Cuthbert Vanardy sat in his library at Sea Glimpse and tried hard to fix his mind on Paxton’sBotanical Dictionary. Despite his best efforts it was a hopeless task. His thoughts would go gypsying, and every now and then the print would blur and fade or dissolve into fanciful images that had nothing to do with hybridization and cross-pollination of orchids.
A problem had been teasing Vanardy’s imagination for months. He had struggled with it in idle moments, while resting from more ambitious experiments. Specimens from his gardens were shown each year at the horticultural expositions in New York and Boston, where they created much favorable comment among experts and caused endless speculation concerning the identity of the anonymous exhibitor, who had private and excellent reasons for remaining unknown. The problem he was now working on, however, was merely a diversion from his more serious work.
He wanted to create a gray orchid. It was to be a particular shade of gray—a dim, mystic gray, like the color of the sky just before dawn or the hue of the sea in a light fog. The novelty of the idea appealed to him and the task was proving difficult enough to give him gentle stimulation. Furthermore, gray always had been his favorite color. And he had almost decided that the hybrid, when once evolved, should be known as The Phantom Orchid.
It was merely a whim, of course—the vagary of a mind so active that it must be working even at play. For the matter of that, he often told himself that of late years his life had been little else than a succession of fancies and dim shades of reality. The gardens he had planted and the products that gained such flattering comment in the horticultural journals had been nothing but a tangible expression of a passionate desire to blot out the past and efface that other self whom the outside world called The Gray Phantom.
In those other days he had gone, like a rollicking Robin Hood, from one stupendous adventure to another. Without thought of sordid gain, but merely to assuage an inborn craving for excitement, he had dipped into a whirl of exploits that caused the public to gasp and hold its breath. The police, bedeviled and outwitted at every turn, had gritted their teeth and muttered anathemas even while admitting that The Gray Phantom always played the game fairly and that his victims, more often than not, were villains of a far blacker dye than he.
It had been a mad carousal, and for a time it had given The Phantom all the thrills his nature craved. Nearly always his left hand had tossed away what his right had plucked. Mysterious and untraceable contributions had poured in upon hospitals, orphan asylums, societies for the protection of animals, and other philanthropic organizations. Widows, invalids, and paupers were befriended in a way that caused them to believe in a return of the day of miracles. Dreamers starving in garrets and inventors struggling to keep body and soul together were tided over many a trying crisis.
Through it all The Gray Phantom had maintained an elusiveness that confounded the keenest man hunters among the police and wrapped his identity in a mysterious glamour. Simple-minded people wondered whether he were a being of flesh and blood, or a shade on earthly rampage. His one arrest, back in the early stages of his career, had settled their doubts once for all, but an astonishing escape a few days later caused them to wag their heads and speak in hushed tones of a rogue whose feats and juggleries bewildered them.
The Phantom laughed quietly at their perplexity. The performances that awed and puzzled them seemed simple enough to him. He was merely unleashing his imagination and giving free sway to his boundless energies of body and mind. In another age he might have been a sea-roving viking or a builder of ancient empires. At times, when one of his softer moods was upon him, he wondered why his restless spirit and the fires within him could not have found a different and more soul-satisfying outlet. Then his thoughts would go back to dimly remembered days, with their shadowy recollections of early orphanage and the peccadilloes of street urchins, and somehow he thought he understood.
But as time passed his restless moods came back with increasing frequency, and little by little he lost taste for the life he was leading and the adventures that had made his sobriquet known from coast to coast. Then there came lapses between The Gray Phantom’s exploits, and finally they ceased altogether. The world, not knowing with what lavish hand he had flung away his spoils, supposed he had collected his treasures and gone into hiding, and the police grimly predicted that he would reappear as soon as he had squandered his ill-gotten gains. No one guessed that The Phantom had built a hermitage on a desolate hilltop where, surrounded by a few of his art treasures and a small group of faithful followers, he was trying to reconstruct his life in peace.
“Azurecrest” was the name he had given his secluded retreat, and there he had tried to destroy the links that still chained him to the past and to blot out the tantalizing visions of other days. For a time he had almost succeeded; then a restlessness had come upon him for which the desolate hilltop afforded no relief, and he felt that his mountain retreat, with its collection of relics and reminders of bygone times, was too closely associated with the things he wanted to forget. Finally he had disposed of the place through a broker and purchased a narrow strip of land by the sea. He could not analyze the obscure motives and hidden impulse that had impelled him to seek seclusion at Sea Glimpse, a slender tongue of wooded land surrounded on three sides by jagged coast line and in the rear by forest and farm land. But while at work clearing the ground for his garden he had felt a grateful remoteness from things he wished to forget, and a measure of peace and satisfaction had come to him while he put his unpracticed hands to strange tasks or wandered among the trees and listened to the murmurs of the sea. He often wondered whether he would be content to spend his life in this secluded nook of the world where, safely hidden and secure from intrusion, he could devote himself to his hobby and his books.
The question came back to him again as he closed his Paxton and got up to light the reading lamp. For months he had felt that the links connecting him with the past were snapping. The Gray Phantom had emerged from retirement only once, and then he had ventured forth in a good cause. In a little while, perhaps, he would be dead and almost forgotten. The gray orchid, if Vanardy should ever succeed in bringing it out, would be the living symbol of whatever had been good in his other self. The thought more than once had appealed to his imagination and the whimsical strain in his nature.
He turned toward the window, but he had taken only a few steps when he stopped and looked dreamily into space. Memories thronged his mind and a face appeared out of nowhere—a woman’s face. For months it had haunted him in his idle moments, inspiring him with vague and exhilarant emotions. He saw it now, softly radiant among the shadows, an enchanting embodiment of the bloom and freshness of youth that pursued him with the persistence of a delicate scent or the strain of an all-but-forgotten song.
