The two men carried him across the hall and into another room, where he was placed in a chair. He was surprised to see the sunlight streaming in through the window, for the darkness from which he had just emerged had left an impression of impenetrable night on his mind.
“The big chief will be in directly,” announced one of the men as they were leaving.
The Phantom felt a thrill of expectancy at the thought that at last he was to come face to face with the Duke’s chief agent. Then he began to look about him. From where he sat, all that was to be seen through the window was the murky wall of a factory building. The room was small, and the only furniture was a table and three chairs. In vain he looked for something that might suggest a way of escape.
He turned quickly as a step sounded outside the door. It came open, and for several moments he stared at the man who entered. Then he laughed, a short, unnatural laugh that sounded hollow even to himself. The man who stood before him was Doctor Tyson Bimble.
He would never have guessed that the anthropologist was the man through whom the Duke directed his criminal enterprises from his cell in prison, but on second thought the discovery was not so surprising. Since their first meeting he had suspected that anthropology was not Bimble’s sole interest in life. He had felt that it was merely a cloak for other activities, though it had not occurred to him what these might be.
“You are pale,” observed Bimble, looking at him through his thick lenses; “but I sha’n’t trouble to feel your pulse this morning. I have no doubt it’s normal.”
The doctor, with his stiltlike legs and top-heavy head, seemed as ludicrous as ever, and his face wore the same beatific smile that had greeted the Phantom when they first met, but his eyes were a trifle stern, and there was an unfamiliar briskness about his movements.
The Phantom swallowed his emotions and braced his mind for a duel of wits with the doctor. Many a time in the past he had outmaneuvered men as crafty as his present adversary. For the present he tried not to think of Helen, for he would need a clear mind and steady nerves if he was to help her.
“Have you made any new scientific discoveries since I saw you last, doctor?” he inquired chattily.
Bimble’s eyes twinkled. “No; but I dare say you have.”