“That’s just like The Gray Phantom,” was Culligore’s comment when he had finished. “You stick your head in the noose just because somebody else is copying your tricks. Well, anyhow, I admire your nerve. Too bad you and I belong to opposite camps. We could have a lot of fun tracking Mr. Shei together.” He shook his head as if to banish a pleasing but impossible hope. “No use wishing things were different, though. I don’t exactly like the idea, but I’ve got to take you along to headquarters.”
“You will have to take me in an ambulance, then.” There was a note of challenge in The Phantom’s tones and his figure tensed perceptibly. “You’ll never take me alive, Culligore. It simply can’t be done. And you will have the scrap of your life before you take me dead. I am going to see this thing through if I have to fight the whole police department of New York City. The fact that Mr. Shei is stealing my tactics isn’t the only reason. I learned something this morning that is of vastly more importance. By the way,” and The Phantom fairly jabbed the question at the lieutenant, “have you seen anything of Miss Helen Hardwick?”
Culligore’s lazy eyes opened a little wider. “Not since yesterday morning. She and I had quite an argument about Mr. Shei. We were standing almost exactly where you and I are standing now. She knows how to fence with words. I haven’t made up my mind yet whether she or I got the best of the argument.”
The Phantom smiled despite his impatience. “What did she think of Mr. Shei?”
“How can anybody tell what a woman thinks? You can make a guess, of course, but the chances are either that you are wrong or that you are making just exactly the kind of guess she wants you to make. Miss Hardwick left me pretty much up in the air, but I have a feeling all the time that she had discovered something that led her to think that you were Mr. Shei.”
“Oh,” mumbled the Phantom; then he stood silent for a few moments. “Where did Miss Hardwick go from here?”
Culligore shrugged. “Ask me something easy. She walked out of that door, and that’s all I’m sure of. There was another question or two I wanted to ask her, and that’s why I dropped around here to-day, thinking she might show up again. She seemed very much wrought up over Mr. Shei.”
With an impetuous gesture The Phantom placed his hand on the lieutenant’s arm.
“Miss Hardwick has disappeared,” he announced quickly, “and I fear she has blundered into the clutches of Mr. Shei.”
“Eh?” The mask of listlessness dropped in a twinkling from Culligore’s face. He was instantly tense and alert. “What’s that?”