AN EAVESDROPPER
The Phantom shrugged his shoulders and stepped forward, concealing his
misgivings behind a smiling and carefree exterior. He knew Lieutenant
Culligore from past encounters with the man, and he had learned to
respect him for his shrewdness as well as his sense of fairness. Now
he looked straight into the muddy and deceptively lazy eyes of the man
from headquarters. Once The Phantom had assisted him in solving a
singularly perplexing mystery, but he knew that Culligore was not the
kind of man to let sentiment interfere with duty.
There were times when it was difficult for The Gray Phantom to realize
that he was still an outlaw and that several prison sentences were
hanging over his head. The poignant fact came back to him now as he
gazed into the eyes of one of the keenest man hunters of the detective
bureau.
"You sure have nerve," observed Culligore, a trace of reluctant
admiration in his tones. "Don't you know there's a warrant out for
your arrest?"
"Several of them, I believe," calmly replied The Phantom.
Lieutenant Culligore took a cigar from his vest pocket and lighted it
with elaborate care. Then he turned to Starr.
"Mr. Shei's gang certainly handed you an awful wallop the other
night," he observed, gazing frowningly at the disfigured organ.
"That's a peach of a nose you've got."
Starr flushed angrily, but controlled himself.
"I've got a few words to say to this gentleman privately," Culligore
went on, inclining his head toward The Phantom. Starr, accepting his
dismissal as gracefully as his indignation permitted, walked out.
Culligore's small eyes, twinkling humorously through a cloud of
tobacco smoke, followed his progress till the door closed behind him,
then he slowly turned toward The Phantom.
"Starr is my idea of a perfect gentleman," he musingly observed. "He
can get mad clean through and still keep his coat on. Was the shot
fired at you or at him?"
"Shot?" For a moment The Phantom stared bewilderedly. "How did you
know?"
"My sense of smell is fairly good," said Culligore, sniffing. "I
noticed there was powder smoke in the air the moment I walked in. What
became of the bullet?"
The Phantom explained. With a listless air the lieutenant examined the
point where the leaden slug had entered the pillar. "I'll bet a pair
of pink socks that the rascal who fired the shot is a safe distance
from here by this time. What I'd like to know is whether he was aiming
at you or at Starr."
"Starr thinks the bullet was meant for him," said The Phantom
thoughtfully. "He may be right, but I have my doubts. He is the
imaginative type that believes he is being pursued by secret enemies
and all that sort of thing. On the other hand, I can't see why anybody
should waste a chunk of good lead on me, unless----" He stopped short as
an idea suddenly occurred to him.
"Unless Mr. Shei should have a goose to pick with you," Culligore
filled in, and The Phantom marveled at the way the detective had read
his unspoken thought. "It's always safe to look for a shower of
bullets whenever The Gray Phantom bobs up. By the way," and Culligore
frowned disapprovingly, "what's the idea? Don't you know the climate
in this town is mighty unhealthy for a man like you?"
"I am aware of it." The Phantom's lips tightened into a grim line.
"But I had to risk it, Culligore. I couldn't sit idle while---- But
first let me ask you one question. Some people seem to think that I am
Mr. Shei. Do you agree with them?"
Culligore pulled thoughtfully at his cigar. His eyes seemed to be
searching every remote corner of The Phantom's mind. "No," he said
finally, "I don't. And I don't see it makes any difference. You're The
Gray Phantom, and that's reason enough for me to pinch you. There are
times when I hate my job, but duty is duty. I wish you hadn't shown up
just at this time. Some of the higher-ups are dead sure you are Mr.
Shei, and the whole town is on tenter hooks on account of the notices
posted last night. Everybody expects Mr. Shei to strike, but nobody
knows where the blow is going to fall. You can see how things are. Why
the devil didn't you stay where you belong?"
"I couldn't," replied The Phantom. Then he regarded the lieutenant
with a slow, carefully measuring glance. Culligore was one of the few
men he had met whom he could instinctively trust. There had been
clashes between them in the past, but the lieutenant had always fought
fairly. Choosing his words with great deliberation, The Phantom
explained why he had come out of hiding to cross swords with Mr. Shei.
"That's just like The Gray Phantom," was Culligore's comment when he
had finished. "You stick your head in the noose just because somebody
else is copying your tricks. Well, anyhow, I admire your nerve. Too
bad you and I belong to opposite camps. We could have a lot of fun
tracking Mr. Shei together." He shook his head as if to banish a
pleasing but impossible hope. "No use wishing things were different,
though. I don't exactly like the idea, but I've got to take you along
to headquarters."
"You will have to take me in an ambulance, then." There was a note of
challenge in The Phantom's tones and his figure tensed perceptibly.
"You'll never take me alive, Culligore. It simply can't be done. And
you will have the scrap of your life before you take me dead. I am
going to see this thing through if I have to fight the whole police
department of New York City. The fact that Mr. Shei is stealing my
tactics isn't the only reason. I learned something this morning that
is of vastly more importance. By the way," and The Phantom fairly
jabbed the question at the lieutenant, "have you seen anything of Miss
Helen Hardwick?"
Culligore's lazy eyes opened a little wider. "Not since yesterday
morning. She and I had quite an argument about Mr. Shei. We were
standing almost exactly where you and I are standing now. She knows
how to fence with words. I haven't made up my mind yet whether she or
I got the best of the argument."
The Phantom smiled despite his impatience. "What did she think of Mr.
Shei?"
"How can anybody tell what a woman thinks? You can make a guess, of
course, but the chances are either that you are wrong or that you are
making just exactly the kind of guess she wants you to make. Miss
Hardwick left me pretty much up in the air, but I have a feeling all
the time that she had discovered something that led her to think that
you were Mr. Shei."
