The Phantom scowled while Granger adjusted his tie. The reporter seemed almost as keen on sartorial polish as on journalistic attainments.
“By the way,” inquired the Phantom, “who is the illustrious personage that’s referred to as ‘the big chief’?”
“He is the Duke’s chief agent. I don’t know his name, and I’ve never seen him. Through underground channels the Duke sends him orders from his cell in Sing Sing. The Duke is the brain that plans, and the big chief is the hand that executes. Say, I’m being consumed with curiosity. Aren’t you going to tell me something of your plans?”
“I haven’t anything definite. I shall go to the Catharine Street coffee house and try to cultivate the acquaintance of Mr. Matt Lunn. I mean to obtain certain items of information from him. Just how I shall go about obtaining them depends upon what sort of man I find him to be. We’ll be on our way whenever you are through primping.”
At last the reporter was ready. Peng Yuen was stolidly smoking his pipe as they passed out. The almond-shaped eyes narrowed a trifle as the Phantom shook his hand, and for an instant he seemed about to say something. In another moment he had changed his mind, however, and with a queer little grunt in his throat he went back to his green-tasseled pipe.
With a final admonition to exercise care and discretion, the Phantom left Granger outside the shop and walked rapidly toward Catharine Street. He had no reason for doubting the reporter’s sincerity. Granger’s moral stamina might not be all that could be desired; but, on the whole, the Phantom was well pleased with the arrangement. It had already relieved him of much worry and enabled him to center his thoughts and efforts on the task before him.
He had no difficulty in finding the coffee house, a crumbling and evil-looking hovel squeezed between a sooty factory building and a squalid tenement. Lights shone dimly through several windows in the block, which had a gloomy and somewhat sinister appearance, and he was looked at sharply by several wretched creatures who passed him on the sidewalk. The window and glass door of the coffee house were covered with green paper blinds, but there was a narrow opening through which the Phantom could get a glimpse of the interior.
Some twelve or fifteen men were seated at long tables, drinking coffee and smoking pipes or cigarettes. The air was so heavy with tobacco fumes that the Phantom could not distinguish their features clearly, but he got the impression that they were a disreputable lot. He looked in vain for anyone answering the description Granger had given of Matt Lunn. He walked away from the window and stood at the curb, scanning the street in either direction. At a corner a block away, he saw a shadowy figure leaning against a stack of boxes outside a grocery.
“Granger is on the job,” he mumbled.
Then he turned quickly just as a huge, raw-boned man appeared from the opposite direction and walked into the coffee house. The Phantom caught a glimpse of his face as he opened the door and passed through, and that glimpse revealed a great, livid scar over the left eye.