“Helen!” he murmured.
The vision grew a little clearer. Now he could almost see her figure, slim and straight and moving with the easy swing and grace of a young antelope. Echoes of her voice came to him, clear and unaffected and vibrant with joyous vivacity, each melodious note touching an harmonious chord within him. He remembered that her face had given him a curious impression of youthful buoyancy mingling with the soberness of maturity. Her quick intuition, coupled with a strain of subtlety in her nature and a trace of precocious sophistication that was both puzzling and enchanting, had seemed to bridge the years that lay between them. The vitalic sheen and the subtle aroma of her hair had given him a foolish desire to see what sun and wind would do to it if she were to loosen it and romp in his garden.
He sighed musingly. Months had passed since he had last seen her. For a brief, unforgettable moment he had held her hand, and the contact had given him a gentle, all-pervading thrill and filled him with strange and tender emotions. Her eyes, warm and frank, but with a touch of shyness lurking in their depths, as if she were still a little afraid of him, had inspired him with a tingling ecstasy such as The Gray Phantom in his wildest triumphs had never experienced. Twice he had written her since then, once to apprise her of his removal from Azurecrest and once to inquire concerning her well-being, but he had neither expected nor received an answer. He had not forgotten that in the eyes of the world he was still an outlaw, a hunted thing.
Again he sighed. The vision was fading, and little of it remained with him save a misty picture of loveliness. The moon was rising over the tree tops, throwing a white sheen over the landscape and the narrow wedge of water visible between the birches and hemlocks. The old house, purchased by Vanardy in a dilapidated condition and with difficulty rendered habitable, was silent but for the creeping whispers of the wind. For a time the solitary figure at the window stood lost in thoughts. His deep-gray eyes, rather too narrow for perfect symmetry, which had been known to stab and sting like rapiers, were not soft and luminous. Small wrinkles radiated from the outer corners, but the eyes themselves were animated by the slow twinkling gleam that characterizes the individual who sifts all the ups and downs of life through a sieve of whimsical imagination. The sensitive nostrils and the full arch of the lips denoted a penchant for distilling the maximum of thrills and emotions from the magic of existence. Here and there his face was lined and scarred, and even in repose there was a tension about the lean, tall figure that made one think of a cocked trigger.
A knock sounded, and he turned quickly. Through the door waddled a fat man with a woe-begone expression and a multiple chin. He groaned and puffed as if the task of carrying his elephantine body through life was not a light burden. The newcomer was Clifford Wade, once The Gray Phantom’s chief lieutenant and now the major-domo of his little household.
“Wade,” observed The Phantom, eyeing the fat man with disapproval, “you are getting soft. This easy and carefree existence is demoralizing you completely.”
The other placed a stack of newspapers and a few letters on the table, then slumped into a chair and gazed ruefully down at the protruding curvature of his stomach.
“I know, boss. I piled on two more pounds last week. Pretty soon I won’t be able to go for the mail any more. If you’d only say the word, I’d round up the old gang, and we’d turn a few more tricks like the ones we used to pull in the good old days. I’d work off this fat in no time.”
The Phantom shook his head. “No, Wade. You will have to try some other form of fat reducer. I am through with the old life for good. It was exciting while it lasted, but the novelty has worn off. It was only a sort of emotional eruption, anyhow.”
Wade scowled, then delivered himself of a startling exclamation: “Hang the women!”
The Phantom raised his brows in surprise. “What’s your grievance against the fair sex, Wade? Hanging is pretty serious business, you know. What atrocious crime have the women perpetrated against you to deserve such cruel punishment? You don’t look like a man suffering the pangs of unrequited love. Your heart is intact, I hope?”
“Oh, my heart’s all right,” Wade complained. “It’s yours that I’m worrying about. Lately I haven’t been able to dope you out at all, boss. If I didn’t know you as well as I do, I’d say you’ve gone plumb dippy. There was a time not so long ago when you went in for big game—real he-man stuff. There were a lot of men on the police force who used to have a funny feeling around the solar plexus whenever The Gray Phantom’s name was spoken. You cut some fancy didos in those days, boss. Now—now you’re poking seeds into the ground and talking of reforming.” Wade made a gesture of great disgust.
“Granted,” said The Phantom, smiling, “but is that any reason for exterminating the feminine sex?”
“You bet it is. The trouble with you is that you’ve got too much girl on the brain, boss. You were all right until that pretty little skirt with the big baby eyes happened along.”
“Oh, you mean Miss Hardwick?” There was an odd tension in The Phantom’s tones.
“That’s who I mean. She’s easy on the eyes and all that, but she’s sure raised the devil with you. The old kind of life was good enough for you till she bobbed up. It was then you started all this mushy talk about going straight and changing your ways. I know because I’ve been watching you.”
The Phantom was strangely silent. Twice he crossed the floor, then paused before the window and looked out into the shadowy landscape. There was a pensive gleam in his eyes, as if Wade’s speech had turned his thoughts into new channels. Suddenly he laughed, and the new expression that came into his face suggested that he had seen an all-revealing flash.
“I am much obliged to you for that bit of psychoanalysis,” he told the fat man. “You’re right, Wade—absolutely right. I was a fool not to see it before.”
“Not to see what?”
A faint smile flickered across The Phantom’s face. “That Miss Hardwick has had a great deal to do with my determination to change my ways. I hadn’t realized it until you spoke just now. I had been inclined to give myself all the credit. Thanks to your somewhat crude but accurate statement of the case, I can see now that all of it belongs to her.”
