“There’s one thing you can tell me, and you had better speak quickly. Where does this precious gang hang out? Where is its headquarters?”
Lunn did not answer. He was breathing stertorously, and he uttered a groan or grunt whenever the pressure on the pistol was increased.
“Out with it!” The Phantom cast an uneasy glance behind him as he spoke, but no one was in sight. “You’ll never get out of here alive unless you tell.”
The big fellow trembled. “I’ve sworn to keep my mouth shut.”
“Well, I guess it wouldn’t be the first time you have violated an oath. Where is the place?”
“Will you let me go if I tell you?”
An affirmative answer was on the Phantom’s tongue, but he held it back. “No, Lunn, you are not going to get off quite so easily. You might give me a fictitious address, and I would have no way of verifying it until too late. You will have to take me there, and I sha’n’t let you go until I have satisfied myself that it is the right place.”
Lunn groaned; and the Phantom looked dubiously along the street. The words were no sooner out of his mouth than a sense of diffidence assailed him. To march an unwilling and treacherous guide through the streets would be a hard and perilous task even at that late hour. Then an idea came to him. He would signal Granger and instruct him to find a taxicab.
He turned slightly and looked out of the doorway, waving his hand at the solitary figure on the corner. In the next moment a short exclamation of surprise fell from his lips. A big black car was gliding down the street, slackening its pace as it drew nearer. The Phantom, still pressing the pistol firmly against Lunn’s body, saw that it was a limousine, and he was at a loss to understand what a car of that type was doing in such a squalid neighborhood. Now it was crawling along very slowly, swerving close to the curb as it came within a few feet of the entrance to the coffee house. The driver was leaning from his seat, as if looking for someone.
Of a sudden a hoarse cry rose in the Phantom’s throat. Forgetting Lunn, he sprang from the doorway. A face had appeared at the window of the car—a white, rigid face with staring eyes and the look of death spread over its features.