She looked as though her whole being had frozen into rigidity, and the
glacial stare of her eyes sent a chill through the Phantom's veins. In a
moment he was on the running board, wrenching the door open. He did not
notice that the car gathered speed just as he tumbled in.
"Helen!" he cried, throwing himself into the seat beside her. "What's
the matter? What has happened? Can't you speak?"
Her body swayed slightly with the motions of the car, but otherwise she
did not stir. She sat erect and immobile, with her face turned stonily
to the window, as if neither hearing nor seeing. He took one of her
hands. It was cold, clammy, and limp. A groan broke from his lips.
Then, from a corner of the car, two shadows leaped upon him with a
suddenness that dazed him. The pistol was still in his hand, but a
stinging blow over the knuckles made him drop it to the floor. Helen
Hardwick's face, terribly still, held him under a spell while his arms
were twisted behind him and his wrists secured with a stout cord that
bit into his flesh. Not until his legs had also been manacled did a
glimmering of the truth force itself through his numbed senses; but even
then he could think of nothing but the woman at his side.
"Is she--dead?" he asked.
Someone laughed. "Oh, no! She will come out of it presently. We needed a
decoy, and she refused to accommodate us, so we gave her a hypodermic
injection. It worked fine."
He braced his muscles as a vivid realization of what had happened
flashed upon him, but the cords about his wrists and ankles held his
limbs. Again he had walked into a trap, but for once he did not blame
himself for his lack of caution. With eyes open he would have rushed
into a thousand traps if Helen Hardwick was the bait. He glanced out of
the window, noticing that the car was gliding swiftly through dark and
deserted streets.
A hand reached out and pulled down the blind, cutting off the view. The
car was making numerous turns, and he soon lost all sense of direction.
The man's explanation of Helen Hardwick's condition had removed a
crushing weight of horror from his mind, and once more his head was
functioning clearly.
"Another of the Duke's tricks, I suppose?" he remarked.
"You suppose correctly," was the answer. "You have slipped out of our
hands often enough, but this time we have you. You haven't a chance in
the world."
The Phantom was silent for a time, realizing that his captors had turned
the trick neatly and with dispatch. Evidently they were men of much
finer mental caliber than Matt Lunn and Dan the Dope. It had been a
clever ruse, and they had set the trap very deftly.
"What's the programme?" he inquired.
"You will see soon enough."
The Phantom asked no more questions. Suddenly he remembered Granger, and
he wondered whether the reporter had been able to follow the speeding
car. It was doubtful, he thought, unless Granger had been lucky enough
to find a taxicab in a hurry. Yet the fellow was resourceful and
keen-witted, and it was possible----
His thoughts were rudely interrupted. The car slowed down, and almost in
the same instant a hand gripped him around the throat and shoved him
back against the cushion. Another hand put a cloth over his mouth, and
he became conscious of a cloying, sickeningly sweetish odor. Gradually
his sensations drifted into chaos as his head grew heavier and heavier.
He heard voices, but they sounded as if coming from a great distance,
and he had an odd feeling that the car was sliding down a bottomless
abyss. Then a great void seemed to swallow him up, and he knew nothing
more.
Finally, after what seemed a lapse of hours, his mind drifted out of the
stupor. There was a burning sensation in his throat and he felt sick and
weak. He tried to move, but something restrained him, and he had a dull
impression that he was roped to a chair and that the chair itself was
clamped to the floor. His eyelids fluttered weakly, and he closed them
instinctively as a door opened behind him.
Two men were entering the room, and one of them was chuckling gleefully,
as if he had just heard a good joke. Though his thoughts were wandering
in a haze, it occurred to him that it might be well to feign
unconsciousness. He closed his eyes tightly and sat motionless in the
chair. The two men advanced until they stood in front of him. The
Phantom felt their eyes on his face.
"Capital!" exclaimed one of them, and he thought there was something
familiar about the voice. "Too bad the Duke can't be here and see this!
It would do his soul good to see his old enemy strapped to a chair.
Well, Somers, I guess this will be the end of the Gray Phantom."
The words stung the listener's senses like a whiplash. He tried to
identify the voice, but he was unable to recall where he had heard it
before.
"We've got him just where we want him," remarked the man addressed as
Somers, "and I don't think he'll get away from us this time. It will be
a miracle if he does."
"Not even a miracle can save him. The Phantom is done for. You did a
good job, Somers."
"Oh, it was easy enough. All we had to do was to shoot some dope into
the moll, pose her in the window of the car, and drive past the place
where we had been tipped off we would find the Phantom. I was just
wondering how to get him out of the joint, when he walks out of a
doorway, catches a glimpse of the skirt, and rushes blindly into the
trap. It worked like greased lightning. Looks as though he'd be dead to
the world for quite a while yet."
The Phantom repressed a smile. His superb constitution was already
shaking off the effects of the chloroform.
"How is the little doll?" inquired the first speaker, who seemed to be a
man of authority in the Duke's organization.
"Chipper as a wild cat. She came to shortly after we got here. That kid
had spunk, and she's all there on looks. I don't blame the Gray Phantom
for falling for her. I would myself."
"Sentiment and business make a bad mixture," was the other's dry
comment. "Don't let a pretty face bedevil you, Somers. The young lady is
here to serve our purpose. After that----"
He stopped, and the ensuing pause somehow impressed the Phantom as
ominous.
"Well, then what?" asked Somers, and there was a slight catch to his
voice.
"She is a shrewd young thing and she knows too much for our good. Our
safety demands that--but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it." He
laughed again, as if to rid his mind of unpleasant thoughts. "I can
scarcely realize that the Gray Phantom is in our power at last. It's
almost too good to be true."
"It is true, though. Say, won't he get a jolt when he comes out of the
daze and finds himself strapped to a chair?"
"That isn't the only jolt that's in store for him. We'll give him a
glimpse of the big show, just for the moral effect it will have on him.
Just a little eye teaser, you know, Somers. Is everything ready?"
"Ready to a dot. Want to have a look?"
The other answered affirmatively, and the two men left the room. The
last part of the conversation had been unintelligible to the Phantom,
and he did not try to puzzle it out. The unfinished sentence and its
train of vaguely disturbing thoughts haunted him. Helen Hardwick was to
serve some mysterious purpose. After that--he wondered why he felt a
chill as he tried to imagine the rest. The words left unspoken suggested
terrifying possibilities.
He opened his eyes. Evidently the two men had extinguished the lights
upon leaving, for the room was dark. With the fragmentary sentence still
echoing in his ears, he tore at the ropes, but the attempt only bruised
his wrists.
Suddenly he sat still, his eyes fixed on a tiny light that had appeared
in the back of the room. The point of luminance grew larger and larger,
swelling into a circle of pale radiance, and in its center he saw
something that caused him to wonder whether he was dreaming a madman's
dream.