Wade’s round little eyes, imbedded in layers of flesh, stared uncomprehendingly at The Phantom. “I don’t get you at all, boss.”
“Then don’t try. Your heart is in the right place, Wade, but you lack imagination and there are some things that you and I can’t view from the same angle. Miss Hardwick’s influence in my life is one of them. Sorry to disappoint an old pal, but my determination to stay on the straight and narrow path is stronger than ever.”
Wade made a wry face. “You’ll suit yourself, of course, but it might interest you to know that another man is stealing your thunder while you’re dancing to the piping of a skirt.” He opened one of the newspapers he had placed on the table and pointed to a black-face caption. The Phantom, looking over his massive shoulders, read:
MR. SHEI’S NAME ON DYING LIPS
His eyes narrowed gradually as he read the highly colored account of the tragedy in the Thelma Theater. There was a pucker of perplexity on his forehead when he finished.
“Wonder what Mr. Shei is up to this time,” he mumbled, gazing thoughtfully at the floor. “I’ve been following the fellow’s exploits for some time. This is a bit out of the ordinary—eh, Wade?”
“You said it, boss. And you can bet your sweet life he’s getting ready for something big this time. Unless I’m a poor guesser, the affair at the Thelma last night was only the beginning. Mr. Shei’s schemes run deep, and he never strikes a blow unless he’s got an object in view. There’s something queer about the murder of that woman, boss.”
The Phantom nodded. “Looks as though you were right, Wade. Mr. Shei is out after big game this time, and in all likelihood the Thelma affair is only the prelude. But I don’t see how—”
“There’s another queer thing about this Mr. Shei,” interrupted the fat man. “Maybe you’ve noticed it. I don’t know how many jobs he’s pulled off, but every one of them has shown the slickest kind of workmanship. What’s more,” and Wade’s eyes peered cunningly into the other’s face, “most of them look as though you’d had a hand in them yourself. That’s what I meant when I said another man is stealing your thunder.”
The Phantom started; then a thin smile parted his lips. “Yes, I have noticed it, Wade. I have studied Mr. Shei’s methods as carefully as has been possible from the superficial and distorted newspaper accounts, and I have observed that he has done me the questionable honor of adopting some of the methods and stratagems I used to practice in the past. In a number of instances he has copied my technique so closely that I’ve often wondered whether I’ve been walking in my sleep or whether my old self has come back in a new form. It’s been almost uncanny.” He laughed musingly. “What do you make of it, Wade?”
“I think you’d better take another fling at the old game before this Mr. Shei gets a monopoly on it.”
“I didn’t mean that. How do you account for the similarity of methods?”
The fat man pondered. “Somebody has studied your tricks and put them into practice. Somebody that’s been close enough to you to watch you in action. Maybe,” and the glow of a sudden idea lighted up his face, “a member of our old crowd. Say, boss, wouldn’t it be a joke on you if Mr. Shei should turn out to be a graduate of your own gang?”
“Worse than a joke,” said The Phantom grimly. He paced the floor with quick, short steps, his hands clenched at his back. “I have given the mysterious Mr. Shei a great deal of thought in the past few months, and I fear you are right. His tactics so closely resemble mine that I suspect he learned them from me at firsthand. In the old days I often took a sort of foolish pride in teaching my methods to the more adaptable ones among the members of my organization. It pleased me to watch their development under my training. I didn’t realize then what I was doing. Now——” He shrugged as if to dismiss a futile regret. “Yes, it’s quite likely that Mr. Shei is a former pupil of mine.”
“Well, what are you going to do about it?”
The Phantom stopped abruptly, gazing at the fat man with a far-away gleam in his eye, as if they were miles apart.
“I thought The Gray Phantom was dead,” he murmured. “It appears I have been mistaken. If Mr. Shei is a product of The Gray Phantom’s brain, then my old self is still active. For every crime committed by Mr. Shei, The Gray Phantom bears responsibility.” He gave a dismal laugh. “And I thought I had destroyed most of the links connecting me with the old times.”
“Well,” said Wade again, this time a little testily, “just what are you going to do about it?”
The Phantom did not answer immediately. He was staring absent-mindedly into space. Presently he looked at his watch; then he nodded thoughtfully.
“Wish you would pack my grip, Wade.”
The fat man started from the chair. “Not going away?”
“Yes; there’s a train for New York a few minutes past midnight. In the morning, bright and early, I shall start a little campaign.”
“Campaign?” Wade’s eyes bulged. “What kind of campaign?”
“The biggest one of my life, I think. I am going out to lay The Gray Phantom’s ghost. In plain words, I propose to go on the warpath against the mysterious Mr. Shei. I fancy it will be quite an exciting little tussle, Wade.”
In the dusk of the following morning a tall, gray-clad figure alighted from a train in the Grand Central terminal, glanced cautiously to right and left among the thin scattering of passengers, and with a furtive air traversed the vast concourse and gained the street by one of the side exits. With the habitual vigilance of a hunted man, he paused for a few moments under the canopy and scanned the face of each loiterer and passer-by. A dull, discordant din testified that the city was awakening, and a pale shimmer of dawn was shattering the mists hanging like a gauzy veil over Manhattan. Finally the gray-clad figure moved on, walked a block and a half to the west and, selecting an unpretentious restaurant, stepped in and ordered breakfast.
The Gray Phantom’s campaign was on.
Perils lurked everywhere. Though he had changed his ways, he had not yet paid off his old scores. He still had the law to reckon with, for the outstanding charges against him were grave and numerous enough to send him to prison for the rest of his life. The capture of The Gray Phantom, once one of the most celebrated of rogues, would create a profound sensation and confer great fame on the captor. Once it became known that he had emerged from his hiding place, the entire city would be converted into a huge man-trap with claws set to catch the celebrated outlaw.
