Walking with his usual listless and shuffling gait, Lieutenant Culligore mounted the steps in front of police headquarters and entered the office of Inspector Stapleton of the detective bureau. It was late in the afternoon, and Culligore might have quickened his steps and carried himself with more animation if he could have known that at this very moment The Gray Phantom, seated in the secret chamber at Azurecrest, was planning his second move against the redoubtable Mr. Shei.
Stapleton, a huge, thick-necked man with a reddish face and a tendency toward irascibility, looked up with a scowl as the lieutenant walked in.
“Well, what’s new?” he demanded.
“Nothing,” said Culligore patiently and flopped into a chair beside the inspector’s desk, “except that our friend Mr. Shei seems to be getting away with it.”
Stapleton glared at a pile of newspapers he had been reading. His temper was on edge from his perusal of several editorials that chided the bureau for its failure to circumvent Mr. Shei.
“Two of the seven moneybags are already showing the white feather,” Culligore continued, “and two or three of the others are getting wabbly. By the end of the week I guess most of ’em will be ready to pay Mr. Shei’s price. I don’t know how he means to manage the transaction, but I’ll bet a pair of pink socks he’ll figure out a safe way.”
“What are the doctors doing? Still loafing on the job, I suppose?”
“They’re up a tree—every mother’s son of them. They can’t dope out the disease at all. If they had seven months instead of seven days, they might be able to do something, but as it is, they’re at the end of their tether. Their only hope is that one of the seven will be obliging enough to die before the others, so they can perform an autopsy.”
Stapleton jerked his head savagely to one side. “This is the twentieth century and we’re living in a civilized country,” he muttered. “A man can’t put over a thing like that in these times.”
“Just what I’ve been telling myself for the last three days,” admitted Culligore. “I’ve been saying it can’t be done—but Mr. Shei is going right ahead and doing it.”
“And he’s pulling the trick right under our noses,” supplemented the inspector. “That’s what gets my goat. It’s plain as day that Mr. Shei is The Gray Phantom. Nobody but The Gray Phantom ever got away with a thing like this, and this job has all the ear-marks of his work. Well,” and his huge fist descended on the desk with a slam, “we’ll get him yet, and when we do I’ll see to it that he’s put away for keeps.”
Culligore drew the palm of his hand across his mouth as if to stifle one of his infrequent grins.
“Keeping something up your sleeve again?” demanded the inspector, who had noticed the gesture. “If you’ve got something on your mind, why don’t you spring it?”
The lieutenant shifted his lanky figure in the chair. “I’ve been trying all day to get a line on Fairspeckle,” he said slowly, without directly answering the inspector’s question. “Queer how that old duffer vamoosed. I tried to question the Jap valet, but all he knows is that there are two bumps on his head where there was only one before. The doctor and the nurse got rough treatment, too. Of a sudden the lights went out, and old Fairspeckle seemed to go out with them. Anyhow, he was gone when the doctor came to.” Culligore paused to light one of his vicious-looking cigars. “Something queer about that old goat’s disappearance—eh, inspector?”
Stapleton stared hard at his subordinate, as if trying to read the thoughts stirring behind his stolid countenance. “Of course there is,” he said irritably. “There’s something queer about every disappearance. Just what are you driving at? You don’t doubt that Fairspeckle was kidnaped by Mr. Shei’s agents?”
“I doubt everything, inspector. Know of any reason why Mr. Shei should go out of his way to abduct the old geezer?”
“No, I don’t,” admitted Stapleton after some thought. “The kidnaping of Fairspeckle doesn’t seem to fit into the pattern of Mr. Shei’s scheme. What’s your idea, Culligore? You don’t suppose Fairspeckle kidnaped himself?”
“Stranger things have happened, inspector. By the way,” and the lieutenant reached into his pocket and took out several typewritten slips, “I meant to hand you these yesterday, but was too busy with other things. I found them beside the typewriter on Fairspeckle’s desk. What do you make of them?”
Stapleton picked up the slips and glanced at them. His eyes widened into a stare as he read the typewritten lines. He read them twice, and then he transferred his gaze to Culligore.
“Holy mackerel!” he muttered. Then he sat silent for a time, wriggling his ample frame to and fro in the chair. “Why, these things make it look as though Fairspeckle was Mr. Shei.”
“They show that the mystery isn’t quite so simple as you thought, inspector. They sort of knock the pins from under your theory that The Gray Phantom is Mr. Shei.”
For a few moments longer Stapleton’s bewildered eyes rested on the slips. Then he read aloud the list of names beneath the introductory paragraph, and the pucker on his forehead deepened. Finally he looked quizzically at the lieutenant.
“Yes, I noticed it, too,” said Culligore. “There’s something queer about that list. Looks as though Mr. Shei, whoever he is, hadn’t followed his original programme. Seven men were inoculated, but only five of them are named in Fairspeckle’s list. The other two names don’t jibe.”
Stapleton pondered for a while. He seemed to have great difficulty readjusting his thoughts to a new fact.
“And here’s another interesting thing,” Culligore pointed out. “Every one of the seven men mentioned in Fairspeckle’s list was a member of a ring that fought him tooth and nail some years ago.”
“And this is Fairspeckle’s way of getting even with them,” ventured the inspector.
“Maybe,” said Culligore guardedly. “Anyhow, a fairly strong motive could be made out of it.”
“But how do you account for the fact that Fairspeckle didn’t carry out his original programme?”
“I’m not trying to account for it just now. There might have been a slip of some kind.IfFairspeckle is Mr. Shei, the fact that he revised his list doesn’t really cut any ice. Any man has a right to change his mind.”
