Rigid in every fiber, the Phantom stared at the circle of light, which
seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. At first small as the head of a
pin, it gradually unfolded and expanded, at the same time changing from
white into a pale greenish hue that dissolved the surrounding darkness
into translucent mist.
As it grew larger, the light wrapped itself around an object of strange
appearance. It was gray as ashes and its shape gave forth a weird
suggestion that it had once been a living thing. The pale, ghostly light
that surrounded it like a nimbus gave it a monstrous character.
"A skull!" mumbled the Phantom. Under ordinary circumstances he could
have looked upon it calmly, but the stillness and darkness, broken only
by the pallid glow in the distance, gave the object a mystical touch
that cast a spell over his senses.
His nerves had withstood physical fear in its most severe forms, but
they quavered a little before this subtle and bewildering manifestation.
His weakness nettled him and he closed his eyes and sought to banish the
thing from his mind, but the vision as it lingered in his imagination
was even more disturbing than the reality. Again he opened his eyes and
looked fixedly to one side, determined not to let an inanimate thing of
bone upset his nerves. A slight shiver ran through him as, among the
shadows at the wall, he discerned a dim shape. He could barely
distinguish its outlines, but again he received an impression of
something that had once pulsed with life and was now hollow and dead. He
peered sharply at the blurred shape standing grimly erect a few feet
from his chair, and presently he saw what it was.
Then he laughed, but the laugh sounded a trifle forced. He had seen a
similar object before, in one of the glass cages in Doctor Bimble's
laboratory, but he had regarded it with no stronger feeling than mild
curiosity. Now, in the stillness and gloom, the sight made him feel as
if a dead hand had touched him. He turned his head toward the opposite
wall, and there, etched dimly in the shadows, was another figure. A few
feet away he glimpsed a third, and in the distance were a fourth and a
fifth.
In the air there was a creeping chill, like a breath from a tomb. He
felt no fear, but he experienced the acute depression that seizes even
the strongest when standing in the presence of death, and his physical
and mental distress was aggravated by his inability to move even an arm.
The stifling air made him feel as though he were in a black and silent
mausoleum, with dead things on all sides.
An unaccountable fascination caused him to look once more at the
luminous circle. The greenish light seemed to have grown a trifle
dimmer, but the waning of the glow only lent an added touch of
hideousness to the object in the center of the nimbus. It fired his
imagination, and he fancied that something loathsome was staring out at
him through the black hollows where the eyes had been.
As the circular light faded, he thought it was drawing closer to where
he sat. As if gently propelled by an invisible hand, the paling circle
of light was creeping slowly nearer, moving steadily toward his chair.
He pulled at the ropes. Now the fringe of light was so faint that the
skull was only a shapeless blur, but its dimness rendered its creeping
approach all the more uncanny. In a little while, if it continued in its
present course, it would touch his face. He wondered why his senses
shrank from the encounter, for he knew that the contact could not harm
him.
Finally the light died, leaving an intense, oppressive darkness. Though
he could neither hear nor see, he was aware that the object was still
creeping toward him and that in a few moments he would feel its chilling
touch. There was something subtly enervating about its silent and
stealthy advance, something that inspired him with a feeling he had
never experienced when standing face to face with a foe of flesh and
blood.
Then, without apparent cause, he sensed a change in the atmosphere. The
oppression suddenly left him, and he knew instinctively that something
had halted the advance of the dreaded thing. He drew a long, deep breath
as he tried to account for the relief that had come so suddenly to him.
His thoughts were interrupted by the opening of a door at his back and
the entrance of two men. He could not see them, but their footfalls told
him that they were groping toward the point where he sat. Silently they
fell to work and released him from the chair, but his arms and legs were
still tied and he was as helpless as before. He wondered, as he was
being carried from the room, what fresh ordeal awaited him.
The two men carried him across the hall and into another room, where he
was placed in a chair. He was surprised to see the sunlight streaming in
through the window, for the darkness from which he had just emerged had
left an impression of impenetrable night on his mind.
"The big chief will be in directly," announced one of the men as they
were leaving.
The Phantom felt a thrill of expectancy at the thought that at last he
was to come face to face with the Duke's chief agent. Then he began to
look about him. From where he sat, all that was to be seen through the
window was the murky wall of a factory building. The room was small, and
the only furniture was a table and three chairs. In vain he looked for
something that might suggest a way of escape.
He turned quickly as a step sounded outside the door. It came open, and
for several moments he stared at the man who entered. Then he laughed, a
short, unnatural laugh that sounded hollow even to himself. The man who
stood before him was Doctor Tyson Bimble.
He would never have guessed that the anthropologist was the man through
whom the Duke directed his criminal enterprises from his cell in prison,
but on second thought the discovery was not so surprising. Since their
first meeting he had suspected that anthropology was not Bimble's sole
interest in life. He had felt that it was merely a cloak for other
activities, though it had not occurred to him what these might be.
