“Granger—huh!” he snorted after giving the Phantom a derisive once-over. “Say, does your ma know you’re out as late as this? Getting all them glad rags mussed up in the rain, too! What’s the idea?”
“The Phantom has got my goat,” confessed the pseudo reporter. “It isn’t natural for a man to pop in and out the way he does without getting caught.”
“Well, what are you going to do about it?” grumbled the patrolman, resuming his walk.
The Phantom fell into step beside him, now and then casting a sidelong glance at his sour and uncommunicative face. All of a sudden he wondered whether the policeman was aware that a second murder had been committed in the Gage house, and again it struck him as bafflingly strange that no mention had been made of the finding of the housekeeper’s body. What had become of it, and how much, if anything, did Pinto know?
“Something seems to be eating you,” he observed casually, trying to adopt a phraseology suited to his rôle. “You were staring at that window as if you expected old Gage’s ghost to take a stroll. What were you thinking of, Pinto?”
The policeman gave a quick, searching look. “Say, you’ve been watching me, ain’t you? What’s the big idea? And how do you know my name?”
The Phantom laughed engagingly. “How touchy we are to-night! I wasn’t watching you, exactly. Just strolling along, hoping to bump into the Phantom and cover myself with glory. Then I saw you, and I couldn’t imagine what you were seeing in that window. As for knowing your name, I happen to be aware that the officer on this beat is one Joshua Pinto and that he was called by the housekeeper the night Gage was murdered.”
The patrolman, evidently satisfied with the explanation, mumbled something under his breath.
“But you haven’t answered my question,” persisted the Phantom, speaking in gently teasing tones. “I am still wondering what you were thinking of while standing in front of the window.”
“Why, I was—just thinking, that’s all.”