marveled at the way the detective had read his unspoken thought. “It’s always safe to look for a shower of bullets whenever The Gray Phantom bobs up. By the way,” and Culligore frowned disapprovingly, “what’s the idea? Don’t you know the climate in this town is mighty unhealthy for a man like you?”
“I am aware of it.” The Phantom’s lips tightened into a grim line. “But I had to risk it, Culligore. I couldn’t sit idle while—— But first let me ask you one question. Some people seem to think that I am Mr. Shei. Do you agree with them?”
Culligore pulled thoughtfully at his cigar. His eyes seemed to be searching every remote corner of The Phantom’s mind. “No,” he said finally, “I don’t. And I don’t see it makes any difference. You’re The Gray Phantom, and that’s reason enough for me to pinch you. There are times when I hate my job, but duty is duty. I wish you hadn’t shown up just at this time. Some of the higher-ups are dead sure you are Mr. Shei, and the whole town is on tenter hooks on account of the notices posted last night. Everybody expects Mr. Shei to strike, but nobody knows where the blow is going to fall. You can see how things are. Why the devil didn’t you stay where you belong?”
“I couldn’t,” replied The Phantom. Then he regarded the lieutenant with a slow, carefully measuring glance. Culligore was one of the few men he had met whom he could instinctively trust. There had been clashes between them in the past, but the lieutenant had always fought fairly. Choosing his words with great deliberation, The Phantom explained why he had come out of hiding to cross swords with Mr. Shei.
“That’s just like The Gray Phantom,” was Culligore’s comment when he had finished. “You stick your head in the noose just because somebody else is copying your tricks. Well, anyhow, I admire your nerve. Too bad you and I belong to opposite camps. We could have a lot of fun tracking Mr. Shei together.” He shook his head as if to banish a pleasing but impossible hope. “No use wishing things were different, though. I don’t exactly like the idea, but I’ve got to take you along to headquarters.”
“You will have to take me in an ambulance, then.” There was a note of challenge in The Phantom’s tones and his figure tensed perceptibly. “You’ll never take me alive, Culligore. It simply can’t be done. And you will have the scrap of your life before you take me dead. I am going to see this thing through if I have to fight the whole police department of New York City. The fact that Mr. Shei is stealing my tactics isn’t the only reason. I learned something this morning that is of vastly more importance. By the way,” and The Phantom fairly jabbed the question at the lieutenant, “have you seen anything of Miss Helen Hardwick?”
Culligore’s lazy eyes opened a little wider. “Not since yesterday morning. She and I had quite an argument about Mr. Shei. We were standing almost exactly where you and I are standing now. She knows how to fence with words. I haven’t made up my mind yet whether she or I got the best of the argument.”
The Phantom smiled despite his impatience. “What did she think of Mr. Shei?”
“How can anybody tell what a woman thinks? You can make a guess, of course, but the chances are either that you are wrong or that you are making just exactly the kind of guess she wants you to make. Miss Hardwick left me pretty much up in the air, but I have a feeling all the time that she had discovered something that led her to think that you were Mr. Shei.”
“Oh,” mumbled the Phantom; then he stood silent for a few moments. “Where did Miss Hardwick go from here?”
Culligore shrugged. “Ask me something easy. She walked out of that door, and that’s all I’m sure of. There was another question or two I wanted to ask her, and that’s why I dropped around here to-day, thinking she might show up again. She seemed very much wrought up over Mr. Shei.”
With an impetuous gesture The Phantom placed his hand on the lieutenant’s arm.
“Miss Hardwick has disappeared,” he announced quickly, “and I fear she has blundered into the clutches of Mr. Shei.”
“Eh?” The mask of listlessness dropped in a twinkling from Culligore’s face. He was instantly tense and alert. “What’s that?”
“I called up her home this morning. Nobody seems to know what has become of her. A little later I received a telephone message warning me that—— But I see I shall have to tell you the whole story in order to make things clear.” Briefly The Phantom related his encounter with Mr. Fairspeckle, the events that had occurred at the apartment of the retired financier, and finally the warning message that had come over the wire. “Now you can understand,” he concluded, “why I don’t intend to submit to arrest until Miss Hardwick has been found.”
