“It has long been my desire to meet the Gray Phantom,” pursued the doctor, still scowling darkly. “I should dislike to think I have been imposed upon. But that can’t be, unless”—with another suspicious look—“you are acting as a foil for the Phantom. Well, we shall see presently, I suppose. In the meantime, you may consider yourself at home under my roof.”
Without knowing why, the Phantom hesitated before accepting the invitation. To take advantage of the doctor’s hospitality was clearly the proper thing to do. In a little while the police would learn they had blundered, and then the man hunt would be resumed with redoubled vigor. To venture forth on the streets after that would be little short of madness. The Phantom, conquering his misgivings—which, after all, were nothing more than a vague doubt in regard to the doctor—murmured his appreciation.
Bimble’s manservant, a lanky, thin-faced individual with a gloomy expression and wary eye, entered with a copy of the extras. The Phantom gave him a quick and keenly searching glance, and again he felt strangely bewildered. The man looked innocent enough, and it was nothing but an intangible something in his gait and his manner of carrying himself that caused the Phantom to look twice.
Doctor Bimble took the damp sheet, still redolent of ink, and read aloud the triple-leaded article under the scare head. During the perusal Helen regarded him with strange, expressionless eyes, while now and then the servant shot the Phantom a stealthy glance which the latter found hard to interpret.
Evidently the extra had been hurriedly prepared, for the article contained only a few pithy facts. It seemed that the Phantom, with an audacity and a recklessness characteristic of him, had for some unaccountable purpose visited the East Houston Street establishment in which the murder of Sylvanus Gage had been perpetrated. Wearing no other disguise than a black beard, which he had evidently grown since his last appearance in public, he had approached the housekeeper, introduced himself as Mr. Adair, of Boston, a criminal investigator, and requested to inspect the scene of the murder. The unsuspecting housekeeper had admitted him, little guessing that her visitor was one of the most celebrated criminals of the age.
The Gray Phantom had been in the room only a few minutes when Officer Joshua Pinto appeared on the scene. With laudable perspicacity the officer recognized the Phantom almost immediately, despite the disguising beard, and by clever maneuvering managed to lock him in the room, standing guard outside the door while the housekeeper telephoned headquarters. In a few moments an impenetrable cordon had been thrown around the house, and the capture of the Phantom seemed an absolute certainty. Yet, when the door was battered down, the astonished officers saw that the room was empty and that the notorious rogue had achieved another of his miraculous escapes.
Apparently, so the article stated, the Phantom had accomplished the impossible, but then the Phantom’s entire career had been a series of incredible accomplishments. How he had managed to leave the room and elude the cordon of police would probably remain a mystery forever unless the criminal himself should divulge the secret. His capture, which had taken place while the police were making a systematic search of the houses in the block, had been due to one of the strange aberrations which seize even the astutest criminals. A brawl had occurred in a “blind pig” in Bleecker Street, and the commotion had attracted the attention of a passing sergeant. After sending in a hurry call for help the sergeant had raided the place, and among the prisoners taken was one who was almost instantly recognized as the Gray Phantom. The identification was rendered all the easier by the fact that he had removed his beard after making his sensational escape from the East Houston Street establishment. The belief was expressed that the prisoner would be induced to make a statement as soon as he had recovered from the effects of the raw whiskey he had consumed in the dive, presumably in celebration of his latest coup.
“Rot!” ejaculated the doctor, throwing the paper down with a gesture of disgust. “A fool would know that a man of the Gray Phantom’s temperament, whatever other folly he might commit, would not get intoxicated at a critical moment like this. This proves—But what’s become of Miss Hardwick?”
The Phantom looked up with a start. The girl was gone. Evidently she had taken advantage of the other’s absorption in the newspaper article to slip out unnoticed. Jerome, a crestfallen look on his long face, hastily left the laboratory, returning in a few moments with the report that Miss Hardwick was nowhere in sight. The Phantom imagined that there was an expression of sharp reproach in the doctor’s eyes as they rested on the servant, but the impression was fleeting.
“The young lady has probably gone home,” ventured the anthropologist. “She must have been tired, and in a measure her task was accomplished. The question is, can you rely on her not to communicate what she knows to the police?”