Although released from his bonds, the man in the chair scarcely moved. The feet scraped gently against the floor, and the arms fell limply to his sides. Weird snatches of laughter were still trickling through his lips, but the expression of insane merriment in his eyes was slowly yielding to a look of returning reason.
The Phantom looked helplessly about him, and suddenly his eyes fell on a sheet of paper lying at the old man’s feet. Mechanically he picked it up and glanced at the typewritten lines. From the smudged and indistinct type he was vaguely aware that he was gazing at a carbon copy. A word here and there attracted his attention, and presently he was reading the communication from the beginning. It read:
Dear Friend: The poison which has been injected into your veins to-night has been accurately adjusted to produce death within seven days. You will have lucid intervals, but you will be gradually growing weaker and weaker. Consult as many high-priced specialists as you wish, and if they can help you, you are to be congratulated. There is only one antidote, and that is the secret of a confederate of mine. It will be supplied you for a consideration. The exact terms will be communicated to you in a few days. By that time you will probably have been convinced that your life is absolutely in my hands.
If misery loves company, I trust you will find consolation in the fact that six others are in precisely the same predicament as yourself.
Mr. Shei.
The sheet dropped from The Phantom’s fingers. If what he had just read seemed grotesque and absurd, a glance at the man in the chair conferred a semblance of hideous reality upon it. Mr. Shei had struck the threatened blow, and he had struck sooner than expected.
Fairspeckle’s laughter had ceased and a look of reason was coming into his waxen features. The expression of ribald mockery had left his eyes, and now they were fixed on The Phantom’s face in a dull, suspicious stare. With a start The Phantom awoke to a realization of his predicament. If he were caught in Fairspeckle’s apartment, the police and the public would be firmly convinced of what they already suspected—that Mr. Shei and The Phantom were one. Not even Culligore’s keen mind and generous impulses would suffice to save him from arrest and imprisonment. And there was Helen—the thought gave him a spinal chill. Perhaps at this very moment she was confronted by some terrifying peril. And if he were arrested, then his last chance of helping her would be gone.
His mind made up, The Phantom ran to the telephone in the adjoining room. He called a number, and presently he was answered by an operator at police headquarters. His inquiry for Culligore elicited the information that the lieutenant was out and would probably not return until morning. The Phantom hesitated for a moment, then spoke hurriedly into the transmitter:
“This is important. Send a doctor and a couple of detectives at once to the Whipple Hotel, suite 36. You will find something very interesting. That’s all.”
With that he hung up, and a few moments later he had left the apartment and was briskly walking down the stairs.