Culligore’s cigar had gone out while The Phantom was speaking. Now he lighted it again, sent a few clouds of smoke curling toward the ceiling, then peered intently into The Phantom’s face. Finally he jerked his head up and down as if he had seen a light.
“The thing to do,” he declared, “is to take the shortest route and go direct to Mr. Shei and ask him what he has done with Miss Hardwick.”
The Phantom laughed bitterly. “Beautifully simple! The only difficulty is that we haven’t the slightest idea who Mr. Shei is or where to find him. Otherwise your suggestion is capital.”
A queer smile curled Culligore’s lips. “Sometimes The Gray Phantom isn’t playing in very good form. But then every man gets a bit foolish when he has a girl on the brain. Your thinking cap isn’t on straight to-day, or you wouldn’t have let Fairspeckle pull the wool over your eyes the way he did.”
“Fairspeckle? You don’t think——”
“He acted queer all morning, didn’t he?”
“Yes, but——”
“And didn’t he try to put you to sleep by drugging your coffee?”
“True, but he——”
“And didn’t you see him typing the notices with Mr. Shei’s name at the bottom?”
“But the telephone message?”
“Yes, I know,” said Culligore patiently. “That’s where he duped you to a brown finish. You would have seen the trick at once if your thinking machinery had been in good condition. I don’t know Fairspeckle, but from what you have told me he must be a sharp one. My experience has taught me never to trust a man who can’t sleep nights. It’s a bad conscience that keeps him awake in the first place, and a man suffering from loss of sleep is likely to go in for any kind of deviltry. Maybe that’s what happened to Fairspeckle. Anyhow, the way he pulled the wool over your eyes proves he is a slick one.”
“Then you think Fairspeckle is Mr. Shei?”
“If he isn’t, why should he be typing those notices? Just look at it this way. Fairspeckle saw that you suspected him. He didn’t like that a bit. To throw you off your guard, he pretended to suspectyou. You caught him with the goods when you saw him typing the notices. Right away you started in denouncing him as Mr. Shei. Then, right in the midst of a dramatic moment, the telephone rings. The voice at the other end asks for you. You’re told that Mr. Shei is speaking and that Miss Hardwick will suffer unless you keep hands off. That gives you a jolt, of course, and all you can think of is the girl. You don’t stop to question whether the man at the other end is really Mr. Shei. For all you know he might be Tom Brown or Bill Jones, but you’re too excited to think of that. I don’t blame you. I’d been just as easy if I had been in your place.”
A blank look crossed The Phantom’s face while Culligore was speaking. It was quickly followed by an expression of mingling comprehension and self-disgust.
“I see it now. I’ve been as gullible as a ten-year-old. The message purporting to come from Mr. Shei was meant to divert my suspicions from Fairspeckle. He might have been prepared for some such emergency, or else he signaled Haiuto while I wasn’t looking. The Japanese could easily have gotten in touch with one of the members of Fairspeckle’s gang and instructed him to call me up and give me the prearranged message. But just how it was done doesn’t matter. The important point is that I was taken in. I am wondering now whether the threat in regard to Miss Hardwick was pure bluff, or whether she is really in danger.”
“I wouldn’t take chances,” cautioned Culligore. “If I were you I would call on Mr. Fairspeckle to-night and have a confidential chat with him. He may not want to talk, but maybe you can persuade him. Of course, as an officer of the law, I must warn you there mustn’t be any rough stuff.” Culligore’s twinkling eyes gazed toward the ceiling.
“Then you have abandoned your intention of dragging me over to headquarters?”
Culligore did not answer directly, but the faint grin on his lips was eloquent. “I would advise you to watch your step,” he said softly. “The moment it becomes known that The Gray Phantom is in town, there will be the niftiest little man hunt you ever saw. I wish you luck. In the meantime, I’m going to tackle the case from another angle. I’d give a pair of pink socks to know just when, where, and how Mr. Shei is going to strike.”
