Dusk was falling, and the little room was almost dark. The sudden attack, all the more surprising because of Pinto’s previous air of stolidity, had left the Phantom a trifle dazed, but in a twinkling he realized the full seriousness of his dilemma. The door had no sooner slammed than he was on his feet, regaining his breath and flexing his muscles for action.
With a spring agile as a panther’s he threw himself against the door. Once it had succumbed to the superior weight of Patrolman Pinto’s body, but the Phantom’s leaner and nimbler figure was no match for its solid resistance. After thrice hurling himself against the obstruction, he saw that he was only wasting time and strength.
Hurriedly he switched on the light. From his pocket he took a box containing an assortment of small tools which on several occasions had stood him in good stead. In vain he tried to manipulate the lock, finding that it was too solidly imbedded in the wood. Next he tried the hinges, but the flaps were fastened on the other side of the door and therefore inaccessible. He cudgeled his wits, but to no avail; evidently the door was an impassable barrier. It seemed by far the most substantial part of the room, suggesting that Gage might have had it specially constructed as a protection against burglars.
He sprang to the window, then recalled that he had already ascertained that it was too narrow to permit him to crawl through. Another precaution of the wily Sylvanus Gage, he grimly reflected. His eyes, quick and crafty, darted over floor, ceiling, and walls, but nowhere could he see a sign of a movable panel or a hidden passage, and he remembered Mrs. Trippe’s statement that headquarters detectives had spent half a day searching for a secret exit. Though he worked his wits at furious speed, the situation baffled his ingenuity.
The Phantom perceived he was trapped. The amazing luck that had attended him in the past had made him reckless and indiscreet, and now it seemed to have deserted him like a fickle charmer. He supposed that Pinto, too shrewd to attempt to deal single-handed with such a slippery and dangerous adversary as the Gray Phantom, was already in communication with headquarters, summoning reënforcements. In a few minutes he would be hemmed in on all sides and pounced upon by overwhelming numbers of policemen, and in a little while the newspapers would shriek the sensation that at last the Gray Phantom had been captured.
It surprised him that he could view the end of his career with philosophical calm, unaffected by vain regrets. He had always suspected that some day an overbold play on his part would result in his undoing, and he had trained himself to look upon his ultimate defeat with the indifference of a cynic and fatalist, but he had never guessed that the crisis would come like this. He smiled faintly as it dawned on him that the disaster which now stared him in the face was the direct result of his determination to vindicate himself in the eyes of a woman. He had played for high stakes in the past, but Helen Hardwick’s faith in him was the highest of them all.
His smile faded as quickly as it had come. There was a sting in the realization that his boldest and biggest game was foredoomed to failure. Only a few more minutes of liberty remained, and after that all chance of exculpating himself would be gone. Officer Pinto, having become famous of a sudden as the Gray Phantom’s captor, would now, more than ever before, be beyond suspicion, and he could be depended upon to make the most of his advantage. The Phantom, whose hands had never been sullied by contact with blood, would be an object of horror and loathing as the perpetrator of a vile and sordid murder. Helen Hardwick, like all the rest, would shudder at mention of his name.
The dismal thoughts went like flashes through his mind. Only a few minutes had passed since the door slammed. The thought of Helen Hardwick caused a sudden stiffening of his figure and imbued him with a fierce desire for freedom. He refused to believe that his star had set and that this was the end. Many a time he had wriggled out of corners seemingly as tight and unescapable as the present one, chuckling at the discomfiture of the police and the bedevilment of his foes. Why could he not achieve another of the astounding feats that had made his name famous?
He spurred his wits to furious effort, repeatedly telling himself that somewhere there must be a way out. It was hard to believe that a man like Sylvanus Gage, living in constant danger of a surprise visit by the police, had not provided himself with an emergency exit. Despite the failure of the detectives to find it, there must be a concealed door or secret passage somewhere, though without doubt it was hidden in a way worthy of Gage’s foxlike cunning.
He ran to the door and shot the bolt. The police would be forced to break their way in, and this would give him a few moments’ respite. Again, as several times before in the last few minutes, his eyes strayed to the window. Though he knew it was far too narrow to afford a means of escape, it kept attracting his gaze and tantalizing his imagination. Deciding to make a second attempt, he hastened across the floor, pushed up the lower sash, and edged his shoulder into the opening. Writhe and wriggle as he might, he could not squeeze through. Even a man of Gage’s scrawny build would have become wedged in the frame had he attempted it.