That was not all. The newspaper accounts of the police inquiry into the Thelma tragedy, which The Phantom had carefully perused on the train, had hinted rather broadly that Mr. Shei and The Gray Phantom were identical. It was pointed out that Mr. Shei’s exploits were the only ones in recent years that had equaled The Phantom’s as to magnitude and daring, and that there were many points of similarity in the methods of the two rogues. To be sure, The Phantom had never been known to stoop to murder, but this did not necessarily eliminate him as an object of suspicion, and it was significant that the commission of the crime had been hedged in with all the subtlety and mysteriousness that characterized The Gray Phantom’s tactics. It was predicted that if The Phantom were apprehended, the mystery surrounding the identity and the movements of Mr. Shei would be cleared up automatically.
The Phantom smiled faintly as he finished his breakfast and walked out. His step was elastic, and his eye held the steely gleam which his former associates had learned to interpret as a sign that their leader was bent on some stupendous adventure. It was still early, and there was only a thin sprinkling of traffic in the streets, and the chances of his being recognized were correspondingly slight.
As yet he had no definite plan in mind. His decision to make war on Mr. Shei had been made suddenly and largely on the impulse of the moment. It was in keeping with his determination to blot out that part of himself which the world knew as The Gray Phantom. The realization had come to him in a flash that the work of his other self was being carried on vicariously by the person known as Mr. Shei. If his suspicions were correct, and if the latter was indeed a disciple of his, then Mr. Shei was a part of the past he had vowed to uproot and destroy. His regeneration would not be complete until this object had been accomplished.
He chuckled a little as he walked along. It was odd, he thought, that Wade should have guessed the motive for his determination to tear his past to shreds. Throughout his striving and reaching for something higher and better, The Phantom had vaguely and instinctively felt that the bright, brown eyes of Helen Hardwick were his lodestars, but Wade’s crudely phrased remark had been needed to make the impression clear. He knew it was largely because of Helen’s faith in him that he was now attacking the hardest and most perilous task of his career. Vaguely he wondered what she would think when she heard of his latest adventure, and he felt a fleeting temptation to tell her of his decision. He rejected it, however, resolving it would be time enough to make his plans known to her when they were in a more mature shape.
The sight of a knot of curious idlers outside a drug store in Times Square caused him to quicken his steps. He knew the psychology of city crowds and that the merest trifle is sufficient to attract a throng, but this gathering seemed to have been drawn together by something out of the ordinary. As unobtrusively as he could, he wedged his way through the little crowd, consisting mostly of homeward-bound night workers and belated pleasure seekers, and now he saw the object of their interest was a small square of paper pasted to the pane of the show window. A flicker of surprise crossed The Phantom’s face as he read the typewritten inscription:
For the diversion of the public and the edification of the police, I beg to announce that my next, and so far, greatest, coup will be directed against the seven wealthiest men in New York City, whose names I shall take a pleasure in announcing in a day or two. By a unique and sensational method of persuasion these gentlemen will be induced to transfer half of their respective fortunes to me.
For the diversion of the public and the edification of the police, I beg to announce that my next, and so far, greatest, coup will be directed against the seven wealthiest men in New York City, whose names I shall take a pleasure in announcing in a day or two. By a unique and sensational method of persuasion these gentlemen will be induced to transfer half of their respective fortunes to me.
Mr. Shei.
A grin tugged at The Phantom’s lips as he read the announcement a second time. Mr. Shei, in flaunting his intentions before the eyes of the public and the police, was living up to time-honored traditions of melodrama. It was of a piece with the rascal’s erratic and extravagant nature, and the boastful phrasing of the announcement, as well as the incidental taunt flung at the police, was quite characteristic of him. Yet, despite the pompous claptrap with which Mr. Shei was adorning his project, the magnitude of it appealed to The Phantom’s imagination. It was fully as great and daring an enterprise as The Phantom himself had ever attempted. If the scheme succeeded—and Mr. Shei’s undertakings invariably did—the loot would run well into ten figures.
From remarks dropped by the bystanders he gathered that stickers bearing the same boastful announcements had been distributed during the early morning hours at various points throughout the city. Mr. Shei seemed to have spared no pains in his effort to startle the metropolis. The Phantom was edging away from the throng when a few words, spoken in low and drawling tones, caused him to look quickly aside.
“Pardon, but haven’t we met before?”
The Phantom felt a faint thrill of apprehension. Recognition at this point might prove disastrous to his plans. Beside him, with tired and red-lidded eyes peering into his face, stood a tall, gaunt man whose somewhat ludicrous appearance was accentuated by full evening dress.
“I think not,” he said hastily, and started to walk away. The other, refusing to be squelched, fell into step beside him.
“Now, isn’t that queer?” he remarked with a wheezy chuckle. “The moment I saw you it occurred to me that your face seemed familiar. By the way, what do you think of Mr. Shei’s latest?”
“Quite ambitious.” The Phantom gave his uninvited companion a keen glance, and the covert scrutiny stirred several shadowy recollections in his mind. The curious individual seemed well past middle age, and his sallow complexion and furrowed face indicated decrepit health. He walked with a shuffling gait and a catarrhal affection of the nose necessitated frequent use of his handkerchief. The Phantom was trying to recall when and under what circumstances they had met before, but his face indicated nothing but annoyance at an unwelcome intrusion.
“Ambitious is the word,” assented the man in evening dress. “Do you know, my dear sir, that if Mr. Shei carries out his threat and annexes fifty per cent of the seven biggest fortunes in town, his net gain will run into the billions? I can only hope that I am not one of the seven selected for shearing.”