He tilted his chin against his hand and lapsed into deep thought. When he looked up, several minutes later, The Phantom was gone. Very softly, with a twinkle in his eyes, he stepped to a recess in the wall toward which he had cast an occasional furtive glance during his talk with The Phantom. On a marble shelf extended across the niche were a number of potted ferns, and behind them was a small window, artistically decorated to render it opaque. Culligore, noticing that it stood open a crack, pricked up his ears and listened. From the other side came a faint, scraping sound, as if someone were hiding there.
Culligore nodded elatedly as he tiptoed away. He seemed immensely gratified at having verified his suspicion that his interview with The Gray Phantom had been overheard.
A fine drizzle was in the air and the street lights emitted a blurred and languid sheen. For an hour The Gray Phantom had been pacing the sidewalk across the street from the Whipple Hotel, impatiently waiting for the lights in Mr. Fairspeckle’s suite to go out. His coat collar was turned up and the brim of his soft hat was pulled low over his forehead. Taking Culligore’s warning to heart, he had resolved not to endanger his project by running unnecessary risks.
The passing pedestrians gave him scarcely a glance, and he told himself that the inclement weather was a point in his favor. Evidently neither Culligore nor Starr had mentioned his presence in the city, for he could see no signs of accelerated activity on the part of the police, as there would have been if the news had leaked out that The Gray Phantom had come out of hiding. The solitary watcher whom he had seen from the window of Mr. Fairspeckle’s bedroom earlier in the day had evidently quitted his task, for he was nowhere in sight.
Throughout the late afternoon and early evening, The Phantom had been harassed by fears for Helen’s safety. At times he had scarcely been able to control his impatience, but his eagerness had been cooled by the knowledge that a headlong rush into danger would only render the situation worse. His interview with Culligore had not only helped to clarify his mind, but it had left him with a renewed conviction that the emaciated and dour-looking ex-financier was Mr. Shei.
Again he cast a speculative glance at the windows of Mr. Fairspeckle’s apartment. All the lights but one had been extinguished since he last looked in that direction, and he guessed that the occupant had retired to his bedroom. His imagination pictured the old man sleeplessly pacing the floor, chuckling softly to himself while his mind evolved nefarious schemes. It was The Phantom’s plan to take him completely by surprise and if possible wring a confession from him. But above all else he was determined to ascertain whether Fairspeckle knew anything about Helen’s whereabouts.
He waited fifteen minutes longer, then adjusted his hat and collar and walked briskly across the street. With the air of one belonging on the premises he entered the hotel and, not thinking it safe to use the elevator, walked toward the stairway in the rear. A few drowsy loungers sat in chairs in the lobby, and the clerk was engaged with a late arrival, so no one noticed him. The long, heavily carpeted hallways were silent and deserted, for the Whipple was catering chiefly to the staid and respectable element that retires early and sleeps soundly.
The Phantom ascended three flights of stairs, then turned down the corridor toward Mr. Fairspeckle’s apartment. Reaching the door, he stopped and listened, but no sound came from the interior. After a cautious glance behind him, he took from his pocket a compact case which he always carried when engaged in enterprises like the present, and from its silk-lined grooves extracted a small metallic tool. In a few moments the lock had yielded to his deft manipulation, and he stepped inside.
Again he stopped and listened. The hallway in which he stood was lighted only by a tiny electric bulb in the ceiling, and its glow was so faint that the surrounding objects were scarcely distinguishable. At first he could not hear the slightest sound, and he was about to proceed when a curious impression caused him to draw in his steps. Perhaps his imagination was deceiving him, but he thought someone was sobbing, and he had a distinct impression that the sounds were coming from the door at his left.
In an instant he had pressed his ear against the keyhole. Now he could heard the sounds quite clearly, but the soblike effect was gone, and instead they made him think of someone gasping and spluttering. Mystified, he tried the lock and pushed the door open. The room was dark, and he ran his hand along the wall until he found the electric switch. As the light flashed on, a mutter of amazement fell from his lips.
On a bed at the farther end of the room, with hands and feet bound and a gag firmly adjusted to his mouth, lay Haiuto. The servant, a look of mute pleading in his bulging eyes, was tugging impotently at the ropes around his ankles and wrists.
“What’s happened?” sharply inquired The Phantom, but renewed splutterings called his attention to the fact that the gag prevented Haiuto from speaking. He removed the cloth while repeating the question. Haiuto, breathing hard, licked the bruised portion of his mouth.
