The Phantom waited for fifteen minutes, then he quietly opened the door
and looked down the hall. The lights were turned low and not a sound
broke the stillness. Apparently the anthropologist and the manservant
had retired. Stepping inside the room, he took from an inside pocket the
little metal box he always carried, examined the snugly packed tools it
contained, and made sure that each was in good condition. Finally, he
switched off the light, noiselessly closed the door behind him, and
tiptoed down the stairs.
Stealing down a corridor through the main part of the house, he reached
the extension formed by the laboratory. He stopped at the door, tilted
his ear to the keyhole, and listened carefully. It had occurred to him
that Doctor Bimble might be at work, and an encounter with his host
would have proved embarrassing. His keen ears detected no sounds,
however, and in another moment he had passed through the door and was
groping his way across the floor of the laboratory.
Of a sudden he stopped. A faint sound seemed to come from the direction
where the skeletons stood in their glass-framed cages. He strained his
ears to catch a repetition, but none came. Evidently he had been
mistaken. He knew how sounds are magnified at night, and what he had
heard was probably nothing but the rattling of a windowpane or the
creaking of a board under his foot. He proceeded to the opposite wall,
darting swift glances to left and right, as if half suspecting that
someone was lurking in the shadows. Again a door swung noiselessly on
its hinges, and the Phantom glided down the stairs leading to the
cellar. From his hip pocket he took a small electric flash and let its
beam play over the floor while he looked for the entrance to the tunnel.
For a time he searched in vain, traversing the length of the murky brick
walls and carefully scanning each square foot of space without finding a
trace of the opening. The mouth of the passage seemed to have
disappeared in the three or four hours that had passed since he emerged
from the subterranean tube. He tried to locate it by tracing backward
the course he had followed in reaching the stairs, but it proved a
difficult task, for he had floundered about in total darkness, not
daring to use his flash for fear of attracting attention. He had a hazy
impression, however, that the opening was in a diagonal line with the
foot of the stairway.
The gleam of his flash leaped over the grimy bricks, and presently he
detected a narrow fissure in the wall. It extended in a quadrangular
course and was barely wide enough to admit a match or a nail. Inserting
one of the sharp-nosed tools from his metal case, he pried outward, and
a narrow portion of the wall swung open. He saw now that the little
fissures constituted the boundaries of a door. It was composed of bricks
threaded on iron rods and resembling in color and general appearance
those in the surrounding wall, and it was so deftly concealed that only
a careful search would reveal its existence. Evidently it had stood open
when the Phantom crawled out of the tunnel, which explained why he had
not noticed it. He suspected that the thoughtful anthropologist, not
caring to have too many outsiders discover the tunnel, had closed it
while the officers were searching the front of the house.
The Phantom waited for a few minutes while a little of the dank air in
the cellar found its way into the passage. He did not relish the task
ahead of him, but he was determined to settle a point on which the
doctor had been singularly evasive. The problem he had set out to solve
would be simplified to a great extent, and he would save himself
needless efforts and loss of valuable time by ascertaining whether the
bedchamber of the late Sylvanus Gage could be entered by way of the
tunnel.
Having buttoned his coat tightly and made certain that his instrument
case was within easy reach, he inserted head and shoulders in the
opening and began the weary crawl toward the other end. His progress was
painfully slow, and the smell of the moist earth gave him a sense of
oppression which he found hard to shake off. The air, dank and
insufficient, was almost stifling, and the walls of the narrow passage,
bruising his body at each twist and turn, seemed to exude a sepulchral
atmosphere that insinuated itself into body and mind.
At length he reached the point where the tunnel slanted upward into the
wall, and here his progress became even more difficult. Time and again
he slipped, and he could maintain a footing only by bracing the tips of
his shoes against rough spots along the sides. He was puffing from
exertion when finally he struck a solid obstruction which told him he
had reached the end of the passage.
Finding a precarious foothold, he took out his flash and closely
scrutinized his surroundings. On two sides were walls of brick, while
directly in front of him was the flank of the window frame. He pushed
against the latter with all his strength, but it presented a firm and
solid resistance to his efforts. Next he went over it inch by inch,
looking for a hidden lever or spring, but the most careful search
revealed nothing that suggested a means of operating the mechanism.
Finally he took out one of his tools and, inserting it in the tiny rift
between the wall and the edge of the frame, began to pry steadily. After
several minutes of constant effort he gave up the task as hopeless.