The Phantom gave him another quick glance. A gleam of humor relieved the woe-begone expression of the man’s face. Again The Phantom searched his memory. The last remark had carried a strong hint to the effect that his companion was a man of great wealth.
“My name, as you probably know, although you pretend to have forgotten it, is W. Rufus Fairspeckle,” continued the other, taking The Phantom’s arm and turning into a side street. “I don’t know how many millions I have, but I have enough to make me a shining mark for Mr. Shei’s latest offensive. Ah, I see you remember me now!”
The Phantom’s involuntary start had betrayed him. The mere mention of Mr. Fairspeckle’s name had instantly clarified his hazy recollections. He recalled now that, some five or six years ago, he had had a brief and casual encounter with the man. It had occurred in the course of one of The Phantom’s spectacular adventures, and he had almost forgotten the incident that brought them together. Now, as the memory of it flashed back into his mind, he gazed more intently at his companion.
As the man himself had intimated, W. Rufus Fairspeckle was one of the wealthiest men in New York City. Mostly through luck and partly through an inborn genius for speculation, he had amassed a huge fortune. At fifty he had retired from business, declaring that he had worked hard all his life and was entitled to a rest and a little diversion. Then he had promptly proceeded to the enjoyment of the pleasures that had been denied him in his youth, and he had gone about it with an avidity that created a great deal of jocular comment and made him known as a very eccentric individual.
“You have a long memory,” observed The Phantom, glancing uneasily at Mr. Fairspeckle’s formal attire. It drew many amused glances from pedestrians, and The Phantom did not care to attract unnecessary attention. “Now, if you will excuse me, I think I will wish you good morning. I have a busy day ahead of me.”
“Not so fast,” protested Mr. Fairspeckle, clutching The Phantom’s sleeve with his long, bony fingers. “You are coming with me.”
The words had a peremptory sound. The Phantom knitted his brows.
“Why, if I may ask?”
“See that cop?” Mr. Fairspeckle pointed to a blue-coated figure half a block ahead. “He’s a hard-working soul and presumably he is ambitious to obtain promotion. The capture of The Gray Phantom would be quite an event in his humdrum life.”
The Phantom sensed a threat. He glanced about him quickly. The streets were rapidly filling with traffic, and to break away might not prove easy. Besides, he was curious to know the reason for Mr. Fairspeckle’s evident determination to detain him. Deciding to adopt the safer course, he simulated an affable smile.
“Suppose we let the hard-working cop earn his promotion some other way,” he suggested. “Where to, Mr. Fairspeckle?”
“My apartment at the Whipple Hotel. We’re almost there. Glad you are going to be reasonable, Mr. Vanardy. I need someone to talk to. Ever suffer from insomnia?”
“Never.”
“Lucky dog! Insomnia is the bane of my existence. At times, when I can’t sleep, I sit at the club and bore my friends to death. When I have no friends to talk to, I walk. Last night I walked from one end of Manhattan Island to the other and halfway back again. Oh, yes, I’m more chipper than you would think from looking at me. Well, my rambles last night explain why you see me in these togs. I was just about tired enough to fall asleep standing on my feet when I saw Mr. Shei’s notice. In an instant I was wide awake again. Confound the fellow’s impudence! Here we are.”
The Phantom was conducted through the chastely carved portals of one of the quieter hotels in the upper Forties, and a few moments later they were facing each other across the redwood table in Mr. Fairspeckle’s library. The apartment, though luxuriously appointed, was a faithful reflection of the eccentric nature of its occupant.
“You are careless, Mr. Vanardy,” said Mr. Fairspeckle musingly. The partly drawn shades admitted only a vague half-dawn into the room, and the shadows lent an air of mysteriousness to his appearance. “It isn’t safe for a man in your position to walk about without disguise.”
“Disguises are treacherous things. I have used them now and then, but ordinarily I feel safer without them. Anyhow, no one but you is aware of my presence in New York.”
Mr. Fairspeckle drew a palm across his chin. His red-lidded eyes regarded The Phantom shrewdly. “I wonder what brings you to New York at this particular time—at the very time when Mr. Shei is launching his most ambitious scheme. You will admit the coincidence is rather striking?”
“Some people might deduce from it that I am Mr. Shei,” suggested The Phantom, smiling. “They would be wrong.”
There was a quiver at the corners of Mr. Fairspeckle’s thin lips. His eyes held a suspicious twinkle.
“Perhaps,” he commented dryly. Then he fell to drumming the table with his finger tips. “What I would like to know for certain is whether I am one of the seven. You see, I wouldn’t object to being murdered by this Mr. Shei. Most people think I’m leading a useless life and ought to be dead, anyhow. It won’t be long until an undertaker pumps my carcass full of formaldehyde. What I object to is the idea of being swindled out of my money. No man ever got the best of me yet, and I don’t intend that Mr. Shei shall make a fool of me. He can kill me, but I won’t hand him a cent. I’ll be hanged if I will!”
He thumped the table with his fist. There was something so ludicrous about his grim earnestness that The Phantom could scarcely repress a smile. At the same time he was conscious of a suspicion for which he could not quite account. Mr. Fairspeckle’s indignation seemed not quite natural. Even the vehement thump of his fist against the table had an artificial sound. An intuition, flashing into his mind out of nowhere, held The Phantom spellbound for a moment. In the next instant he laughed inwardly at the absurdity of it, telling himself that he must hold his imagination in leash.
“It will be interesting to see how Mr. Shei intends to proceed,” he casually remarked.
