“You ought to know by this time that Mr. Shei is invincible,” he declared impressively. “You are a wonder in some ways, but a fool in others. How you keep slipping in and out of this house is beyond me. Not that it matters, for you have sung your last tune. What have you done to Doctor Tagala?”
A thin smile hovered about The Phantom’s compressed lips.
“I suppose you have kidnaped him,” Slade went on, “but we will find him before long. You see, Mr. Shei foresaw even such a possibility as that, and prepared for it. He anticipated that pressure of some sort might be used on Tagala to make him reveal where the antidote is hidden, and so he prepared the trap you walked into a moment ago. The bottles, as you may have guessed by this time, contain only water. The real antidote is elsewhere, and Tagala is the only man who can put his hand on it.”
“So I understand.” There was a momentary flicker in The Phantom’s eyes which indicated that Slade’s words had suggested something of importance to him. “Mr. Shei is amazingly clever—but there is such a thing as being too clever.”
Slade looked as if he sensed a hidden meaning which his mind could not quite grasp. Presently he shrugged and fixed his frosty gaze on The Phantom.
“I’ll give you just one more chance to surrender,” he warned. “Throw down your pistol and tell us where Tagala is, and I promise you will not be harmed.”
“Very anxious to learn Tagala’s whereabouts—aren’t you, Slade? Without Tagala you can’t find the antidote, and without the antidote your beautiful scheme goes to pieces. It would be very awkward for you if you shouldn’t be able to deliver the goods when your seven victims have come around to the point where they are willing to pay your price.”
Slade mumbled something under his breath. Again The Phantom’s eyes darted over the fringe of sullen faces in the background. He was gambling for Helen’s life and his own, and he still held one card in reserve.
“Tagala seems to be the key to the whole situation,” he went on. “I have hidden him in a place where you will never find him, even if you search from now till doomsday. Men sometimes die of hunger in three days, especially if they do a lot of fretting in the meantime. Slade, why don’t you order your men to shoot me?”
The last sentence was spoken in taunting tones, and Slade’s face showed that the gibe had gone home. Inwardly fuming, he glared savagely at The Phantom.