He leaned back against the wall and bent the full force of his wits to
the task of finding a way through the obstruction. Evidently there was
none. He had tapped every inch of the surface and looked everywhere for
a concealed knob or wire by which the mechanism might be operated. A
larger and heavier tool than the instrument in his metal case would have
been of no avail, for in those narrow quarters he could not have
obtained leverage. His search, though thorough and infinitely
painstaking, had netted nothing.
The conclusion was clear. The revolving door could not be operated from
the outside; hence the murderer of Sylvanus Gage could not have entered
the room through the tunnel. Again the Phantom's mind reverted to the
inevitable deduction that no one but Officer Pinto could have committed
the crime.
His lungs, which had been straining for air for the last quarter of an
hour, felt as though they were on the point of bursting, and he was
about to release his foothold and start back through the tunnel when a
faint tapping sound caught his ears. He could not tell how long it had
been going on, for until now his whole attention had been focused on the
problem before him. For all he knew it might just have begun, or it
might have started long before he entered the tunnel.
He pressed his ear against the side of the frame and listened. The
sounds, quick and sharp, were coming in rapid succession, and at first
he wondered whether someone was trying to attract his attention. Then he
noticed that the sounds skipped and jumped, as if the tapping covered a
considerable area, and his next surmise was that the person on the other
side was making a systematic search for something.
"For what?" he wondered; and in the next moment the answer flashed
through his mind. He remembered how, while he was imprisoned in the
bedroom, momentarily expecting the police to force the door and pounce
upon him, he had looked to the window as the only possible means of
escape, and how finally he had discovered the nail that proved his
salvation. Evidently the person on the other side was now doing the very
thing the Phantom himself had been doing a few hours ago.
But who could it be? As far as he knew, no one but Helen, Doctor Bimble
and himself was aware of the existence of the revolving door, and the
tunnel. It did not seem likely that anyone should be searching at random
for an opening. And who could be prowling about the Gage house at such
an hour? Again he put his ear to the frame. The tapping had ceased, but
now he heard another and different sound that caused him to quiver with
excitement. A slight metallic noise, like that produced by the contact
of two objects of steel, told him that the person on the inside had
found the nail.
In a twinkling he had forgotten his cramped position, the dank air and
the sickening smell of moist earth. All his senses were centered on the
sounds coming from the other side, so slight that his keen ears could
scarcely detect them. Something told him that in a few minutes he would
make a discovery of tremendous importance in relation to the Gage murder
mystery. Everything depended upon whether the person on the other side
would give the nail the proper twist.
Minutes dragged by on leaden feet. The Phantom felt his heart pound
chokingly against his ribs, its loud beats almost drowning the slight
metallic sounds coming from the other side. After what seemed hours of
nerve-racking suspense, a sharp and sudden click caused him to start
violently, and he almost lost his insecure footing.
Then the window frame began to turn. A glare of light struck his eyes as
the opening wedge widened. With great, eager gulps he drank in the air
coming from the aperture. A minute passed, and then a face, strained and
ashen, was thrust into the opening.
It was Mrs. Trippe, the housekeeper. For an instant she stared into the
Phantom's startled eyes.
"He's killing me!" she cried. "He's afraid I'll tell! He locked me
in----"
She jerked her head to one side. Slight though she was, she almost
filled the narrow opening, and he could see only a small strip of the
room at her back. Suddenly a shiver coursed down her spine. A hand was
projected beyond the wall, and he caught a glimpse of steel flashing in
the light. Then, in quick succession, came a scream and a thud, and the
woman slid from the window sill.
It had happened so quickly that the Phantom had not time to utter a word
or raise a hand. Now, before he could move a muscle, the window frame
slammed shut. He heard a click, signifying that the frame was caught in
the steel clutches of the mechanism. He pressed his shoulders against
it, but to no avail, and he knew from his previous attempt that the
effort was useless. Filled with horror at what he had just seen, he slid
down the incline between the walls and began to work back toward the
cellar.
Finally, after endless jerks and twistings, he reached the end of the
tunnel--and there a fresh shock awaited him. His feet brought up against
a solid obstruction. Shove against it as he might, the little door would
not yield to his frenzied pressure. For a little he laid still on his
back, thinking. His mind was heavy and his thoughts flitted about in
circles, but finally it came to him that while he was at the other end
of the tunnel someone must have placed a heavy weight against the door.
He was trapped.