THE PHANTOM ORCHID
Cuthbert Vanardy sat in his library at Sea Glimpse and tried hard to
fix his mind on Paxton's _Botanical 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."