Inspector Stapleton sat up straight. He looked at Culligore in a determined way. “What I can’t understand is why you didn’t show me these slips yesterday. You say you were too busy with other things. I’d like to know what other things could be more important. Never mind that, though. The thing to do now is to find Fairspeckle.”
Again Culligore drew his palm across his mouth. “And when you have found him, inspector, what are you going to do with him?”
“Eh?” Stapleton seemed to think the question a strange one. “Do with him? Why, we’ll see to it that he gets the stiffest sentence the law provides. If we once get our hands on him we’ll put him in a place where he won’t be able to trouble us for some time.”
“Aren’t you overlooking something, inspector?”
Stapleton stared perplexedly at his subordinate.
“What about the seven capitalists?” the lieutenant went on. “They’ll die like rats unless the antidote is administered in time. You can’t make Mr. Shei fork over the antidote by putting him in jail. He’s wise enough to know that as long as the antidote is in his possession he has a hold on us, and he won’t be likely to give it up. He knows we are not going to let seven of the biggest men in the country die just for the sake of sending him to jail. The fact is, inspector, that Mr. Shei has us sewed up in a sack.”
Stapleton seemed about to make an indignant reply, but it died on his tongue. Evidently Culligore’s argument had made a strong impression. He dropped back against the chair and peered diffidently into space.
“I’m hanged if I’m going to sit with arms folded and let Mr. Shei put this thing over,” he muttered at last. “He’s a slick crook, but there ought to be a way of dealing with him.”
“I think there is, inspector,” agreed Culligore, leisurely rising from his chair. “I can’t see it just yet, but maybe my mind will work better after a little walk. So long, inspector.”
He shuffled from the room, followed by Inspector Stapleton’s puzzled gaze. After leaving the headquarters building, he walked to a near-by restaurant and ordered a substantial meal. He seemed in no hurry, for he ate slowly and lingered for a considerable time over his coffee and cigar. An observer, noticing his languid air and phlegmatic expression, might have thought that Mr. Shei was farthest from his mind. It was dark when he left the restaurant, and it was a little after eight o’clock when, after a leisurely stroll in a zigzagging direction, he reached the Thelma Theater.
His decision to visit the Thelma once more might have been due to the fact that it had been the scene of several mysterious incidents which were more or less directly traceable to the activities of Mr. Shei. The death of Virginia Darrow had occurred there, and the bullet that had missed The Gray Phantom by such a narrow margin was still imbedded in one of the pillars. But Culligore’s expression gave no indication of his purpose as he stood on the sidewalk across the street from the theater and glanced up at the windows of Vincent Starr’s private office on the second floor.
The windows were dark, so evidently Starr was not there, and the entire structure presented a gloomy and lifeless appearance. Culligore hummed a little tune as he walked to the nearest street intersection, then cut diagonally across the thoroughfare, continued half a block to the west, and finally ducked into a dark basement entrance. The ease with which he made his way suggested that he had traveled the same route before. After walking down a dirty and foul-smelling passage, he emerged into a vacant space bordered at one side by the rear wall of the theater.
He crossed the inclosure, then ran down a short stairway, and brought up against a door. Now he took a number of keys from his pocket and tried several in the lock before he found one that fitted. At last the door came open, and the lieutenant, locking it carefully behind him, stood in the basement under the Thelma Theater.
On all sides was total darkness. For a time he stood still, listening for sounds, but nothing but dull and distant noises from the outside reached his ears. Having satisfied himself that he was apparently alone in the basement, he took out his flash light and began a thorough and comprehensive search. With the electric flash peering into every nook and corner, he explored the dressing rooms, peeped behind piles of discarded scenery, examined odds and ends of stage property, looked into the barrels and boxes in the dusty storerooms, and even tapped the walls here and there to assure himself that there were no hollow spaces.
At last he gave up. His search had taken almost an hour and it had been complete and painstaking in every respect, yet Lieutenant Culligore seemed not quite satisfied. On his face was a look of hesitancy that seemed to suggest a lingering suspicion that something might have eluded him. Standing in the center of the basement, he extinguished the flash light, for it had been his experience that his other senses were more acute when his eyes received no impressions.
For a little while, standing in impenetrable darkness, he scarcely breathed. He had a curious sensation that a faint sound was passing him and dissolving in the dank air. It was so slight and elusive that his ears could scarcely detect it, yet it appealed to his imagination with peculiar insistence. It might have been either a moan or a sigh, or perhaps a cry coming from a great distance. Somehow, though he could not analyze the sensation, he fancied it expressed a great, overwhelming anguish. Whether it came from above, below, or the sides he could not determine, but it inspired him with a haunting feeling that he was not alone.
Again he took up the flash, and instantly the impression vanished, as if it had been a wraith fleeing from the light. Once more, step by step, he went over every square foot of the basement, covering the ground he had already searched so patiently, but he found nothing that gave the slightest clew to the peculiar sound. Finally, half inclined to believe that his imagination had deceived him, he ascended the stairway and continued his search on the ground floor. With dogged determination he explored the space in the wings and back of the stage, then went up and down the aisles in the auditorium. His inspection of the boxes was fruitless, and he found nothing of significance in the little niche where, on his previous visit to the Thelma, he had strongly suspected that an eavesdropper was hiding. Finally he went through the offices on the street front, occupied, as was indicated by the brass plates on the doors, by the treasurer, business manager, and stage director. Here also his quest was unavailing, and nothing now remained but Vincent Starr’s private office on the upper floor.
