The detective's face was as dull and unimpassioned as a caricature
carved out of wood. He stood pointing the pistol with a listless air,
and his eyes were heavy and sluggish, as if he were not fully awake. He
lowered the weapon almost as soon as he saw the Phantom's face, but did
not put it out of sight.
"Oh, it's you, Granger." He spoke in a drawl, and there might have been
the faintest trace of disappointment in his tones. "I thought it might
be someone else."
"The Gray Phantom, for instance?"
"Well, maybe. There's no reason, though, why the Phantom should be
prowling around here, is there?"
"Apparently not." The Phantom advanced leisurely and looked sharply at
the speaker's stolid face. The question had been spoken in a tone
faintly suggestive of an underlying meaning. "It seems both of us are
taking advantage of the absence of Doctor Bimble and Jerome to do a
little investigating on the quiet."
Culligore yawned ostentatiously. "The doc ought to have new locks put on
his doors. It's too easy for people to get in."
"He is a simple and unsuspecting soul. But tell me, lieutenant, how it
happens that the Phantom's trail leads into Doctor Bimble's basement."
"Does it?"
"Well, I don't suppose you would be here unless it did. Your object in
coming here wasn't to interview the skeletons upstairs, was it?"
Culligore laughed softly. "I might put the same question to you."
"Then we're on an even footing. And, since we don't seem to get
anywhere, we might as well drop the subject of our mutual presence here.
Each of us can take it for granted that the other has a tip which he
wants to keep to himself. Seen anything of the Gray Phantom lately?"
"Not exactly."
"What's the idea of the 'exactly'? You either have seen him or you
haven't seen him. Which is it?"
"Neither the one nor the other," said Culligore mysteriously. "With a
man like the Phantom you can never be sure. Even when you think you see
him, he isn't always there. Say that was a queer case you tipped me off
on this morning."
"It was. Simple enough, though, as far as the murder of the housekeeper
is concerned. Apparently there's not the slightest doubt that the
Phantom did it."
"Think so?"
The two words, spoken in low and casual tones, caused the Phantom to
raise his brows. "Don't you?"
Culligore tilted his head to one side and squinted vacantly into space.
"Things aren't always what they seem," he drawlingly observed. "I've
been seesawing up and down ever since I was turned loose on this case.
One hour I feel dead sure the Phantom did it; the next I don't know what
to think."
"All the facts seem to point to the Phantom's guilt."
"That's just the trouble." Culligore scowled a little. "There's such a
thing as having too many facts. If the evidence wasn't so perfect I'd be
more sure of my ground. As it is, I wouldn't bet more than a pair of
Bowery spats on the Phantom's guilt. I'm not sure he killed either Gage
or the housekeeper."
The Phantom eyed him intently, trying to read his mind.
"I see," he murmured. "You don't want to believe the Phantom has fallen
so low as to----"
"You're talking rot!" snorted the lieutenant, as if touched on a
sensitive spot. "What I want to believe makes no difference. If I could
lay my hands on the Phantom this minute, I'd put the links on him so
quick it would take his breath away. Even if he didn't kill Gage and
Mrs. Trippe, there are one or two other things we can send him up for."
"I suppose so," said the Phantom thoughtfully. "Much as you would hate
to pinch him, you can't let sentiment interfere with duty."
"Sentiment be damned!" grumbled the lieutenant, reddening a trifle as he
saw the knowing grin on the Phantom's face. "I never was long on that
kind of stuff. By the way, what's your opinion of the case, Granger?"
"I haven't any." The Phantom wondered what was going on in the back of
Culligore's mind. He knew the dull features were a mask and that the
lieutenant, practicing a trick cultivated by members of his profession,
was studying his face every moment without appearing to do so. "You seem
to be holding something back," he added.
"Think so?" Culligore uttered a flat, toneless chuckle. "Aren't you
holding something back yourself? What's the use trying to hog it all for
your paper?"
"Didn't I tip you off on the doings in the Gage house this morning?"
"You did," said Culligore dryly, "and I'm still wondering how you knew
about them. Did you just walk in on a hunch and discover a dead woman,
and a cop chained to an opium-eating runt, or did someone put you wise
beforehand?"
