“You called me by a different name last time you saw me,” grumbled Lunn suspiciously.
The Phantom masked his momentary confusions behind a grin. After all, he had scarcely hoped to fool Lunn, for the latter and Granger had been intimately acquainted for some time, and this was putting the ruse to the acid test.
“You’ve got so many monickers, Lunn, that I can’t remember them all. Which particular one would you like to have me use to-night?”
“The same one you always used before, if you know which one that is.”
Of a sudden the Phantom wished that Granger had given him more explicit information regarding Lunn. The man with the scar was plainly suspicious, and the Phantom was not yet quite ready for action.
“Tell me where I can connect with a drink,” was his jocular evasion, “or I’ll call you a name you never heard before.”
The other sneered. “There are some things that hurt a lot worse than names do. One of them is a knife in the side, and I’ve been told a fellow whose name is Tommie Granger is going to get just that unless he explains certain things to the big chief.”
The Phantom’s face sobered. “I’m ready to explain. That’s why I looked you up to-night. But we can’t talk in here. Suppose we take a walk around the block?”
Lunn laughed derisively. “I was referrin’ to a guy named Tommie Granger. He looks a lot like you and he hands out pretty much the same kind of spiel, and yet I could tell the difference almost as soon as I put my lamps on you. Just the same, I’d as soon walk around the block with the Gray Phantom as with anybody else.”
He spoke the last sentence in a whisper, accompanying the words with a grin that rendered his face all the more repellent. The Phantom cast a quick glance at the evil-looking faces at the other tables, wondering whether Lunn had any confederates in the room. They were the scum of the lower levels of the underworld, and their blotched and hardened features bespoke lives steeped in loathsome iniquities, but, unless there were members of the Duke’s organization among them, the Phantom saw no reason why they should side against him.