He looked quickly about the dimly lighted basement. There was a window on each side, but both were covered by shutters and iron grilles, and the only exit seemed to be the stairs.
“What about yourself?” asked the girl.
“Oh,” with a low laugh, “I have a task that yet remains to be finished. But you——”
Suddenly a little gasp slipped from the girl’s lips, and she seized his arm convulsively. Her gaze was rigid, and the Phantom looking in the same direction, saw Doctor Bimble standing in the stairs with a leveled pistol in his hand.
“Don’t stir!” was the anthropologist’s crisply spoken warning. “You will please note, my dear Phantom, that I’m not aiming at you, but at Miss Hardwick. She’ll be dead the moment you make the slightest move!”
CHAPTER XXXI—AT BAY
The Phantom scarcely breathed. He stood utterly still while the doctor came down the remaining steps and halted at the foot of the stairs. The pistol, pointed at Helen with a steadiness that bespoke a deadly aim, inspired him with a sense of awe a thousand times greater than if it had been leveled at himself.
The girl’s hand was still on his sleeve, and, without looking directly at her, he knew that she was facing the menacing pistol without flinching. Her slight touch on his arm gave him a feeling of tenderness and strength. Already his wits were at work. In his hip pocket was the weapon he had taken from Granger, but he could not reach for it without jeopardizing the girl’s life.
“Cruel trick you played on Granger,” observed the doctor, standing a dozen feet away. “I don’t know how you managed it, but you seem to have a special talent for such performances. Fortunately one of my men happened to enter the room in which you left the poor fellow, and he saw how things were. Well, Phantom, one thing is sure, you have played your last trick.”
The Phantom maintained his attitude of immobility, but Bimble’s words had given him an inward twinge. As far as he could see, the doctor had appraised the situation with accuracy. The windows, with their shutters and iron bars, seemed impregnable. The murky walls and the low ceiling gave forth an impression of solidity that accentuated his sense of bafflement. The way to the stairs was barred by Bimble with his pistol, and the rooms and corridors above were swarming with the Duke’s men. And meanwhile the Phantom dared not bend a muscle, for fear of causing Helen Hardwick’s death.