"You are pale," observed Bimble, looking at him through his thick
lenses; "but I sha'n't trouble to feel your pulse this morning. I have
no doubt it's normal."
The doctor, with his stiltlike legs and top-heavy head, seemed as
ludicrous as ever, and his face wore the same beatific smile that had
greeted the Phantom when they first met, but his eyes were a trifle
stern, and there was an unfamiliar briskness about his movements.
The Phantom swallowed his emotions and braced his mind for a duel of
wits with the doctor. Many a time in the past he had outmaneuvered men
as crafty as his present adversary. For the present he tried not to
think of Helen, for he would need a clear mind and steady nerves if he
was to help her.
"Have you made any new scientific discoveries since I saw you last,
doctor?" he inquired chattily.
Bimble's eyes twinkled. "No; but I dare say you have."
"I have discovered a new use for skeletons."
"New? You are mistaken, my excellent friend. The efficacy of skeletons
and like objects as means of moral suasion has been understood for a
long time. I believe the wicked old doges of Venice used similar methods
when they wished to put their enemies into a receptive frame of mind and
did not care to resort to physical torture. It is strange how all of
us--even a strong man like yourself--stand in awe of objects associated
with death and decay."
"It is," agreed the Phantom dryly. "But I don't quite get the idea. I
admit the ghostly vaudeville you staged for my benefit was a bit creepy.
I would rather face a regiment of smooth rascals like you than a
grinning skeleton. But if you expected me to come out of that spook
chamber a broken man you are doomed to disappointment."
"I didn't, as a matter of fact." The doctor smiled amusedly. "I am well
aware that it takes something more than that to break a man like the
Gray Phantom."
"Then what was the object?"
"You shall see presently. My friend, you have given me no end of
trouble. Since the day you made your first unexpected appearance in my
laboratory, I have done my best to save you from the police, but you
seemed determined to rush blindly into their arms. I did not realize how
stubborn and foolhardy you were till the morning when I entered your
bedroom and found it empty. You knew the police were combing the town
for you, and I had hoped that would keep you in."
"It was a shameless abuse of hospitality," confessed the Phantom. "But I
take it you were not altogether unselfish in your desire to save me from
arrest."
Bimble smiled as he ran his eyes up and down the Phantom's figure.
"Borrowed feathers are not becoming to you," he observed critically.
"These togs are atrocious. But the idea itself was excellent. I did not
even guess that the Gray Phantom was masquerading as a newspaper
reporter until the trick you played on Pinto and Dan the Dope gave me an
inkling of the truth. Then, last evening, upon my return from a visit in
the neighborhood, I found you and Lieutenant Culligore in the basement
of my house. The few words I overheard were sufficient to verify my
suspicions. I saw that Culligore had you cornered, and I guessed you
would try to reach the tunnel. Then--But I think you know the rest."
"All except what happened to Culligore."
The doctor beamed. "Poor Culligore! He's really a much cleverer man than
you would think--cleverer than yourself, in certain ways. An automatic
equipped with a flash light and a silencer put a bullet into his leg
while he was looking for you in the cellar. A most regrettable
accident!" Bimble laughed softly. "The poor man is now under my
professional care, and I fear he will not be out for some time."
"I can guess the nature of the professional attentions you are giving
him. But why were you so anxious that I should not fall into the hands
of the police?"
"Because I had certain plans in which you were concerned, and your
premature arrest would have seriously interfered with them. Can't you
guess what they were?"
"The Duke has a goose to pick with me, I believe. At any rate, I
understand he is not very benevolently disposed toward me."
"You have been correctly advised. The Duke is a very thoroughgoing
hater, as you will discover before we are through with you. Not only
that, but he is an adept in the gentle art of mixing business and
pleasure. He also knows how to bring down a flock of birds with a single
stone. Take, for instance, the case of old Sylvanus Gage."
"Yes," murmured the Phantom, fixing the doctor with a keen gaze, "the
Duke showed his genius there. He planned the murder very shrewdly so
that the guilt would be fastened on me. It was an admirable way of
getting revenge."
The doctor smiled. "True, but it wasn't so simple as all that. You are
not giving the Duke half the credit he deserves. I told you that he
always mixes business and pleasure. These walls are deaf, so there is no
reason why I should not enlighten you. Gage had been for years a member
of the Duke's organization. It was through him the band disposed of the
proceeds from its activities. It was a risky business and he lived in
constant danger. Hence the tunnel, which gave him a convenient avenue of
escape in emergencies. The housekeeper, an estimable soul, knew that her
employer was conducting some sort of illegitimate business, and she
assisted him in it to a certain extent, which explains any symptoms of
bad conscience she may have shown. I don't think, however, that she was
aware of Gage's membership in the Duke's organization. Gage was a
valuable man, but his insatiate greed led him astray. He double-crossed
the band in financial transactions, and when called to task for his
crooked work he threatened to cause trouble. To put it briefly, it was
decided that he must be put out of the way."
