“My apartment at the Whipple Hotel. We’re almost there. Glad you are going to be reasonable, Mr. Vanardy. I need someone to talk to. Ever suffer from insomnia?”
“Never.”
“Lucky dog! Insomnia is the bane of my existence. At times, when I can’t sleep, I sit at the club and bore my friends to death. When I have no friends to talk to, I walk. Last night I walked from one end of Manhattan Island to the other and halfway back again. Oh, yes, I’m more chipper than you would think from looking at me. Well, my rambles last night explain why you see me in these togs. I was just about tired enough to fall asleep standing on my feet when I saw Mr. Shei’s notice. In an instant I was wide awake again. Confound the fellow’s impudence! Here we are.”
The Phantom was conducted through the chastely carved portals of one of the quieter hotels in the upper Forties, and a few moments later they were facing each other across the redwood table in Mr. Fairspeckle’s library. The apartment, though luxuriously appointed, was a faithful reflection of the eccentric nature of its occupant.
“You are careless, Mr. Vanardy,” said Mr. Fairspeckle musingly. The partly drawn shades admitted only a vague half-dawn into the room, and the shadows lent an air of mysteriousness to his appearance. “It isn’t safe for a man in your position to walk about without disguise.”
“Disguises are treacherous things. I have used them now and then, but ordinarily I feel safer without them. Anyhow, no one but you is aware of my presence in New York.”
Mr. Fairspeckle drew a palm across his chin. His red-lidded eyes regarded The Phantom shrewdly. “I wonder what brings you to New York at this particular time—at the very time when Mr. Shei is launching his most ambitious scheme. You will admit the coincidence is rather striking?”
“Some people might deduce from it that I am Mr. Shei,” suggested The Phantom, smiling. “They would be wrong.”
There was a quiver at the corners of Mr. Fairspeckle’s thin lips. His eyes held a suspicious twinkle.
“Perhaps,” he commented dryly. Then he fell to drumming the table with his finger tips. “What I would like to know for certain is whether I am one of the seven. You see, I wouldn’t object to being murdered by this Mr. Shei. Most people think I’m leading a useless life and ought to be dead, anyhow. It won’t be long until an undertaker pumps my carcass full of formaldehyde. What I object to is the idea of being swindled out of my money. No man ever got the best of me yet, and I don’t intend that Mr. Shei shall make a fool of me. He can kill me, but I won’t hand him a cent. I’ll be hanged if I will!”