"Oh," mumbled the Phantom; then he stood silent for a few moments.
"Where did Miss Hardwick go from here?"
Culligore shrugged. "Ask me something easy. She walked out of that
door, and that's all I'm sure of. There was another question or two I
wanted to ask her, and that's why I dropped around here to-day,
thinking she might show up again. She seemed very much wrought up over
Mr. Shei."
With an impetuous gesture The Phantom placed his hand on the
lieutenant's arm.
"Miss Hardwick has disappeared," he announced quickly, "and I fear she
has blundered into the clutches of Mr. Shei."
"Eh?" The mask of listlessness dropped in a twinkling from Culligore's
face. He was instantly tense and alert. "What's that?"
"I called up her home this morning. Nobody seems to know what has
become of her. A little later I received a telephone message warning
me that---- But I see I shall have to tell you the whole story in order
to make things clear." Briefly The Phantom related his encounter with
Mr. Fairspeckle, the events that had occurred at the apartment of the
retired financier, and finally the warning message that had come over
the wire. "Now you can understand," he concluded, "why I don't intend
to submit to arrest until Miss Hardwick has been found."
Culligore's cigar had gone out while The Phantom was speaking. Now he
lighted it again, sent a few clouds of smoke curling toward the
ceiling, then peered intently into The Phantom's face. Finally he
jerked his head up and down as if he had seen a light.
"The thing to do," he declared, "is to take the shortest route and go
direct to Mr. Shei and ask him what he has done with Miss Hardwick."
The Phantom laughed bitterly. "Beautifully simple! The only difficulty
is that we haven't the slightest idea who Mr. Shei is or where to find
him. Otherwise your suggestion is capital."
A queer smile curled Culligore's lips. "Sometimes The Gray Phantom
isn't playing in very good form. But then every man gets a bit foolish
when he has a girl on the brain. Your thinking cap isn't on straight
to-day, or you wouldn't have let Fairspeckle pull the wool over your
eyes the way he did."
"Fairspeckle? You don't think----"
"He acted queer all morning, didn't he?"
"Yes, but----"
"And didn't he try to put you to sleep by drugging your coffee?"
"True, but he----"
"And didn't you see him typing the notices with Mr. Shei's name at the
bottom?"
"But the telephone message?"
"Yes, I know," said Culligore patiently. "That's where he duped you to
a brown finish. You would have seen the trick at once if your thinking
machinery had been in good condition. I don't know Fairspeckle, but
from what you have told me he must be a sharp one. My experience has
taught me never to trust a man who can't sleep nights. It's a bad
conscience that keeps him awake in the first place, and a man
suffering from loss of sleep is likely to go in for any kind of
deviltry. Maybe that's what happened to Fairspeckle. Anyhow, the way
he pulled the wool over your eyes proves he is a slick one."
"Then you think Fairspeckle is Mr. Shei?"
"If he isn't, why should he be typing those notices? Just look at it
this way. Fairspeckle saw that you suspected him. He didn't like that
a bit. To throw you off your guard, he pretended to suspect _you_. You
caught him with the goods when you saw him typing the notices. Right
away you started in denouncing him as Mr. Shei. Then, right in the
midst of a dramatic moment, the telephone rings. The voice at the
other end asks for you. You're told that Mr. Shei is speaking and that
Miss Hardwick will suffer unless you keep hands off. That gives you a
jolt, of course, and all you can think of is the girl. You don't stop
to question whether the man at the other end is really Mr. Shei. For
all you know he might be Tom Brown or Bill Jones, but you're too
excited to think of that. I don't blame you. I'd been just as easy if
I had been in your place."
A blank look crossed The Phantom's face while Culligore was speaking.
It was quickly followed by an expression of mingling comprehension and
self-disgust.
"I see it now. I've been as gullible as a ten-year-old. The message
purporting to come from Mr. Shei was meant to divert my suspicions
from Fairspeckle. He might have been prepared for some such emergency,
or else he signaled Haiuto while I wasn't looking. The Japanese could
easily have gotten in touch with one of the members of Fairspeckle's
gang and instructed him to call me up and give me the prearranged
message. But just how it was done doesn't matter. The important point
is that I was taken in. I am wondering now whether the threat in
regard to Miss Hardwick was pure bluff, or whether she is really in
danger."
"I wouldn't take chances," cautioned Culligore. "If I were you I would
call on Mr. Fairspeckle to-night and have a confidential chat with
him. He may not want to talk, but maybe you can persuade him. Of
course, as an officer of the law, I must warn you there mustn't be any
rough stuff." Culligore's twinkling eyes gazed toward the ceiling.
"Then you have abandoned your intention of dragging me over to
headquarters?"
Culligore did not answer directly, but the faint grin on his lips was
eloquent. "I would advise you to watch your step," he said softly.
"The moment it becomes known that The Gray Phantom is in town, there
will be the niftiest little man hunt you ever saw. I wish you luck. In
the meantime, I'm going to tackle the case from another angle. I'd
give a pair of pink socks to know just when, where, and how Mr. Shei
is going to strike."
He tilted his chin against his hand and lapsed into deep thought. When
he looked up, several minutes later, The Phantom was gone. Very
softly, with a twinkle in his eyes, he stepped to a recess in the wall
toward which he had cast an occasional furtive glance during his talk
with The Phantom. On a marble shelf extended across the niche were a
number of potted ferns, and behind them was a small window,
artistically decorated to render it opaque. Culligore, noticing that
it stood open a crack, pricked up his ears and listened. From the
other side came a faint, scraping sound, as if someone were hiding
there.
Culligore nodded elatedly as he tiptoed away. He seemed immensely
gratified at having verified his suspicion that his interview with The
Gray Phantom had been overheard.