“Yes, it was something like that. I had placed your better self on a pedestal. I didn’t want to believe it had fallen or that it was just common clay. I read the papers very carefully; hoping to find a weak point in the evidence against you, but it seemed complete and conclusive down to the tiniest detail. One of the articles puzzled me a little, though.”
“Oh—the Sphere’s! Yes, I noticed it, too.”
“It read as though the writer were not quite sure that you were the guilty one. After thinking it over for a while I called up the Sphere and asked for the reporter who had written the article. They had some little trouble finding him, and when he finally came to the ’phone he acted as if he were not quite sober. I tried to question him about the case, but he gruffly told me he had nothing to tell aside from what he had put into his story. If I had a personal interest in the matter, he said, the best thing I could do was go and consult Doctor Bimble.”
“And you adopted the suggestion?”
“I had never heard of Doctor Bimble, but the reporter told me he was the cleverest investigator of criminal cases in town. He warned me that Doctor Bimble might refuse to help me, since he accepted nothing but cases of unusual interest, but the fact that the murdered man was a friend and neighbor might make a difference. Yesterday I called on the doctor, but at first he would talk of nothing but his skeletons. The murder didn’t seem to interest him in the least. He said the Phantom’s guilt was clear and that all that remained was to catch him. Then, when he saw how earnest I was, he told me about the tunnel.”
“The doctor is a queer duck,” murmured the Phantom musingly. “The ordinary man wouldn’t take strangers into his confidence about such things. The eccentricity of genius, I suppose.”
“The whole affair seemed to bore him immensely. He told me the man who killed Gage must have used the tunnel, since he could not have left the room any other way. He thought it possible the murderer was still hiding there, lying low until the excitement should die down, and if I didn’t have anything better to do I might watch for him at this end. As for himself, he said he wasn’t at all concerned in the apprehension and punishment of criminals, but he gave me his revolver and told me I might watch the door leading from the laboratory, since the murderer, if he were still in the tunnel, had to come out that way. I think my interest in the case amused the doctor. I suspected he was chuckling at me most of the time.
“I watched the door till late last night, all the time hoping that, if anyone came out of the tunnel, it would not be you. Shortly before midnight I persuaded the doctor to let his man take my place. You see, if the murderer proved to be anyone but you, I wanted him caught, because then your innocence would be established. Early this morning I went back to my post. When I heard steps on the stairs my heart stood still for a moment. As the door opened I felt like shrieking. And then——”
She broke off with a gasp. From above came the sounds of footsteps and doors slamming, indicating that the police were searching the upper part of the house.
“And when you saw me,” the Phantom put in, “you immediately jumped to the conclusion that I was guilty. Well, I suppose it was good logic. What can I do or say to convince you that I didn’t kill Gage?”