“It will,” spluttered Mr. Fairspeckle. “You can trust him to work some devilishly clever scheme. He always does. Do you suppose,” and he bent his bony frame over the table and gazed searchingly at The Phantom, “that the murder at the Thelma Theater night before last was the first episode in this latest enterprise of Mr. Shei’s?”
“You mean the murder of Miss Darrow? There seems to be no doubt but that Mr. Shei had a hand in it. Everything points to——”
He paused of a sudden. All at once it occurred to him that there was something odd about Mr. Fairspeckle’s question. Immediately upon reading of the Thelma murder, The Phantom had suspected that it was the prelude to another of Mr. Shei’s spectacular adventures, but the suspicion had been wholly intuitive. As far as outward appearances went, there was nothing in the murder of Virginia Darrow to suggest that it was anything more than an isolated incident. It was curious, therefore, that Mr. Fairspeckle should look for a connecting link between the crime at the Thelma and Mr. Shei’s threat.
“Everything points to Mr. Shei as the perpetrator of the murder,” he guardedly went on, “but whether the crime has any bearing on Mr. Shei’s new venture is hard to tell. It doesn’t seem likely. How could he possibly further his scheme by an act of that kind? His plan is to separate seven of New York’s richest men from half of their wealth. How is the death of Miss Darrow going to help him in an undertaking of that kind?”
A sly smile twitched the corners of Mr. Fairspeckle’s lips. “Nevertheless,” he observed, “I think that you and I agree. I am a pretty good judge of faces, and your expression a moment ago betrayed you, Mr. Vanardy. My question seemed innocent enough at first, but on second thought it startled you. Suppose we be frank. Both of us believe that the Thelma affair was the beginning of Mr. Shei’s latest move. We can’t see how or why just now, but we know that his schemes run deep. Isn’t it so?”
The Phantom, momentarily baffled by the older man’s shrewd deductions, gazed pensively at the ceiling. A jumble of thoughts and questions shot back and forth through his mind. Did Mr. Fairspeckle suspect that Mr. Shei and The Gray Phantom were identical? Or was it possible that—— He did not finish the thought. The suspicion that had come to him several times during the interview seemed just as unreasonable as it was startling, and it had no firmer foundation than two or three puzzling circumstances and a tantalizing touch of mysteriousness in Mr. Fairspeckle’s attitude.
“It’s an interesting theory, and I’ve given quite a little thought to it,” he finally admitted. “Strange that the same idea should have come to both of us, isn’t it? Especially since there seems to be neither reason nor logic behind it. How did you happen to think of it, Mr. Fairspeckle?”
The other man stroked his lean chin with a self-satisfied air. “What’s that old saw about great minds traveling in the same channel? I don’t know just how the idea came to me, but I’m glad we understand each other. Now we can talk without quibbling. But first I want a cup of coffee. Hope you will join me. Haiuto!”
He fairly shouted the last word, but The Phantom doubted whether his thin and rasping voice went farther than the walls.
“Haiuto!” Again Mr. Fairspeckle’s voice rose to a shrill but inadequate crescendo. “That confounded Jap’s pretending he is deaf again. Excuse me, will you?”
He strode irately from the room and slammed the door. A wrinkle of deep perplexity appeared on The Phantom’s brow. Mr. Fairspeckle puzzled and intrigued him. Either he was a very slippery individual, or else ingenuousness itself. When he returned and announced that Haiuto would serve their coffee in a few minutes, The Phantom searched his face in vain for a sign of guile. If anything, he was a little more affable than on leaving the room.
“That fool doctor of mine tells me I mustn’t drink coffee,” he confided. “Tells me it’s bad for my nerves and keeps me awake. But my nerves are worn to a frazzle, anyhow, and I never can sleep except when I want to stay awake. What were we talking about? Oh, yes—Mr. Shei.”
He clasped his hands across his diaphragm. A queer smile, at once beatific and diabolical, came over his face.
“Do you know,” he went on in confidential tones, “that I don’t care a rap if Mr. Shei carries out his scheme as far as the other six are concerned. Of course, I don’t know for certain who they are, but it’s a safe bet that they are no friends of mine. I have a hunch that every one of them belongs to the old ring that fought me tooth and nail while I was climbing up in the world. It’s a long story, and I’m not going to bore you with it, but you can see why I have no love for them. I could die happy to-morrow if I could see them lick the dust to-day. I feel different toward you, Vanardy. We had a tilt once, but you fought fairly. The others tried to knife me in the back. They can go to blazes for all I care.”
“Then you and Mr. Shei seem to have at least one aim in common,” The Phantom pointed out. He smiled genially, but his eyes were studying every shifting expression in Mr. Fairspeckle’s face. For once he felt certain that the older man was not dissembling. The glint of wrath lurking in the depths of his weak eyes and the vindictive sneer about his lips told that he had spoken in all sincerity.
“We have,” he declared grimly. “I hope he sends the other six to the poorhouse. But I have no intention of letting him pluck me, you understand. That’s where our aims clash. He can go as far as he likes with the others, but I’ll fight like a drunken Indian before I give him a red cent. I’ll see myself in Hades before I——”
A knock and the opening of the door interrupted him. A Japanese with a face as expressionless as mahogany entered with a tray and served them coffee.
“Queer character, Haiuto,” observed Mr. Fairspeckle when the servant, silent as a wraith, had retired. “I think he would cheerfully commit hara-kiri if I asked him to do such a senseless thing.” He sipped his coffee with an air of keen enjoyment. “Great bracer for fagged nerves, eh? Would you believe that for days at a time I live on nothing but coffee? But let’s get back to the subject. What shall we do with this pestiferous Mr. Shei?”
“What would you suggest?” cautiously inquired The Phantom, lifting the cup to his lips.
