The Phantom was amused, but also a trifle perturbed. The handicaps he had to overcome if he were to accomplish his purpose were rather staggering. But for the eccentric anthropologist’s hospitality he might even now be in the coils of the police. There was a troubled gleam in his eyes as he tossed the papers aside. For several minutes he sat on the edge of the bed, a thoughtful pucker between his eyes, abstractedly gazing down at the papers on the floor.
Of a sudden he roused himself out of a brown study. While his thoughts had been far away, his eyes had been steadily fixed on the two photographs in the center of the page spread out at his feet. Now a steely glitter appeared in his narrowing eyes and a smile spread slowly from the corners of his lips.
In an instant he was on his feet, glancing at his watch. It was almost ten o’clock. He hurried quietly to the door, listened at the keyhole for a few moments, then shot the bolt. From now on his movements were characterized by the brisk precision of one acting on an inspiration. Taking a sharp-edged tool from his pocket case, he stepped to the wash stand and mixed some lather. A few deft strokes and slashes, and his beard was gone. Since Patrolman Pinto had recognized him in spite of it, the beard was no longer useful, and the reddish and bristly mustache which he took from a wrapper in his metal case and affixed to his lips would serve fairly well as a temporary disguise. After a brief glance in the mirror, he put on his clothes and pocketed the articles on the dresser.
The Gray Phantom was ready for one of the maddest and most perilous enterprises of his career.
CHAPTER XIII—KIDNAPED
Somewhere a clock was striking ten as the Phantom withdrew the bolt and, silent as a cat, stepped out into the hall. He leaned over the balustrade and looked down. From the rear came an occasional tinkle of glassware. Doctor Bimble, never dreaming that his guest was foolhardy enough to leave his secure retreat a second time, was evidently at work in his laboratory. Noiselessly the Phantom stole down the stairs, carefully testing each step before he intrusted his weight to it. The door opened without a sound, and he darted a quick glance up and down the street.
A fine drizzle was falling and the sidewalks glistened in the lights from the street lamps and windows. There was a thin sprinkling of pedestrians in the thoroughfare. Outside a pool room across the street stood a group of loafers, and a band of gospel workers was addressing an apathetic crowd on the nearest corner. The Phantom was about to step away from the door when he saw something that caused him to press close to the wall.
“Our friend Pinto,” he mused as a thickset figure jogged past. “Seems a bit distracted this evening. Wonder what’s up.”
The policeman passed on with only a perfunctory glance in the Phantom’s direction. There was something about his gait and the way he swung his baton which suggested that his mind was not quite at ease. The Phantom waited until he had turned the corner, then crept out of the doorway, assuming an easy, swinging gait as he struck the sidewalk and turned west.
The streets had their usual humdrum appearance, but beneath the calm on the surface he sensed a tension and an air of repressed activity. It might have been only imagination, but he thought people were regarding each other with covert suspicion, as if friends and neighbors were no longer to be trusted. The Phantom sauntering along as if he had not a care in the world, turned into the Bowery and proceeded toward the nearest station of the elevated railway. No taxicabs were in sight, but he would be comparatively safe once he was aboard a train.