The moment he entered, Culligore felt as though he were invading the den of a sybarite. His flash light, flitting slowly over the room, revealed soft color harmonies and exquisite decorations. Faint and delicate perfumes mingled with the fresh and alluring scents of flowers. Culligore’s feet sank deep into costly rugs as he moved about the office, peeping behind chairs, desks, and cabinets, and occasionally sounding the walls for hollow spaces. After an hour of intense and patient effort, he was forced to admit that he had exerted himself needlessly and that his impressions while standing in the basement could have been nothing but figments of his fancy.
Finally he sat down in the luxuriously upholstered chair beside Starr’s desk. His watch showed a quarter past eleven, and he tried to reconcile himself to the thought that the only thing he could do was to go home and sleep. He was disappointed, for he had hoped that his search would yield some tangible results. He scowled a little as his gaze roamed idly over the orderly piles of papers on the desk. The ink stand, the paper cutter, and the pens were all of ornamental design. The only plain and undecorative objects in the room were the two telephones standing at one side of the desk. It struck him as a little odd that there should be two of them, but then he noticed that one was an automatic instrument without outside connections and communicating only with the various departments in the building.
Presently he yawned ostentatiously. He could not quite understand his reason for remaining after his fruitless task was done, nor could he comprehend the feeling, vague but uncannily persistent, that the next few minutes would bring some startling developments.
A gentle buzzing caused him to sit up straight in the chair. The telephone was ringing, and instinctively he reached out his hand for one of the instruments. He spoke a soft “hello” in the transmitter. There was no response, but the ringing continued. A little dazedly he hung up the receiver and peered fixedly at the other telephone. He jerked it to him, thrust the transmitter to his ear, and instantly the buzzing ceased.
A gasp of amazement fell from his lips. Someone was calling on the automatic telephone, the one that had no outside connections. The person calling must be inside the building, then, despite the fact that his patient search had convinced him that there was no other human being within the four walls of the structure.
“Hello—hello!” shouted Culligore into the mouthpiece. From head to foot he was tingling with suspense. It was one of the rare occasions within recent years when he felt the thrill of excitement.
A hoarse and rasping voice responded, but at first he could make out no words. The person at the other end seemed to speak with great difficulty and was evidently on the verge of hysterics.
“Speak a little louder, can’t you?” urged the lieutenant. “Who are you?”
A jumble of split words and syllables sounded distantly in his ear. Now and then, between efforts to speak clearly, came a titter and a giggle that awoke a startling suspicion in Culligore’s mind.
“Tell me who you are,” he said in loud tones.
A short, cracked laugh came over the wire. It was followed by a groan, as if the speaker were despairing over his inability to make himself understood. Then he tried again. “Fair—Fairspeckle.”
“Oh!” Culligore’s teeth clicked out the exclamation. He nodded at the instrument, as if the name just spoken had confirmed a suspicion in his mind. “Where are you, Mr. Fairspeckle?”
“I can’t—can’t tell you,” came gropingly over the wire.
“Haven’t you any idea?”
“None. I’m locked in a—a room, and I am—dying! For God’s sake get me out!”
“Listen, Mr. Fairspeckle,” said Culligore tensely. “You’re somewhere in the Thelma Theater, and I am going to find you. It may take some little time, but don’t worry. It won’t be very long.”
A groan of relief mingled with pent-up suspense sounded in Culligore’s ear, and then he slammed the receiver back on the hook. His eyes were twinkling and there was a new eagerness in his face. He jumped up from the chair and took a step toward the door. Then he drew back, and in the next moment his face had resumed its habitual sluggish expression and there was nothing in his manner to indicate that anything out of the ordinary had happened.
The door opened and in walked Vincent Starr. The theatrical manager, faultlessly attired in evening dress, topcoat, and silk hat, shrank back at sight of the man standing beside the desk. Then, recognizing the lieutenant, he instantly gathered himself.
“You startled me, Culligore,” he explained with an apologetic laugh. “So many strange things have happened in this place that I am naturally a little nervous. I often come here late at night to read or write, according to my mood, but of late I approach the place in fear and trembling.” He eyed the detective inquiringly. “I wonder what brings you to my private office at such an hour.”
“Hope you don’t mind my snooping,” said Culligore genially. “I have been looking around a bit. There were a couple of things I wanted to get straightened out in my mind. As you say yourself, there have been a lot of strange doings in this place, and I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that Mr. Shei is back of them all.”
Starr doffed his hat and ran his fingers through his long, glossy hair. The discoloration of his nose had diminished greatly, but his face was still pale and drawn.
“That’s precisely my idea,” he said nervously. “I shall never feel safe until that scoundrel is behind iron bars. Unless he has a private grievance against me, I am at a loss to understand why he can’t keep away from my theater. By the way, did you obtain any light on the things that were puzzling you?”
“Not much,” said Culligore disgustedly, with a furtive glance at the telephone. “I searched every square inch of the place without finding what I was after.”
“Yes?” Starr seemed politely curious. “I infer, then, that you had a definite object in view, that you were not just searching at random.”
“Oh, no.” Culligore looked about him as if not quite at ease. “I suppose we’re alone?”
“Not another soul in the building. You can speak as freely as you like.”
“Then I’ll tell you exactly what I think. The way Mr. Shei’s men have been sneaking in and out of this place is mighty suggestive. Just why they should be turning your place into a rendezvous is something I don’t understand, but that’s exactly what they seem to be doing. They were right on the job the night you opened your new play. They gave Virginia Darrow a shot of poison just at the psychological moment, before she could spill what she knew. Then they sneaked the body away right under our eyes, and we have not yet discovered how they managed it. Only the other day, somebody took a shot at either you or The Gray Phantom. All this looks mighty queer.”
“It does,” assented Starr. He took out a jewel-studded case and lighted a cigarette. His pale, uneasy eyes did not leave the detective’s face for a moment. “What is your theory?”