“Don’t know,” he finally managed to say. “I sleep. Then noise at door. Before I can get up, somebody walk in. All is dark, like tomb of Iyeyasu. I get awful crack on head. Then sleep again. Don’t know anything else.”
With a moan Haiuto sank back against the pillow. A startling suspicion flashed through The Phantom’s mind. Without troubling to release the servant’s limbs, he ran from the room and opened a door at the farther end of the hall. He had thought it led into Fairspeckle’s bedroom, but his sense of direction had become somewhat confused, and he found himself in the library instead. Faintly through the darkness he glimpsed the bright nickel trimmings of the typewriter at which the ex-financier had been at work earlier in the day. He groped his way across the floor, turning in the direction where he thought Fairspeckle’s bedroom was. A soft tinkle brought him to a dead stop.
The telephone was ringing! Acting on impulse, he fumbled about in the dark till he found the instrument, then lifted the receiver to his ear and spoke a low response into the transmitter. The answering voice sent a quiver through his being. He recognized it at once, for he had heard it before.
“Mr. Shei speaking,” it was saying, and the cold, precise tones were edged with a taunt. “I perceive you have chosen to disregard the warning I gave you a few hours ago. Unless you abandon your plans at once, Miss Hardwick will die. That is absolutely final.”
A faint click signified that the connection was broken. For a few moments The Phantom stood rigid, scarcely able to comprehend the import of the message. It had been spoken in tones so emphatic and sinister that he was left in no doubt regarding the speaker’s sincerity. But how had the man at the other end of the wire learned that The Phantom was in Fairspeckle’s apartment? The telephone call, coming a few minutes after The Phantom’s arrival, had been so accurately timed as to indicate that he had been followed to the Whipple. Yet that did not seem quite possible, for he had been particularly alert against that very thing.
Finally he put the telephone down. He tried to stifle the new and poignant misgivings with which the voice had inspired him. He remembered the other message he had received from the person purporting to be Mr. Shei. He had been deceived then, unless his own and Culligore’s deductions were all wrong, and he would not be so easily imposed upon again. Doubtless the second message, like the first, was only a clever hoax on Fairspeckle’s part. Well, in a few moments he would probably know the truth.
His fears and doubts were only partly quieted when he stepped softly from the room. Time and again there flashed through his mind a suspicion that something was wrong with the theory Culligore had implanted in his mind, but his thoughts in this direction were hazy. The binding and gagging of Haiuto was a disquieting and perplexing circumstance that did not seem to fit into the woof of the lieutenant’s ideas in regard to Fairspeckle.
The Phantom passed through another door, then stopped short and stared in astonishment at the scene that met his eyes.
He was in Mr. Fairspeckle’s bedroom. A single electric light, the one he had seen while standing on the sidewalk opposite the hotel, glowed softly in a wall fixture. In a morris chair in the middle of the room, with the folds of a dressing gown hanging loosely over his bony frame, sat W. Rufus Fairspeckle. He sat so still that, if his eyes had been closed, The Phantom would have suspected that he was either asleep or dead. He was bound and gagged in the same manner as Haiuto had been, but it struck The Phantom as vaguely significant that his right arm was bared to the elbow.
As he stepped closer, he became oddly impressed by the strange expression in the old man’s eyes. They looked straight ahead in a fixed, unseeing way, and there was a gleam of merriment in their dim depths that clashed sharply with the pallor on the shrunken cheeks. It seemed as though Fairspeckle’s soul was indulging in fancies of which his physical self was unaware, and the whole effect impressed The Phantom as uncanny.
He leaned forward and examined the exposed arm. Just below the muscles of the elbow, and directly over one of the smaller veins, was a puncture and a congealed drop of blood. The puncture was so small that it might have been inflicted with a needle prick. In a roundabout way The Phantom’s mind went back to the scene in the Thelma Theater as it had been pictured in the newspapers, and with an inward start he remembered that just such a puncture had been found on the right arm of Virginia Darrow.
Though as yet he could not grasp the meaning of it, the coincidence acted as an electric shock on his nerves. He tore away the gag from the old man’s lips and vigorously shook his arm.
