The Phantom regarded him narrowly as he trundled from the room and closed the door behind him. The doctor intrigued and baffled him. He was almost certain that Bimble had been guilty of equivocation in regard to the tunnel and the revolving frame. On the other hand, this and other peculiarities might be due to an erratic temperament. His stubborn insistence on the Phantom’s guilt could be the result of mental laziness and a disinclination to exert himself over a case which did not interest him. Yet, after making all due allowances, the Phantom could not feel wholly at ease.
The doctor, smiling placidly and without a sign of guile in his face, interrupted his reflections.
“I’ve just had my friend Inspector Wadhane on the wire,” he announced. “It has been decided to let the prisoner sleep off the effects of his debauch. He will not be questioned until along toward morning. So, my friend, you can sleep in peace. Shall I show you to your room?”
The Phantom, blinking his eyes drowsily, expressed a desire to retire at once. Doctor Bimble conducted him to a pleasant bedroom with two large windows facing the street, saw that everything was in order, and wished his guest a hearty good night. Even before he was out of the room the Phantom had started to remove his clothes.
Yet, no sooner had the door closed than he hurried back into the garments. Though only a few moments ago he had showed signs of great drowsiness, he was now fully awake, and his springy motions and the twinkle in his eyes hinted that sleep was farthest from his mind.
CHAPTER X—IN THE TUNNEL
The Phantom waited for fifteen minutes, then he quietly opened the door and looked down the hall. The lights were turned low and not a sound broke the stillness. Apparently the anthropologist and the manservant had retired. Stepping inside the room, he took from an inside pocket the little metal box he always carried, examined the snugly packed tools it contained, and made sure that each was in good condition. Finally, he switched off the light, noiselessly closed the door behind him, and tiptoed down the stairs.
Stealing down a corridor through the main part of the house, he reached the extension formed by the laboratory. He stopped at the door, tilted his ear to the keyhole, and listened carefully. It had occurred to him that Doctor Bimble might be at work, and an encounter with his host would have proved embarrassing. His keen ears detected no sounds, however, and in another moment he had passed through the door and was groping his way across the floor of the laboratory.
Of a sudden he stopped. A faint sound seemed to come from the direction where the skeletons stood in their glass-framed cages. He strained his ears to catch a repetition, but none came. Evidently he had been mistaken. He knew how sounds are magnified at night, and what he had heard was probably nothing but the rattling of a windowpane or the creaking of a board under his foot. He proceeded to the opposite wall, darting swift glances to left and right, as if half suspecting that someone was lurking in the shadows. Again a door swung noiselessly on its hinges, and the Phantom glided down the stairs leading to the cellar. From his hip pocket he took a small electric flash and let its beam play over the floor while he looked for the entrance to the tunnel.
For a time he searched in vain, traversing the length of the murky brick walls and carefully scanning each square foot of space without finding a trace of the opening. The mouth of the passage seemed to have disappeared in the three or four hours that had passed since he emerged from the subterranean tube. He tried to locate it by tracing backward the course he had followed in reaching the stairs, but it proved a difficult task, for he had floundered about in total darkness, not daring to use his flash for fear of attracting attention. He had a hazy impression, however, that the opening was in a diagonal line with the foot of the stairway.