“Your mother—maybe,” suggested Wade, slanting a searching gaze at Vanardy.
“I don’t know, Wade. You may be right. I remember neither father nor mother. All I know is that the cross seemed to be the only connecting link between my present and the past I couldn’t remember. I fought like mad when the street urchins and gangsters tried to take it away from me, and somehow, through thick and thin, I managed to cling to it. Then, one day about six years ago, I lost it. Probably the chain parted. Anyhow, in some mysterious manner the cross fell into Gage’s possession. I went to Gage and demanded it. He must have seen how anxious I was to recover it, for he put a stiff price on it. I was willing to pay—would have paid almost anything—but each time I began to count out the money Gage doubled his price. So it went on for years, and I admit I sometimes felt like strangling the old miser. But I never threatened to kill him and I never wrote the letter mentioned in the papers.”
“Somebody’s been doing some tall lying,” declared Wade irately. “If I wasn’t so fat I’d make the fellow that wrote this article eat his own words. But you should worry, boss. They can’t get away with it.”
“I am not so sure, Wade. Seems to me they’ve made out a fairly complete case against the Gray Phantom. The motive is substantial enough. There are enough mysterious circumstances to suggest that only the Phantom could have committed the crime. The fact that the murderer stole a cheap trinket and left fifty thousand dollars’ worth of real diamonds behind him is rather impressive. And you mustn’t forget that a little evidence against the Gray Phantom will go a long way with a jury.”
Wade, a picture of ponderous wrath, crumpled the newspaper in his huge fist. The fretful look in the small round eyes signified that his mind was grappling with a problem.
“The letter Gage got the day before the murder must have been forged,” he ventured at last.
“Of course; but it may have been done skillfully enough to deceive all but the keenest eye. Handwriting experts have been known to disagree in matters of that kind.”
The fat man reflected heavily. “Why didn’t Gage beat it for the tall woods when he got the letter?”
“Because the tall woods are full of ambushes. Likely as not the letter gave him a jolt at first. Then, upon giving it a sober second thought, he cooled down. His principal consideration was that the Gray Phantom had never been known to commit a murder, and that consequently the letter was either a joke or a bluff.”
“But he told the cop it was the Gray Phantom that stabbed him.”