Culligore looked musingly into space. “Mr. Shei is very clever, but he is of flesh and blood, like the rest of us. There must be a simple and natural explanation for all these strange doings. I’ll bet my hat that he has found a secret entrance to your place.”
“Impossible,” said Starr promptly. “This theater was built according to my own directions and my own architects supervised every detail of the construction.”
“That may be, but I still stick to the idea of a secret entrance. Don’t you see, Mr. Starr, even if you didn’t have such an entrance made when you constructed your theater, Mr. Shei’s men may have drilled a hole through the wall or the floor somewhere? Nothing else explains how they have been slipping in and out of the place.”
“But why?” demanded Starr, and his fingers trembled as he took the cigarette from his lips. “Why should they do such a thing?”
Culligore smiled faintly while his muddy little eyes scanned the other’s face.
“I think you can make a pretty fair guess,” he said dryly.
Starr’s face turned a shade paler. For an instant there was a look of positive dread in his eyes, but it vanished quickly. A sad smile came to his lips.
“I see I must be frank with you,” he murmured, “much as I dislike to discuss matters pertaining to my private life. Don’t ask me to go into details, for there are excellent reasons why I should not do so. In plain words, I do not care to incriminate myself. I have not always been what I am to-day. There was a time, quite a number of years ago, when I led a very violent life and when the law and I were not on the best of terms. I made enemies—a number of them—and it is possible that they are pursuing me to-day. In fact I——”
He paused, and his narrowing gaze slanted to the floor. Culligore repressed a start. In the intense silence of the moment he heard a faint buzzing. Somewhere, in one of the offices on the ground floor, a telephone was ringing, and he guessed that Fairspeckle had grown impatient and was calling one of the other departments of the intercommunicating system.
“In fact,” Starr went on after a moment’s pause, quickly controlling his astonishment, “if I were to come face to face with Mr. Shei to-day, I strongly suspect that I would recognize in him one of my old enemies. Don’t ask me to explain any further, Culligore. You will appreciate the delicacy of the matter.”
“I do, and you’ve said enough to explain the funny doings that have been going on here. I want you to answer one question frankly. Have you any idea who Mr. Shei is?”
“Have you?” was Starr’s prompt rejoinder.
Culligore chuckled. “Maybe I have and maybe I haven’t. I’m pretty sure of one thing. Some people think The Gray Phantom is Mr. Shei, but they’re dead wrong.”
Starr’s lips twitched into a knowing smile. “I agree with you, there, Culligore. Shall we go a step farther? With The Gray Phantom eliminated, the range of available suspects narrows down to one man. Am I right?”
“I think you are on the right track, Mr. Starr.”
The theatrical manager, once more quite composed, seemed to find a great deal of amusement in the speculative drift of the conversation.
“It is diverting to try to read other people’s minds,” he observed. “I wonder how close I can come to an accurate reading of yours. A detective’s thoughts travel a devious route, but I will try to look at the situation from your point of view, taking all the circumstances into account. If you were to mention the name of the one remaining suspect, I fancy it would be W. Rufus Fairspeckle.”
Culligore stared as if dumfounded at the other’s astuteness, but his lips curled into the faintest grin as soon as Starr averted his gaze.
“You might as well admit that I was right,” said the manager with a smile of elation. “For once a mere layman has read your mind like an open book. The next question is what has become of Fairspeckle. Do you suppose——”
He broke off short. His glance darted involuntarily to the automatic telephone on the desk. Its summons sounded clear and distinct in the tense silence. Once more a tinge of gray crept into his face. With a tightening of the lips he looked furtively at Culligore.
“Queer!” muttered the lieutenant, fingering the green cord attached to the instrument and tracing it to the sound box. “Someone is calling on the private wire. And you just told me that you and I were alone in the building.”
The buzzing continued. Starr stared helplessly at the instrument, but out of the tail of an eye he was watching the expression on the detective’s face. Finally, with a jerk of the shoulders, he emerged from his daze.
“I don’t understand it,” he murmured, “but we shall soon see what it means.”
He sat down and drew the instrument to him. His face took on a look of determination, but there was also a baffling and inscrutable expression that might have puzzled the detective. But Culligore’s thoughts seemed to be elsewhere. He looked as though he foresaw a critical moment and realized that quick thinking and prompt action were necessary. While Starr was speaking into the telephone, he looked quickly about the room. From his vest pocket he took a small box and removed the lid, exposing a reddish substance that looked like salve. Rubbing a little of it onto his finger tips, he softly crossed the room and quickly smeared a thin coating of the reddish material on the doorknob.
Starr hung up the receiver just as the little box disappeared into Culligore’s vest pocket.
“I don’t understand it,” said the manager frettingly. “Someone was speaking. It was a man’s voice, but I couldn’t make out what he was trying to say. It is very mysterious.” He smiled faintly. “It’s beginning to look as though I was mistaken and there was someone else in the building besides you and me.”
“It certainly looks queer,” admitted Culligore. “I searched everywhere, but we might as well go over the ground again.”
Starr acquiesced readily, and Culligore saw to it that the manager preceded him out of the room. He noticed with gratification that the other’s fingers closed firmly around the knob as he opened the door, and he knew that Starr was too preoccupied to take heed of the faint smear left on his hand from contact with the greased metal. He chuckled inwardly as he followed the manager down the stairs and through the offices in front of the building. After a brief and somewhat perfunctory search, they entered the auditorium.
“Shall I switch on the lights?” whispered Starr, walking beside the detective.
“I wouldn’t. If there’s a prowler around the place, we don’t want to warn him. My electric flash will do.”
For a time they conducted the search in silence, the detective cautiously darting the electric gleam over floor and walls and into dark corners. Finally he paused before a niche in the wall and pointed to an aperture behind the marble shelf that spanned the opening.
