The Gray Phantom Part 11

The Phantom had seen enough. He drew his automatic from his pocket, then waited until Mr. Fairspeckle stopped writing and pulled the sheet from the machine.

"You seem to be fairly busy, Mr. Shei," he observed in soft tones.

Mr. Fairspeckle jerked up his shoulders, then sat as rigid as if suddenly turned into a statue. Finally, with slow and spasmodic motions, he turned his head and looked into the muzzle of The Phantom's automatic. A startled look leaped into his eyes and his sallow face turned a shade paler.

"You!" he exclaimed.

"I watered one of your ferns with the coffee Haiuto handed me," The Phantom explained. "A cruel way to treat an inoffensive plant, I'll admit, but there was nothing else handy. Mind if I have a look?"

Lowering the weapon a trifle, he picked up the sheet of paper Mr.

Fairspeckle had just drawn from the machine. Watching the older man out of the tail of an eye, he read the typewritten lines:

In accordance with my promise, I herewith announce the names of the seven gentlemen whom by certain means at my disposal I shall persuade to hand over half of their respective fortunes to me.

Then followed a list of seven names, each one suggestive of untold wealth and vast influence in the financial world, and The Phantom smiled as he noticed that W. Rufus Fairspeckle was one of them. By way of signature Mr. Shei's name was typed at the bottom of the announcement.

"Not bad," commented The Phantom. "By including yourself among the seven victims you make sure that no suspicion becomes attached to the fair name of W. Rufus Fairspeckle. Anyhow, since you are one of the richest men in town, it would look rather odd if your name were omitted. Congratulations, Mr. Shei."

The other looked stolidly into the muzzle of the automatic. The Phantom's sudden and unexpected appearance seemed to have paralyzed his tongue.

"You could save a lot of time by taking carbon copies," suggested The Phantom, riffling the sheets lying beside the machine. "You will need a hundred or more to plaster the town effectively. I understand now why you took that long walk this morning. There's nothing like having a pleasant pastime when one can't sleep. What I don't understand is how you meant to put your plan into effect."

A sickly smile cruised about Mr. Fairspeckle's bloodless lips.

"Oh, I don't expect you to let me in on the secret," The Phantom went on. "With your past performances in mind, I have no doubt you would have executed your threat in a manner becoming your genius. There's only one thing about your achievements that has disappointed me. I don't see why you had to copy my methods so slavishly. For a while I was almost certain that Mr. Shei was one of my former a.s.sociates, and that's why----" He checked himself on the point of explaining why he had come out of hiding. "Couldn't you have shown a little more originality?"

An inarticulate mumble came from Mr. Fairspeckle's lips. His fingers fidgeted nervously over his knees.

"Well don't try to explain. I suppose the police will attend to that part. There will be quite a sensation when it becomes known that W.

Rufus Fairspeckle is the mysterious Mr. Shei. I wonder what drove you to it. You were bored with the life of a gentleman of leisure, I suppose, and then you had a goose to pick with your old enemies. I take it that was your chief motive. Well, Mr. Shei----"

A dulcet tinkle interrupted him, and he glanced quickly at the telephone on Mr. Fairspeckle's desk.

"You may answer," he said after a moment's hesitation.

Mr. Fairspeckle reached out a trembling hand for the instrument. He put the receiver to his ear and spoke a feeble "h.e.l.lo" into the transmitter. In the next instant his face went blank. "It's for you,"

he announced, gazing dazedly at The Phantom.

"For _me_?" The Phantom stared incredulously at the instrument. To the best of his knowledge, his whereabouts was known to n.o.body but Mr.

Fairspeckle and the j.a.panese servant. Quickly gathering himself, he placed the automatic within easy reach and took the telephone from Mr.

Fairspeckle's hand. He started as a voice came over the wire.

"Mr. Shei speaking," it announced in level tones. "If you value Miss Hardwick's life, I would advise you to abandon your present plans.

That is all."

Then a click, and the connection was broken.

CHAPTER IX

THE HOUSE OF LAUGHTER

"Mr. Shei!"

Time and again through the night following her arrival at Azurecrest, Helen's lips soundlessly formed the name she had involuntarily spoken upon seeing the man in the doorway. She tossed restlessly on her bed, her mind in that curious state on the boundary line between slumber and wakefulness when the imagination forms shadowy images and one's thoughts reach for elusive realities.