The Phantom felt he was on dangerous ground. "It was only a hunch. We
newspaper men have them, you know, and once in a while they pan out. But
what do you make of it, Culligore? How do you explain the cop being
handcuffed to Dan the Dope?"
"I don't explain it. I suppose Pinto will tell us how it happened when
he comes to."
"Think there's any connection between the handcuffed pair and the murder
of the housekeeper?"
"How could there be? The medical examiner said the housekeeper must have
been dead from twenty to thirty hours when the body was found. Besides,
where do you find any connection between a murder on the one hand and a
cop chained to a dope fiend on the other? To my way of thinking, the two
cases are separate. The one of Pinto and Dan the Dope is all a riddle,
and the only clear thing about it is that the Phantom had a hand in it."
"The Phantom?"
"Yep. The Phantom was in on it. Surprised, eh? Well, there are some
things we don't tell the newspapers, and this was one of them. Just how
the Phantom figured in the thing I can't tell, but he was in the Gage
house last night or early in the morning. Beats the dickens how that
fellow can walk past our noses without getting caught."
The Phantom stared. He did not think he had left any traces of his
connection with the affair at the Gage house, and Culligore's statement
startled him for a moment.
"How do you know?" he asked, getting a grip on himself.
"Finger prints," said the lieutenant. "This is on the q. t. I examined
the handcuffs, and there were three sets of prints on them, showing that
three different persons had handled them. There were only two or three
marks of each set, but enough to identify them. One set was Dan the
Dope's, the other must have been Pinto's, and the third was the Gray
Phantom's."
The Phantom bit his lip, chiding himself for having been caught off his
guard. He might have known that the smooth and shiny surface of the
handcuffs would register finger prints, but he had been bodily and
mentally exhausted at the time, and his habitual sense of caution had
failed to assert itself.
"Wonder what the Phantom was up to," he murmured, feeling a trifle
uncomfortable beneath Culligore's covert and incessant scrutiny.
"Hard telling. Lots of queer things happen in this world." Culligore
grinned while absently toying with the pistol. "For instance, this
morning after I left you on the corner----"
"You had me shadowed," interrupted the Phantom. "What was the idea,
Culligore?"
"Just a hunch. My man trailed you to the _Sphere_ office. Then, thinking
you wouldn't be out for a while, he went into a beanery for a bite and a
cup of coffee. After coming out he hung around the entrance to the
_Sphere_ Building for a while longer, but you didn't show up. Finally,
he went inside and inquired for you. They told him you had left."
Culligore paused for a moment. He was turning the pistol in his hand
with a playful air. The Phantom felt a curious tension taking hold of
his body.
"They told my man," continued the lieutenant, speaking very softly,
"that you didn't write the story yourself, but told the facts to a
reporter named Fessenden. As I understand it, they gave Fessenden a new
desk not long ago. It's a nice-looking piece of furniture, with a
smooth, glossy finish. Maybe you noticed it?"
"No, not particularly," said the Phantom, finding it a little hard to
keep his voice steady. The role he was playing had claimed all his
thoughts while he was in the _Sphere_ office, and he had not noticed
details.
"Too bad you didn't." Culligore was still speaking in low, purring
accents. Gradually and without apparent intent, he turned the muzzle of
the pistol until it pointed to the Phantom's chest. "Well, I understand
Fessenden was sitting at that nice, new desk while you told him the
story, and you were sitting right beside him, with one of the corners of
the desk toward you. Some people have a habit when nervous of drumming
with their fingers on whatever object is before them. It's a bad habit,
Granger."
The Phantom nodded. A thin smile played about his lips and his eyes
glittered like tiny points of steel between half-closed lids.
"Very bad habit, Granger. Well, my man saw finger prints on the smooth
and shiny surface of the desk, right where you had been sitting. He
touched them up by sprinkling a little gray powder over them, after
which they were photographed. It didn't take very long to identify them.
Steady now! This little toy of mine can be real ugly when it gets mad.
What I want you to explain is how Tommie Granger's fingers happened to
leave the Gray Phantom's finger prints on Fessenden's desk."