“Do you know,” he whispered, “that the other day, while I was talking with The Gray Phantom, I had a funny feeling someone was hiding back there and listening to our conversation? Who do you suppose it could have been?”
There was no response. Culligore had been peering into the recess behind the marble ledge. Now he looked up quickly, but Starr was gone—and the twitching of the detective’s lips signified that the manager’s sudden disappearance did not surprise him greatly. In an instant he was amazingly alert. Jerking his electric flash hither and thither, he moved quickly back and forth within the narrow space where he had last seen the manager, sweeping the surrounding objects with his electric gleam and examining the surfaces of chairs, pillars, walls, and decorative articles.
Presently he brought up in front of one of the larger pillars supporting the balcony. He had previously noticed its huge dimensions, and now he gauged them again with a quickly calculating eye. It was there The Gray Phantom had stood when the mysterious shot was fired the other day, and Helen Hardwick had been leaning against the same pillar when the curious individual with the repulsive features glided past her.
The electric gleam moved swiftly over the white surface of the post with its ornate trimmings of dull gold. Again, as once or twice before, he wondered whether there was any hidden significance in the fact that The Gray Phantom had stood in this identical spot at the moment the shot was fired. Was it possible that the skulking assailant had feared that The Phantom was about to make an important discovery, and was that why he had fired the shot? Culligore pondered the question while scanning every square inch of the pillar.
Suddenly the electric gleam stopped at a point near the floor, and Culligore could scarcely repress an exclamation of elation. His ruse had succeeded, for on the white surface of the post was a faint discoloration which signified that Starr’s hand had recently touched that particular point. There were no other marks, and this one was only a few inches from the floor. Culligore’s fingers ran quickly over the surrounding space, and occasionally he pressed his thumb firmly against the wood, but without discovering anything. His hand slid downward to where the rich Persian carpet was neatly tucked around the base of the post, and suddenly his exploring fingers touched a slight knoblike projection. He pressed firmly, and he felt an exultant tingle as there came a soft, whirring response. A panel in the post, ingeniously hidden in the gold-lined grooves, was sliding back, forming an aperture.
The electric gleam showed a look of keen elation on Culligore’s face. His discovery had taken only a minute or two of valuable time, for he had moved fast since he noticed that Starr was gone. Yet, but for a happy inspiration and the resultant reddish stain on the post, he might have searched for days without finding the opening.
Now he squeezed his figure through the narrow aperture, at the same time pocketing his electric flash and drawing his automatic. His feet encountered the upper rungs of a ladder that pointed straight down. He descended rapidly, making no sound. At the bottom was a narrow passage extending in the direction of the street, and at its farther end he saw a faint glow. He approached quickly, warned by a sixth sense that he had no time to waste.
He came to a door. It stood open a crack, and through the narrow opening he saw a strange scene. An elderly man, with a thin and haggard face and sunken eyes that stared about him in an agonized way, was lying on a cot. Starr, bending over the recumbent man, was winding pieces of rope around his feet and hands and drawing them into tight knots.
“There, Mr. Fairspeckle,” he tauntingly declared when he had fastened a gag around the other man’s mouth, “I don’t think you will work loose a second time. Even if you should, you will find that the telephone is out of order.”
He laughed, turned away from the cot, and uttered a gasp as he looked into the muzzle of Culligore’s pistol. Every trace of color faded from his face, but he gathered himself quickly.
“You are a most astounding person, Culligore,” he remarked coolly. “I wonder how you found your way down here. Not that it matters,” he added with a shrug, “but I am naturally curious. I won’t press you for the information, however. Any way I can be of service?”
“Yes, Mr. Shei,” said Culligore, emphasizing each word and looking straight into the other’s eyes, “you can hold out your hands and not make any fuss while I put the handcuffs on you.”
Starr laughed derisively. “Sorry not to be able to oblige you, but I have a distinct aversion to handcuffs. Won’t you sit down and be comfortable? An underground room like this has many advantages. In the chests you see against the walls I occasionally store things that the police and private detectives would give a great deal to be able to lay their hands on. It is an excellent hiding place, and it serves several other purposes besides.”
“So I see,” muttered Culligore with a glance at the man on the cot. Fairspeckle’s face bore a dazed look and he seemed to understand nothing of what was being said, but his staring eyes held an expression of terror.
“I would like to know,” murmured Starr, fixing his pale eyes on the lieutenant’s inscrutable face, “how and when you learned that I was Mr. Shei. I was under the impression that you suspected Fairspeckle.”
“I meant you should be,” said Culligore with a dry chuckle. “I knew somebody was listening behind the marble ledge the day I had that talk with The Gray Phantom upstairs, and I guessed it was either you or one of your men. I pretended to believe that Fairspeckle was Mr. Shei, and I encouraged The Phantom in thinking the same thing, but all the while I was talking for the benefit of the fellow behind the marble slab. I had a pretty good suspicion as to who Mr. Shei was, and I wanted to throw him off his guard. Once a man gets careless it isn’t hard to catch him.”
Starr grinned appreciatively. “I’ll admit that you are far shrewder than you look, Culligore, but I am not so sure that I have been guilty of carelessness. That remains to be seen. What I am curious to know is when you first began to suspect that I was Mr. Shei. You see, I have nothing to fear from you, so I frankly admit the fact. But I would like to know by what sort of reasoning you were led to suspect me.”
