“I wonder if some sort of pressure couldn’t be brought to bear on him to make him divulge what he knows. Last night he was in no condition to be questioned, and to-day, I can hardly make a move without running the risk of being arrested.”
“I should say you can’t!” declared Culligore explosively. “It’s as much as my job is worth to be seen here talking with you. The Gray Phantom is a marked man, if ever there was one. Fairspeckle and the Jap swear you were in the apartment late last night, and Fairspeckle believes—or pretends to believe, which amounts to the same thing—that it was you who squirted the poison into his veins. Of course, he doesn’t pretend to know just how it happened, but he remembers seeing you just as he was recovering his senses. You’d better take my advice and lie low for a while. I’ll see what I can do with Fairspeckle, though I haven’t any high hopes. I’ll have him watched, and it’s just possible that we can squeeze some information out of him. But look here. Aren’t you starting this thing from the wrong end?”
The Phantom gave him a puzzled glance.
“When Miss Hardwick left the Thelma Theater day before yesterday,” pursued Culligore, “I could have sworn she was on her way to see you. She didn’t say anything about her plans, but that was the idea I got from her actions.”
The Phantom shook his head. “If she started for my place, she never got there. I called up on the long distance this morning, and was told that nothing has been seen of her. Of course, something may have happened to her on the way.”
“Well, I wouldn’t worry just yet. The young lady has a lot of spunk, and I’ll bet a pair of pink socks she knows how to take care of herself. It mightn’t be a bad idea to get in touch with her father. He may have had some news from her since yesterday. I must be on my way. Mr. Shei is putting gray hairs on my head.”
Culligore rose, and the two men shook hands. They parted after the lieutenant had once more admonished The Phantom against exposing himself to arrest. For a moment or two after the detective had left the place, The Phantom looked dubiously at the door through which he had departed.
“There’s something queer about Culligore,” he mumbled. “I wonder if he——”
He did not finish the thought, but with a shrug of the shoulders he stepped out and looked warily up and down the sidewalk. Culligore’s warning had not been needed to impress upon him that caution was necessary. He sniffed danger in the very air he breathed as he slunk across the street, walked a block to the east, then ducked into a deserted doorway. A taxicab appeared, and he signaled the driver. For a moment he hesitated as to his next move, then Culligore’s parting advice occurred to him and, after consulting the small notebook he carried, he gave the chauffeur the address of the Hardwick residence.
The cab started. The Phantom glanced sharply through the windows. A familiar and yet intangible sensation had been with him constantly for the past hour. Now and then, at long intervals, he had had a fleeting impression that he was being watched. Now, as the cab chugged its way down the avenue, a sixth sense told him he was being followed, yet he could detect no sign of pursuit in the welter of traffic. He tried to dismiss the impression, knowing that in his present state of high mental tension his senses were not to be trusted.