“What’s the matter?” he inquired.
The red eyelids quivered a little. The look of hilarity flickering in the depths of the orbs grew a trifle more pronounced. It was almost grewsome, but The Phantom’s sense of perplexity was stronger than his repugnance.
“Can’t you speak?” he asked sharply. “What is the meaning of this?”
Fairspeckle’s chest heaved feebly. The motion was accompanied by a plucking movement of the fingers. The hands and feet strained impotently against the fettering cords. Then the lips fluttered, exposing a row of uneven teeth, and in the next instant a shiver ran down The Phantom’s spine.
Through the fluttering lips came a laugh such as he had never before heard. It sounded hollow and cracked and as unreal as if produced by a mechanical contrivance. The Phantom had an uncanny sensation that the dead, if they were capable of producing sounds, might laugh just like that. Then he remembered the vivid descriptions he had read of the mocking laughter that had come from Virginia Darrow’s dying lips, and a hazy suspicion entered his mind. He took a jack-knife from his pocket and swiftly slashed the cords around Fairspeckle’s arms and legs.
Although released from his bonds, the man in the chair scarcely moved. The feet scraped gently against the floor, and the arms fell limply to his sides. Weird snatches of laughter were still trickling through his lips, but the expression of insane merriment in his eyes was slowly yielding to a look of returning reason.
The Phantom looked helplessly about him, and suddenly his eyes fell on a sheet of paper lying at the old man’s feet. Mechanically he picked it up and glanced at the typewritten lines. From the smudged and indistinct type he was vaguely aware that he was gazing at a carbon copy. A word here and there attracted his attention, and presently he was reading the communication from the beginning. It read:
Dear Friend: The poison which has been injected into your veins to-night has been accurately adjusted to produce death within seven days. You will have lucid intervals, but you will be gradually growing weaker and weaker. Consult as many high-priced specialists as you wish, and if they can help you, you are to be congratulated. There is only one antidote, and that is the secret of a confederate of mine. It will be supplied you for a consideration. The exact terms will be communicated to you in a few days. By that time you will probably have been convinced that your life is absolutely in my hands.
Dear Friend: The poison which has been injected into your veins to-night has been accurately adjusted to produce death within seven days. You will have lucid intervals, but you will be gradually growing weaker and weaker. Consult as many high-priced specialists as you wish, and if they can help you, you are to be congratulated. There is only one antidote, and that is the secret of a confederate of mine. It will be supplied you for a consideration. The exact terms will be communicated to you in a few days. By that time you will probably have been convinced that your life is absolutely in my hands.
If misery loves company, I trust you will find consolation in the fact that six others are in precisely the same predicament as yourself.
If misery loves company, I trust you will find consolation in the fact that six others are in precisely the same predicament as yourself.
Mr. Shei.
The sheet dropped from The Phantom’s fingers. If what he had just read seemed grotesque and absurd, a glance at the man in the chair conferred a semblance of hideous reality upon it. Mr. Shei had struck the threatened blow, and he had struck sooner than expected.
Fairspeckle’s laughter had ceased and a look of reason was coming into his waxen features. The expression of ribald mockery had left his eyes, and now they were fixed on The Phantom’s face in a dull, suspicious stare. With a start The Phantom awoke to a realization of his predicament. If he were caught in Fairspeckle’s apartment, the police and the public would be firmly convinced of what they already suspected—that Mr. Shei and The Phantom were one. Not even Culligore’s keen mind and generous impulses would suffice to save him from arrest and imprisonment. And there was Helen—the thought gave him a spinal chill. Perhaps at this very moment she was confronted by some terrifying peril. And if he were arrested, then his last chance of helping her would be gone.
His mind made up, The Phantom ran to the telephone in the adjoining room. He called a number, and presently he was answered by an operator at police headquarters. His inquiry for Culligore elicited the information that the lieutenant was out and would probably not return until morning. The Phantom hesitated for a moment, then spoke hurriedly into the transmitter:
“This is important. Send a doctor and a couple of detectives at once to the Whipple Hotel, suite 36. You will find something very interesting. That’s all.”
With that he hung up, and a few moments later he had left the apartment and was briskly walking down the stairs.