“There wasn’t any course of reasoning,” said Culligore, maintaining a steady grip on his pistol. “It was only a flash here and there. The first flash came when I saw the note Virginia Darrow sent you the night she died. I guessed then that she had learned in some way that you were Mr. Shei, and she wanted to tease you with it. A little later, when you were handed that bump on the nose, I didn’t know exactly what to think. Then it came to me that, if you really were Mr. Shei, you would have yourself assaulted along with the others to turn suspicion away from you. It was a clever move, Mr. Starr, but it didn’t fool me for long. Well, a number of other things happened that strengthened my suspicion, but I wasn’t really sure until I walked into this room to-night.”
Starr scowled a little. “You are a bit disappointing, Culligore. I had hoped you would give me an example of fine-spun deductive reasoning of the kind that always drips from the lips of story-book detectives. Just one more thing before we close this pleasant interview. How do you account for Mr. Fairspeckle?”
“Oh, that part was fairly easy. Fairspeckle is a queer sort, but he never did any real harm. He’s been troubled with insomnia, and when a man can’t sleep, he’s likely to do any foolish thing, from writing poetry on a park bench to murdering his mother-in-law. The deeper the mystery, the simpler the explanation. That has been my experience, and it has held true in Fairspeckle’s case. I’m not dead sure of my facts, but I can make a pretty close guess. The night Mr. Shei’s notices were posted, Fairspeckle had been roaming the town as he always did when he couldn’t sleep. He saw one of the notices in Times Square and, being one of the seven richest men in town, he didn’t like the idea a bit. Then The Gray Phantom came strolling along, and Fairspeckle recognized him. Like many others, he jumped at the conclusion that The Phantom was Mr. Shei, and right away he began to study out a way of beating Mr. Shei’s game.
“By some hook or crook he got The Phantom into his apartment, and there he tried to drug him. He had two objects in view. One of them was to keep The Phantom under cover for a time so he wouldn’t be able to go on with his scheme, and the other was to get even with certain enemies of his by throwing an almighty scare into them. While the real Mr. Shei, as he supposed, was a prisoner in his apartment, he meant to carry the scheme just a step or two farther—just far enough to put fear into his old enemies. It just so happened that five of those enemies were among the seven richest men in town. Well, Fairspeckle got a typewriter and went to work and typed a new set of notices, supplementing the ones that had already been posted. I hope he had a good laugh while he was typing the seven names, for that’s all the good his scheme did him. A few hours later he was kidnaped. That was another fairly clever move, Starr.”
Starr seemed to enjoy the compliment. “Thanks, Culligore,” he murmured. “I knew you would appreciate that little touch. After overhearing the conversation between you and The Phantom, in which I thought you made it plain that both of you suspected Fairspeckle, I saw a still more effective way to divert suspicion from myself. Since you already suspected Fairspeckle, as I thought at the time, it occurred to me to let the suspicion take firmer root by having Fairspeckle disappear. A man who vanishes mysteriously is always an object of suspicion.”
Culligore nodded absently. Only half his mind had been on Starr’s speech. Now, still holding the automatic firmly leveled, he came a step closer to the other man.
“I don’t like to muss you up,” he said softly, “so please put out your hands and make no trouble.”
Starr chuckled amusedly. “You are really surprisingly simple, Culligore. Your pistol doesn’t frighten me, for I know you won’t use it. And arresting me won’t do you any good. If you put me in jail, the antidote will never be found, and then seven of the biggest men in the country will die. Don’t you see, Culligore, that there isn’t a thing you can do?”
His tones were soft and teasing, and his words expressed the same idea that Culligore himself had voiced in Inspector Stapleton’s presence. Slowly the lieutenant ran his eyes over the walls. The underground chamber, and especially the steel chests stacked along the side, would serve excellently as a hiding place. What more natural than the antidote should be concealed in one of the chests? It seemed——
He got no farther in his reasoning. Too swiftly for Culligore to interfere, Starr’s hand moved to the wall at his side. A faint click sounded, and then blackness fell. Culligore sprang forward, but already a loud slam signified that the door had closed. He hurled himself against it, but he might as well have been pitting his strength against a brick wall.
“Trapped!” he muttered.
A swarm of jumbled thoughts and emotions crowded each fraction of a second as The Gray Phantom, standing with his back against the door, heard Slade’s slow and precise voice pronounce the numerals. At each distinctly spoken word he started as if a rapier had prodded his flesh. His gaze was fixed on Helen, who from her position in the stairway stared down on the scene with eyes that appeared to see nothing, and the blank look in her face told him that she was mercifully oblivious of the meaning of it all.
With the speed of lightning, stray thoughts and impressions flashed through The Phantom’s mind. Slade had warned him that Helen would die when he had counted ten, unless The Phantom surrendered in the meantime. At Helen’s back, shielded by her body against a possible bullet from The Phantom’s revolver, stood the executioner, ready to press the trigger.
Things swam in confusion before The Phantom’s eyes. He would gladly have given his life if thereby he could save Helen from her predicament. But Slade dared not kill him just yet, not until he had learned where Doctor Tagala was hidden, and so he hoped to force The Phantom into submission by threatening Helen. The plan was subtle and fiendishly clever, and more than once, as the seconds dragged by, The Phantom had been on the point of yielding. The only thing that had restrained him was the belief that his surrender would only make the situation worse. It would deprive him of his precarious advantage, and then Helen’s position would be doubly desperate.
Once he glanced at the automatic in his hand, wishing that he could fire a bullet into the figure crouching behind Helen. It was a forlorn hope, for the coward knew better than to expose himself. Again Slade’s voice, pronouncing each syllable with excessive precision, broke in upon his thoughts:
“—five—six—seven——”
The Phantom jerked up his head as an inspiration flashed through his mind. He still had an advantage, though his aching mind had not been able to grasp it until this very minute. Again his eyes sought the pistol drooping from his nerveless right hand.