A beam insinuated itself in the creases of Mr. Fairspeckle’s face. “Now we’re getting down to essentials. As I said, Mr. Shei can fleece the other six to his heart’s content, but he’s got to keep hands off me. When I saw you standing in front of the drug store reading Mr. Shei’s announcement, I was turning a little plan over in my mind. Then I didn’t quite see how to work it, but I do now.”
Again The Phantom brought the cup to his lips. He regarded his companion inquiringly.
“You and I are going to handle Mr. Shei together,” declared Mr. Fairspeckle. His face glowed as if a pleasing prospect were warming his soul. “We will put a crimp in his scheme and show him—why, what’s the matter, Vanardy?”
The Phantom had slouched down in his chair, and now his head began to wag from side to side.
“Nothing,” he murmured dazedly. “I just feel a bit drowsy. Would you mind opening the window? The—the coffee——”
His eyes rolled, then the lids fluttered and closed, and he sagged limply in the chair. With a gratified chuckle Mr. Fairspeckle stepped to the other side of the table and regarded him gloatingly.
“The Gray Phantom isn’t half so clever as he’s supposed to be,” he mumbled. Then his hand went out and touched a button. A moment later Haiuto stood at attention in the doorway.
“Haiuto,” inquired Mr. Fairspeckle, “how much chloral did you mix in Mr. Vanardy’s cup of coffee?”
“Plenty,” said the servant, and this time the ghost of a grin flickered across his face. “He sleep long time.”
Mr. Fairspeckle nodded elatedly. “Take him to my bedroom,” he instructed, “and make him comfortable.”
With an ease which showed that he possessed all the agile strength of his race, Haiuto carried The Phantom into one of the adjoining rooms in the suite, placed him on the bed, and adjusted a pillow under his head. For a few moments he stood peering down into the motionless man’s face. Then he silently left the room and closed the door behind him.
A minute later The Phantom raised himself to a sitting posture and blinked his eyes at the sunlight streaming in beneath the drawn window shades.
“You are fairly clever, Mr. Fairspeckle,” he said half aloud, “but you ought to modernize your methods. Drugged coffee has gone out of fashion. Hope I didn’t kill the potted fern at the window behind my chair.”
The Gray Phantom lay on his back in W. Rufus Fairspeckle’s ample bed and tried to grasp the meaning of what had happened. His host’s attempt to drug him savored strongly of melodrama, and it seemed somewhat grotesque in view of the fact that it had occurred in an up-to-date and centrally located hotel. What puzzled him most was the motive behind the attempt. If Mr. Fairspeckle suspected that he was Mr. Shei, why had he not handed his guest over to the police? On the other hand—— But his conjectures in that direction brought The Phantom face to face with a theory that made his thoughts whirl.
His eyes flitted over the room. The color combination was restful, but the decorations, and especially the pictures, bespoke rather extreme tastes. He had gathered, from what little he had seen of the surroundings, that Mr. Fairspeckle was occupying a luxurious apartment consisting of several rooms and that it had been fitted up to suit his individual requirements. Haiuto, the rat-footed Japanese servant, seemed to be his only companion.
An hour passed, and The Phantom’s cogitations brought him back to the starting point. Nothing seemed certain beyond the indubitable fact that Mr. Fairspeckle was a highly mysterious individual. The rest was full of vague and hazy surmises. The Phantom waited patiently, wondering what his host’s next move would be, for he had decided to play a passive rôle for the present. He explored his pockets and was thankful that his automatic had not been taken from him. Evidently his jailer was depending on the drug to keep him in a harmless condition.
His keen ears detected footsteps approaching the door, and in a twinkling he was lying prone on the bed, simulating the complete insensibility that comes with drug-induced sleep. The door came open, then furtive steps crossed the floor, and The Phantom felt a pair of sharp eyes on his face. His regular breathing seemed to satisfy the silent watcher, for after a little he turned away. As he reached the door, The Phantom flicked open an eyelid and saw Haiuto. Evidently the servant had entered the room to make sure that the effects of the drug were not wearing off.
The door closed almost noiselessly. Again The Phantom sat up. A glance at his watch told him it was a few minutes after two. He slid his feet from the bed and tiptoed cautiously to a window and raised the shade. As he looked out, an undersized figure on the opposite sidewalk instantly caught his eye. As far as appearances went, the man might have been only an idler engaged in the pastime of ogling the feminine passers-by, but The Phantom’s practiced eyes saw at once that he was there for a purpose. The stealthy glances which he occasionally leveled at the windows of Mr. Fairspeckle’s apartment gave an unmistakable clew to his mission.
The Phantom’s brows contracted as he quickly lowered the shade. Was it possible someone had seen and recognized him on his way from the station and later trailed him to Mr. Fairspeckle’s apartment. The thought was annoying, for he disliked having his movements hampered by spies. Then, as he turned away from the window, another possibility suggested itself. Perhaps Mr. Fairspeckle, and not himself, was being kept under surveillance of the fellow on the sidewalk. The theory was startling and rather improbable; yet it coincided with the suspicion that had kept flashing in and out of The Phantom’s mind.
He examined the mechanism of his automatic and made sure the cartridge chamber was loaded. He sensed a hint in the air that before long he might have occasion to use the weapon. He was in the act of returning it to his hip pocket when of a sudden he pricked up his ears. From somewhere in the apartment came a series of faint, clicking sounds. At first he tried in vain to identify them, but finally it came to him that someone was using a typewriter.