"I see." The Phantom smiled, but his eyes were hard. "The Duke avenged
himself on two persons with one stroke. He not only removed Gage, but
arranged matters so that suspicion for the crime would fall on me."
"Exactly. You are now beginning to appreciate the Duke's many-sided
talents. Of course, his main object was to repay you for the merciless
joke you played on him when you put him and most of his gang behind
bars. Where to find you was a poser. It was known that you had taken
your treasures and gone into hiding somewhere, but no one seemed to have
the faintest inkling of your whereabouts. Knowing your sensitiveness
about such matters, the Duke guessed that the murder of Gage, with the
circumstances pointing to you as its perpetrator, would smoke you out."
"It was a good guess. I had to come out and clear myself, and that gave
the Duke his chance. Now that you have me where you want me, what do you
propose to do with me? Am I to be handed over to the police, or have you
engaged passage for me on the Stygian ferry?"
The question seemed to amuse the doctor. "If we meant to hand you over
to the police we would scarcely have gone to such great lengths to save
you from arrest. What is to be done with you eventually hasn't been
decided as yet. The Duke's orders are to dispose of you in whichever way
will hurt you the most and give him the ultimate degree of revenge.
There is a question involved in that. You are not the kind of man that
fears death."
"Thanks."
Bimble's deceptively mild eyes regarded him carefully. "I think there
are certain other things that would hurt you far more. For instance--But
we will drop that phase of the subject for the present and get down to
the more practical side. As I told you, the Duke always mixes business
and pleasure, which in this case means a judicious blend of revenge and
profit."
The Phantom's brows went up. A tinge of greed and craftiness had dimmed
the habitual look of serenity in the doctor's eyes. He was looking down
at his scrupulously polished shoes while playing with his watch chain.
"How?" asked the Phantom. The uncertainty as to his own fate did not
trouble him in the least, but all his will power was needed to maintain
a semblance of coolness whenever he thought of Helen.
"You put in many very busy years at the pleasant occupation of annexing
other people's property," murmured the doctor. "The magnitude of your
enterprises has been the talk of the whole continent. There must be a
good many millions stored away in that retreat of yours."
The Phantom smiled. Imaginative newspaper writers had pictured the Gray
Phantom living like an East Indian potentate in some snug retreat,
surrounded by countless treasures and a splendor that would have offered
a gorgeous Arabian Nights' setting. The fable, eagerly swallowed by the
public, seemed wildly grotesque in comparison with the truth.
"You're forgetting something, doctor. I never had the Duke's keen eye
for business. I was not a crook for the sake of the loot, but for the
excitement I found in the game, and I usually gave the stuff away after
I had had the fun of taking it. I haven't much that would interest the
Duke."
The doctor's lips curled in a way that indicated strong skepticism. "You
will let me be the judge as to that, my friend. All I ask of you is that
you tell me explicitly and veraciously where this collection of yours
may be found."
The Phantom drew himself up as far as the ropes permitted. The smile was
still on his lips, but in the depths of his eyes lurked a hard glitter.
"What if I refuse?"
"Why, man, you can't refuse! You are in no position to do anything but
surrender to my wishes."
"Wrong, doctor." He gave a low, metallic laugh. "You ought to know that
the Gray Phantom never surrenders. Threats and bullying can't move me an
inch. That's absolutely final."
The doctor seemed not at all disconcerted. "I expected you to say that.
You are stubborn as a mule, but fortunately I have means of persuasion
at my disposal. If I can't bend you, I will break you."
He rose abruptly and left the room. There had been something in his
tones that lingered in the Phantom's ears after he had gone. He was back
in a few moments, and once more his face was wreathed in smiles. Without
a word he sat down, crossed his thin legs, and lighted a cigarette, then
smoked in silence while the Phantom scanned his face for a clew to the
mysterious errand that had taken him out of the room.
Minutes passed, and still the doctor smiled and smoked. From time to
time he raised his tranquil eyes and glanced at the door as if expecting
somebody, and all the while there was an air of pleasurable anticipation
about him.
Suddenly the Phantom stiffened. For a moment he sat rigid, listening,
then jerked forward in the chair, straining fiercely at the ropes.
Somewhere in the building a woman had screamed. The shriek, sharp and
explosive, as if inspired by a terror long restrained, dinned with
hideous significance against the Phantom's ears. His heart stood still
for a moment.
The voice that had uttered that mad, unforgettable cry was Helen
Hardwick's.