“—eight—nine——” A note of hesitancy crept into Slade’s accents, and he looked expectantly at The Phantom. Evidently he was reluctant to pronounce the final word, the word that would mean Helen’s death. He vastly preferred that The Phantom should accept his terms, but his face showed no sign of yielding from his purpose.
His lips opened, and in another moment the fatal word would have been spoken. But in that brief interval The Phantom acted, and the word never left Slade’s lips. Instead he uttered a long-drawn-out exclamation of amazement.
The Phantom’s maneuver had been both swift and surprising. The blue steel of his automatic had flashed for an instant in the dim light, and then he had pressed its muzzle firmly against his heart. For a few moments the crowd stared in dumfounded amazement; then a startled look in Slade’s face showed that he understood. He bit his lip and suppressed a cry of rage.
“If Miss Hardwick dies, I die, too,” declared The Phantom in gritty accents; and the metallic gleam of his eye and the note of grim earnestness in his voice left no doubt of his sincerity. “And you can’t afford to let me die, Slade. With me dead, you would never find Tagala, and then the bottom would drop out of Mr. Shei’s scheme.”
Slade fumed and gnashed his teeth in impotent rage. A glance at The Phantom’s face, smiling and yet grimly determined, seemed to increase his fury. But The Phantom’s airy confidence was all on the surface. He knew that his dramatic gesture had only postponed the crisis, and already his mind was planning another move.
At last Slade’s rage cooled and his reason reasserted itself. Pointing to the stairway, he bawled an order to the man behind Helen to take her back to her room. The Phantom drew a long breath of relief as she was half led, half carried up the remaining steps; but the comfort the sight gave him was of brief duration.
Now Slade’s finger was pointing at himself. “Take his gun away,” he ordered the men lined up behind him. “Make a rush for him, all at once, but don’t shoot. Go!”
The men bounded forward, but in the same instant The Phantom’s pistol spoke twice. Two yells of pain followed the sharp cracks of the weapon, and the leaders of the rush sank to the floor. The others stopped, stared diffidently at the steadily pointing pistol, then wavered and fell back. Once more The Phantom had triumphed. He cast a quick glance at the two who had fallen. He had aimed to cripple, not to kill, and he could see that their wounds were not serious.
Slade shook his fist at the cowering men.
“Are you all white-livered kittens?” he shouted. “Are you going to let one man bluff you? Rush at him again, all together!”
The Phantom tensed himself for the attack. He quavered inwardly as he recalled that only two slugs remained in his cartridge chamber. He crouched behind the pistol, fixing each man in turn with a piercing gaze. The line advanced with a rush. Someone, more intrepid than the others, seized one of his legs and tried to pull him to the floor, but The Phantom disposed of him with a vigorous kick. The next was dispatched with a well-aimed bullet, and the third went reeling to the floor from a blow with the butt of his pistol. He took careful aim before he fired his one remaining shot, and a scream of agony told that the bullet had found its mark. Again the line wavered and broke. On the floor lay five who had been maimed by The Phantom’s bullets and one who was still unconscious from the blow with the pistol. Of the original eleven combatants only five remained, but also The Phantom’s ammunition was spent, and at any moment one or more of the wounded might revive and get back into the fray.
Slade’s face was white with helpless rage. He could not know that The Phantom’s cartridge chamber was empty. He stamped his foot and again shook his fist at the men. Taking advantage of his temporary distraction, The Phantom glided forward and, stooping quickly, snatched a pistol from the cramped fingers of one of the wounded. Then he threw down his own weapon and hurried back to his position at the door.
Slade noticed his sudden move out of the tail of an eye, but not soon enough to prevent it. He turned again to the remnant of his little army. His face was dark and bore an ominous scowl.
“We will get him yet,” he declared, snarling. “Form a line and take aim, but don’t shoot to kill. Aim for the arms and legs only. Don’t shoot until I give the word.”
The men spread out in a half circle, and The Phantom saw five pistols pointing at him. There was a malevolent grin on Slade’s lips as he watched the preparations. Then he stepped to one side of the half circle.
“Fire!” he commanded.
The Phantom ducked just as a chorus of shots rang out. A stinging sensation in the shoulder told him he had been hit, but he choked back the cry of pain that rose in his throat. A dense film of powder hung in the air, and for a few moments the firing line was only a row of shadowy forms. The Phantom thought of flight, but someone opened a window and the smoke quickly scattered. In the next instant the blare of a motor horn was heard in the distance.
The men exchanged quick glances, and The Phantom fancied he saw a look of relief on Slade’s face. In the muttered conversation that followed he made out the name of Mr. Shei, and new misgivings caused him to forget the stinging pain in his shoulder. Slade’s handling of the situation had exposed him as a bungler, but for Mr. Shei’s ingenuity and resourcefulness The Phantom had a high respect. If Mr. Shei had arrived, as the blare of the horn and the conversation among the men seemed to signify, then a new and more critical situation awaited him.
He glanced toward the end of the hall. A faint glimmer of dawn showed against the window back of the stairway railing. The night had been crowded with exciting events, and the time had passed more quickly than he realized. Again Mr. Shei’s name was mentioned among the men, and then a hush fell over the group. A door opened at one side of the hall, and in the next instant The Phantom’s eyes widened into a bewildered stare.
The tall man who entered and was received with such marked deference by Slade and the others was none other than Vincent Starr!
A film floated before The Phantom’s eyes. It seemed almost unbelievable at first, but a succession of minor incidents and circumstances that had vaguely puzzled him at times suddenly came back to him in the light of a new significance. He had been blind, he told himself; yet it was no wonder that he had been deceived. His concern for Helen had been uppermost in his mind, and he was forced to admit that Starr had played his game very shrewdly.