Now and then, as a wild strain of laughter shattered the silence, she sat up and stared into the darkness. A cold tingle would trickle down her spine as the sounds rose to a hysterical crescendo, then fell to a gentle tinkle that made her flesh quiver, and finally died down to a haunting echo. Then, her sense of horror engulfed by overwhelming drowsiness, she would fall back against the pillow and drift into a state of soothing stupor.

Finally dawn broke. Flickering wisps of sunlight fell on the floor, lighting up the dark corners and dispersing the evil host with which her imagination had peopled the gloom. A fresh breeze caressed her hot forehead and cooled the fever in her blood. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Outside, the sun was glimmering on treetops and long stretches of lawn. The bright, pleasant room afforded a sharp contrast to the strident discords and monstrous visions that had distressed her throughout the night.

Her recollections were still vague. Gradually a train of memories swept upon her. It all came back to her now--her arrival at Azurecrest, her failure to find The Gray Phantom, the strange laughter and the hideous face she had seen at the window, Miss Neville's amazing story and the intercepted flight, and finally the appearance of the man at the sight of whom she had cried out the name of Mr. Shei.

Again her recollections grew dim. Things had gone dark before her eyes as soon as she had spoken the name. She had heard a jumble of voices, and she believed someone had forced a drink down her throat. A sedative, perhaps, for after that she had known nothing but the intermittent outbursts of laughter and their accompaniment of strange fancies. She shuddered as she remembered them. Several voices, she felt sure, had joined in the chorus of unnatural laughter. It could mean only one thing--that more than one inmate of the house was afflicted with the mysterious fever so vividly described by Miss Neville.

Her mind was clearing rapidly now. She realized she was surrounded by dangers which she could neither gauge nor understand. Of one thing only could she be certain. Her eyes, while resting on the man in the doorway, had pierced the veil of mystery which had concealed the ident.i.ty of the mysterious Mr. Shei. The discovery, confirming a suspicion that had first come to her in the Thelma Theater, had shocked and bewildered her, and on the impulse of the moment she had heedlessly called out his name.

Now, in a calmer mood, she reproached herself for her indiscretion.

She wondered whether Mr. Shei would dare let her live, now that she had penetrated his secret. If he were as ruthless and unscrupulous as she supposed him to be, he would in all likelihood seal her lips forever. She might promise not to betray him, but Mr. Shei was too shrewd and cautious to rely on promises. He would be more apt to adopt the only course consistent with his safety.

She shivered a little. Physical fear she had never known, for there was a strain of recklessness and audacity in her nature that blinded her eyes to dangers, but the thought of death gave her a chill. She did not know exactly why, but never before had life seemed as enticing as now. A determination to live spurred her mind to frantic effort.

She would outwit Mr. Shei by her woman's weapons. She had done some skillful fencing with them on several occasions in the past, and she could use them again. Already she was casting about for a plan.

Perhaps, by a little clever acting, she could convince Mr. Shei that her calling of his name had been nothing but a hysterical outburst and without significance. If she succeeded in this, he would have no reason for taking her life.

The thought buoyed her. She turned a smiling face to the door as it opened and admitted a woman carrying a tray. She was thin and slatternly, and she sighed repeatedly while transferring the breakfast dishes to a table which she placed beside Helen's bed.

"Eat, you poor thing," she admonished, a world of melancholy in her tones.

Helen sipped the coffee. It was strong and fragrant and gave her a needed stimulus.

"Why do you call me 'poor thing'?" she inquired.

The woman heaved another sigh. "I'm not saying. I can hold my tongue when I want to. That's how I keep my job in this place. It's a shame, though--really it is."

"What is a shame?" Helen, looking into the slattern's saturnine face, with its ludicrously doleful expression, felt an impulse to laugh in spite of her misgivings.

"You're so young and pretty. That's why I call it a shame. Oh, well, we all have to go that way sooner or later."

Helen, unpleasantly impressed by the innuendo, tasted the toast.

"Which way?" she asked in casual tones.

"That would be telling." A long sigh racked the woman's scrawny chest.

"I hear a lot of things around this place that I never tell. Better eat hearty, dear. It might be your last---- Gosh! I almost said something that time, didn't I?"

Helen, conquering her forebodings, ate in silence for a time. The slattern's funereal face and dismal insinuations were casting a spell of gloom over her which she found hard to shake off. Finally she tried a direct question.