“Furthermore,” continued the Phantom, “you will be in jail before Miss Hardwick goes to either of the places you have just mentioned.”
“Jail?” The doctor stared as if he thought the statement utterly preposterous. “Jail! Ha, ha! Good joke coming from a man who can’t move six feet.”
“Enjoy it while you can. As you may remember, I perpetrated the same kind of joke on the Duke, and he doesn’t seem to relish that brand of humor.”
The doctor winced as if an unpleasant thought had been suggested to him, then walked stiffly to the door. “Remember,” was his parting shot, “if you persist in your obstinacy, it will be either the madhouse or the grave for Miss Hardwick.”
He slammed the door as he went out, and the Phantom’s face sobered the moment he was alone. His threat had not been altogether an idle one, for it had driven a wholesome misgiving into the doctor’s heart; yet the Phantom was painfully aware that he was in a desperate situation. Throwing himself on the cot, he turned the problem over and over in his mind. Black as the outlook seemed, he could scarcely believe that all was lost. He still had faith in his star, and it was this that had braced him and enabled him to speak with such confidence in Doctor Bimble’s presence.
After a while something drew his gaze to the window. He listened intently. A faint scraping sound reached his ears, and it occurred to him that it had been going on for several minutes, though he had been too preoccupied to notice it until now. He got up and stepped as close to the window as the chain permitted. Now he heard it again—a slow, dull grinding and scraping that remotely suggested that someone was attacking a metallic object with a blunt tool.
He waited breathlessly. Evidently someone was trying to enter the room, and he wondered whether the intruder was coming as friend or foe. Perhaps the amazing luck that had so often turned a critical situation in his favor was once more coming back to him.
A click sounded, then the boards in front of the window came apart, and the Phantom gasped as Thomas Granger jumped into the room.
“You!” he exclaimed.
“Not so loud!” whispered the reporter. He was still wearing the Phantom’s clothing, and the garments were wrinkled and streaked with dirt. “The house is full of members of the Duke’s gang. Holy smoke, you’re certainly in a fix!”