The newcomer cast a swift, comprehensive glance up and down the hall, then turned to Slade, and the two engaged in a low-voiced conversation. Now and then Starr mentioned Culligore’s name, and The Phantom gathered from isolated words and phrases that something of an unpleasant nature had happened to the lieutenant. He learned, too, that there had been developments that necessitated quick action on Mr. Shei’s part and that the latter had made a quick motor trip from New York to Azurecrest. The Phantom absorbed these bits of news with interest, but all the time he was studying the characteristic gestures with which Starr emphasized his statements. Once before, while standing in the Thelma Theater, it struck him that there was something familiar about them, and the same impression came to him now. He was searching his memory for half-forgotten facts when Starr suddenly turned round and faced him.
“Surprised?” he inquired, and his smile exposed two rows of flashingly white teeth.
“A little, at first, but I think I understand it all now,” was The Phantom’s nonchalant reply. Then, of a sudden, his figure stiffened. Starr had delivered another of his oddly expressive gestures, and it had started another train of recollections in The Phantom’s mind. “Starr,” he added impulsively, “you were once a member of my organization.”
“Only a very humble one,” admitted Starr, “and it was years back, so it’s no wonder you didn’t recognize me at first. In those days you scarcely noticed me, but I was watching and studying you all the time. There were a lot of melodramatic notions in my head, and The Gray Phantom was my hero. I dreamed of some day eclipsing his achievements, and I think I have succeeded. You see, the Thelma Theater, for all the fun I got out of the experiment, was only a cover for my other and more fascinating activities.”
“My first impression was correct, then,” murmured The Phantom, addressing himself rather than Starr. “I suspected Mr. Shei was a former follower of mine and had learned his methods from me, and that’s why I decided to defeat his purpose and break up his organization. Now I’m doubly glad that I took up the cudgels against you, Starr.”
“Glad?” A puzzled frown crossed Starr’s face. “You are a beaten man, defeated by a once insignificant pupil of yours. Why should you be glad?”
“Defeated?” The Phantom threw back his head and smiled. “Not just yet, Starr. The Gray Phantom doesn’t even know the meaning of the word. Before I drop out of this game you and your crowd will be in jail.”
A cloud gathered on Starr’s forehead. “You are a curious character. I have beaten you at every turn. I have you so completely cornered that you can’t even raise your pistol against me without endangering the life of a certain person whom you are deeply interested in. By the way, Slade has bungled this situation. He tells me that you have kidnaped Doctor Tagala and refuse to tell where he is hidden.”
“He has told you the exact facts. You will never see Tagala again until I release him, and that I won’t do until Miss Hardwick has been freed and the antidote turned over to me.”
Starr’s lip curled scornfully. “As I said, Slade has bungled the situation. He doesn’t seem to understand what kind of persuasion to exert on a man like you. I think I can suggest an improvement. Miss Hardwick, as I think you know, received a dose of datura poison calculated to produce death within seven days. What is the matter?” he added quickly as The Phantom winced and touched his left shoulder. “Ah! You have been wounded!”
“Only a scratch,” said The Phantom coolly, despite the sharp twinges that now and then shot through the injured shoulder. “What about Miss Hardwick?”
“As I said, the injection she received was calculated to kill within seven days. As you know, if you read the accounts of Virginia Darrow’s death, the dose can be so adjusted as to produce death in a much shorter time—say fifteen minutes or half an hour. Doctor Tagala, who is a very fascinating gentleman, explained the method to me very carefully.”
“I don’t quite see——” began The Phantom, an uneasy flicker in his eyes; but Starr had already turned to his lieutenant.
“Slade,” he crisply commanded, “in one of the drawers of the desk in the laboratory you will find several bottles of datura poison. Bring me one of those marked ‘Series A.’ Fetch a hypodermic syringe, too, and be quick about it.”
Slade withdrew. A horrifying suspicion was entering The Phantom’s mind. Starr’s methods were subtler and far more frightful than his subordinate’s.
“You look faint,” observed Starr with a glance at The Phantom’s face. A trace of sarcasm edged his words. “I’m afraid the wound is very painful. Too bad Doctor Tagala isn’t here to treat it.”
The Phantom was about to reply, but just then Slade returned and handed his superior a syringe and a small bottle containing a dark liquid. Starr studied the label for a moment.
“Correct,” he murmured. “It’s fortunate Doctor Tagala taught me how to use a syringe. In a few moments Miss Hardwick will have received a second dose of datura poison—one that will kill her inside half an hour unless Doctor Tagala should administer the restorative in the meantime.”
A cry broke from The Phantom’s lips. The severe pain in the shoulder, together with the terrifying realization that had just flashed through his mind, made him suddenly dizzy. He leaned weakly against the wall. In the same instant Starr, quick to seize the opportunity, wrenched the pistol from his hand.
“This is ever so much better,” he murmured elatedly. “I think you will be willing to produce Doctor Tagala as soon as I have injected the second dose of poison into Miss Hardwick’s veins. Hold him, Slade, till I come back.”
He instructed one of the other men to follow him and hurried away, but his words kept dinning in The Phantom’s consciousness. He made a strong effort to fight down the treacherous weakness that was stealing over him. He wondered why his eyes saw nothing but whirling specks and why his knees shook so. The loss of blood, he reflected, must have weakened him more than he had realized. Suddenly everything went black, and with a despairing moan he sank to the floor.
He heard Slade’s derisive laugh, but it had an unreal and far-away sound.
“Dead to the world,” muttered Slade, and The Phantom was dimly conscious that someone was bending over him. “Well, I hope for the girl’s sake that he comes to before the half hour is up.”