“Typewriter?” he mumbled. The word seemed to hold a hidden significance, but for a while his mind was unable to grasp it. He did not believe that either Mr. Fairspeckle or Haiuto had occasion to use such an instrument, yet he was almost certain that the sounds were coming from one of the adjoining rooms. The clicks were slow and irregular, he observed, indicating that the writer was unfamiliar with the machine and was having some difficulty picking out the characters on the keyboard.
He stole to the door and opened it a crack. The sounds became louder, and the writer’s awkward groping for the keys was more noticeable now. For a moment The Phantom stood listening; then his figure grew suddenly tense. A thin smile hovered about his lips as he recalled that the announcements which Mr. Shei had distributed throughout the city had been written on a typewriter.
It might mean little or nothing, but there was a keen glitter in The Phantom’s eyes. In itself the clicking of the machine signified scarcely anything, but in conjunction with other circumstances it was fairly suggestive. With noiseless tread The Phantom tiptoed in the direction whence the sounds were coming. Now and then he darted a quick glance about him, as if expecting a rear attack from the Japanese servant, but Haiuto was nowhere in sight. He traversed several rooms before he came to a dead stop in a doorway.
At a table near the window, with his back to The Phantom, sat Mr. Fairspeckle. He was hunched over a typewriter, laboriously poking at the keys with the index finger of each hand. Silently The Phantom approached until he stood directly at the older man’s back. Mr. Fairspeckle, all his energies centered on his difficult task, noticed nothing. Leaning slightly forward, The Phantom cast a swift, comprehensive glance at the paper in the machine. Then his twinkling eyes looked downward. On the desk, at Mr. Fairspeckle’s elbow, lay a little pile of papers. The topmost one was partly covered with typewriting, and the wording was precisely the same as that on the paper in the machine.
The Phantom had seen enough. He drew his automatic from his pocket, then waited until Mr. Fairspeckle stopped writing and pulled the sheet from the machine.
“You seem to be fairly busy, Mr. Shei,” he observed in soft tones.
Mr. Fairspeckle jerked up his shoulders, then sat as rigid as if suddenly turned into a statue. Finally, with slow and spasmodic motions, he turned his head and looked into the muzzle of The Phantom’s automatic. A startled look leaped into his eyes and his sallow face turned a shade paler.
“You!” he exclaimed.
“I watered one of your ferns with the coffee Haiuto handed me,” The Phantom explained. “A cruel way to treat an inoffensive plant, I’ll admit, but there was nothing else handy. Mind if I have a look?”
Lowering the weapon a trifle, he picked up the sheet of paper Mr. Fairspeckle had just drawn from the machine. Watching the older man out of the tail of an eye, he read the typewritten lines:
In accordance with my promise, I herewith announce the names of the seven gentlemen whom by certain means at my disposal I shall persuade to hand over half of their respective fortunes to me.
In accordance with my promise, I herewith announce the names of the seven gentlemen whom by certain means at my disposal I shall persuade to hand over half of their respective fortunes to me.
Then followed a list of seven names, each one suggestive of untold wealth and vast influence in the financial world, and The Phantom smiled as he noticed that W. Rufus Fairspeckle was one of them. By way of signature Mr. Shei’s name was typed at the bottom of the announcement.
“Not bad,” commented The Phantom. “By including yourself among the seven victims you make sure that no suspicion becomes attached to the fair name of W. Rufus Fairspeckle. Anyhow, since you are one of the richest men in town, it would look rather odd if your name were omitted. Congratulations, Mr. Shei.”
The other looked stolidly into the muzzle of the automatic. The Phantom’s sudden and unexpected appearance seemed to have paralyzed his tongue.
“You could save a lot of time by taking carbon copies,” suggested The Phantom, riffling the sheets lying beside the machine. “You will need a hundred or more to plaster the town effectively. I understand now why you took that long walk this morning. There’s nothing like having a pleasant pastime when one can’t sleep. What I don’t understand is how you meant to put your plan into effect.”
A sickly smile cruised about Mr. Fairspeckle’s bloodless lips.
“Oh, I don’t expect you to let me in on the secret,” The Phantom went on. “With your past performances in mind, I have no doubt you would have executed your threat in a manner becoming your genius. There’s only one thing about your achievements that has disappointed me. I don’t see why you had to copy my methods so slavishly. For a while I was almost certain that Mr. Shei was one of my former associates, and that’s why——” He checked himself on the point of explaining why he had come out of hiding. “Couldn’t you have shown a little more originality?”
An inarticulate mumble came from Mr. Fairspeckle’s lips. His fingers fidgeted nervously over his knees.
“Well don’t try to explain. I suppose the police will attend to that part. There will be quite a sensation when it becomes known that W. Rufus Fairspeckle is the mysterious Mr. Shei. I wonder what drove you to it. You were bored with the life of a gentleman of leisure, I suppose, and then you had a goose to pick with your old enemies. I take it that was your chief motive. Well, Mr. Shei——”
A dulcet tinkle interrupted him, and he glanced quickly at the telephone on Mr. Fairspeckle’s desk.
“You may answer,” he said after a moment’s hesitation.
Mr. Fairspeckle reached out a trembling hand for the instrument. He put the receiver to his ear and spoke a feeble “Hello” into the transmitter. In the next instant his face went blank. “It’s for you,” he announced, gazing dazedly at The Phantom.
“Forme?” The Phantom stared incredulously at the instrument. To the best of his knowledge, his whereabouts was known to nobody but Mr. Fairspeckle and the Japanese servant. Quickly gathering himself, he placed the automatic within easy reach and took the telephone from Mr. Fairspeckle’s hand. He started as a voice came over the wire.
“Mr. Shei speaking,” it announced in level tones. “If you value Miss Hardwick’s life, I would advise you to abandon your present plans. That is all.”
Then a click, and the connection was broken.