“Dear me!” The anthropologist jumped up with the abruptness of a rabbit. “I sit here babbling like a garrulous old woman while you must be famishing. I shall have Jerome bring you some food at once. I suppose,” stopping on his way to the door and regarding the Phantom with a serio-comic expression, “it isn’t necessary to warn you that it would be unwise to go out on the streets a night like this.”
A grin masked the Phantom’s searching look. “You seem deeply concerned in my welfare, doctor.”
“Naturally.” Bimble drew himself up. “With me a bargain is always a bargain. I hope you haven’t forgotten our understanding.”
“I see,” the Gray Phantom replied. “You want my skeleton to come to you intact. Yes, doctor, I’m aware of the inclemency of the weather. You needn’t worry on my account.”
The doctor tarried a moment longer, cleared his throat as if about to say something else, then swung around on his heels and left the room. The Phantom looked about him. On a chair near the bed hung his clothes, neatly brushed and pressed, and on the dresser, laid out in an orderly row, were the contents of his pockets, including pistol, metal case, and watch. The Phantom slipped out of bed and examined the articles. Nothing was missing and nothing had been disturbed. Evidently Doctor Bimble trusted to his guest’s good sense to keep him indoors.
And well he might, was the Phantom’s grim thought. There were excellent reasons why he should remain under the anthropologist’s roof—reasons which only a fool or a desperado would ignore. The police, goaded by ridicule and incensed at the way they had been made game of, were undoubtedly exerting every effort and using every trick and stratagem to ensnare their quarry. There were pitfalls at every crossing, traps in every block, prying eyes in a thousand places. To defy such dangers would be sheer madness.
Yet there were equally urgent reasons why the Phantom should not remain idle. One of them, and the most potent of them all, had to do with Helen Hardwick. Another was the Phantom’s irrepressible passion for flinging his gauntlet in the face of danger. A third was the firm conviction that he could rely on his mental and physical agility to see him through, no matter what hazards he might encounter.
He sprang back into bed as a noise sounded at the door. The cat-footed and tight-lipped manservant entered with a folding table, a stack of newspapers, and a trayful of steaming dishes. The Phantom watched the nimble play of his long, prehensile fingers as he set the table.
“You’re quite a scrapper, Jerome,” he observed good-naturedly.
“Yes, sir.” The man’s gloomy face was unreadable.