The Gray Phantom Part 23

"I suppose you have kidnaped him," Slade went on, "but we will find him before long. You see, Mr. Shei foresaw even such a possibility as that, and prepared for it. He antic.i.p.ated that pressure of some sort might be used on Tagala to make him reveal where the antidote is hidden, and so he prepared the trap you walked into a moment ago. The bottles, as you may have guessed by this time, contain only water. The real antidote is elsewhere, and Tagala is the only man who can put his hand on it."

"So I understand." There was a momentary flicker in The Phantom's eyes which indicated that Slade's words had suggested something of importance to him. "Mr. Shei is amazingly clever--but there is such a thing as being _too_ clever."

Slade looked as if he sensed a hidden meaning which his mind could not quite grasp. Presently he shrugged and fixed his frosty gaze on The Phantom.

"I'll give you just one more chance to surrender," he warned. "Throw down your pistol and tell us where Tagala is, and I promise you will not be harmed."

"Very anxious to learn Tagala's whereabouts--aren't you, Slade? Without Tagala you can't find the antidote, and without the antidote your beautiful scheme goes to pieces. It would be very awkward for you if you shouldn't be able to deliver the goods when your seven victims have come around to the point where they are willing to pay your price."

Slade mumbled something under his breath. Again The Phantom's eyes darted over the fringe of sullen faces in the background. He was gambling for Helen's life and his own, and he still held one card in reserve.

"Tagala seems to be the key to the whole situation," he went on. "I have hidden him in a place where you will never find him, even if you search from now till doomsday. Men sometimes die of hunger in three days, especially if they do a lot of fretting in the meantime. Slade, why don't you order your men to shoot me?"

The last sentence was spoken in taunting tones, and Slade's face showed that the gibe had gone home. Inwardly fuming, he glared savagely at The Phantom.

"Is it because you realize that, if I am killed, Tagala will die with me?" The Phantom's smile told that he once more felt he was master of the situation. "Is that the reason, Slade?"

Slade grumbled inarticulately. He glanced gloomily at the men lined up behind him. Then he looked again at The Phantom, and his face took on a baffled look. He seemed unable to account for the fact that one man, single-handed, was holding nine at bay. Suddenly, as his glance flitted up and down The Phantom's tense figure, his face brightened a trifle. He whispered something in the ear of the man at his side, and the latter immediately hurried away.

The Phantom felt a twinge of misgiving. It was evident from the gratified smirk on Slade's lips that an inspiration had just occurred to him and that he was planning a surprise of some sort. The Phantom wondered whether the resourceful Mr. Shei had provided against this latest emergency as he had against the others. He waited in a state of tremulous tension, and presently a slight sound drew his attention to the stairs at the end of the hall.

He glanced aside out of the tail of an eye, and then sudden despair took hold of him. Halfway up the stairs, gazing blankly down upon the scene in the hall, stood Helen Hardwick. There was a look in her face that caused a groan to break from The Phantom's lips.

Suddenly he stiffened. In an instant he saw the meaning of the elated smile on Slade's face. Directly behind Helen he discerned a crouching figure, evidently the man who had left the hall a few minutes before.

"Splendid!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Slade. "I see you have already glimpsed the idea. At this very moment the muzzle of a pistol is pressing against Miss Hardwick's back. The slightest pressure on the trigger will send a bullet through her heart. You cannot fire at him, much as you would like to do so, for Miss Hardwick's figure makes an excellent bulwark.

Will you admit you are beaten?"

Torn between rage and despair, The Phantom gazed rigidly at Helen. The stolid expression on her face showed plainly that she had not the faintest inkling of what was going on. Now and then her lips twitched as if she were on the point of laughing. Of the figure crouching behind her only an elbow and a narrow strip of shoulder were visible.

An anguished cry rose in The Phantom's throat as he saw the full infamy of Slade's ruse.

"I shall begin to count," said Slade in triumphant tones. "If, by the time I come to ten, you have not signified by throwing down your pistol that you are willing to surrender, Miss Hardwick will die instantly."

A hush, charged with an electric tension, followed the ultimatum.

Then, slowly and evenly, Slade began to count:

"One--two--three--four--five----"

CHAPTER XIX

A FUTILE SEARCH

Walking with his usual listless and shuffling gait, Lieutenant Culligore mounted the steps in front of police headquarters and entered the office of Inspector Stapleton of the detective bureau. It was late in the afternoon, and Culligore might have quickened his steps and carried himself with more animation if he could have known that at this very moment The Gray Phantom, seated in the secret chamber at Azurecrest, was planning his second move against the redoubtable Mr. Shei.

Stapleton, a huge, thick-necked man with a reddish face and a tendency toward irascibility, looked up with a scowl as the lieutenant walked in.

"Well, what's new?" he demanded.

"Nothing," said Culligore patiently and flopped into a chair beside the inspector's desk, "except that our friend Mr. Shei seems to be getting away with it."

Stapleton glared at a pile of newspapers he had been reading. His temper was on edge from his perusal of several editorials that chided the bureau for its failure to circ.u.mvent Mr. Shei.

"Two of the seven moneybags are already showing the white feather,"

Culligore continued, "and two or three of the others are getting wabbly. By the end of the week I guess most of 'em will be ready to pay Mr. Shei's price. I don't know how he means to manage the transaction, but I'll bet a pair of pink socks he'll figure out a safe way."

"What are the doctors doing? Still loafing on the job, I suppose?"

"They're up a tree--every mother's son of them. They can't dope out the disease at all. If they had seven months instead of seven days, they might be able to do something, but as it is, they're at the end of their tether. Their only hope is that one of the seven will be obliging enough to die before the others, so they can perform an autopsy."

Stapleton jerked his head savagely to one side. "This is the twentieth century and we're living in a civilized country," he muttered. "A man can't put over a thing like that in these times."

"Just what I've been telling myself for the last three days," admitted Culligore. "I've been saying it can't be done--but Mr. Shei is going right ahead and doing it."

"And he's pulling the trick right under our noses," supplemented the inspector. "That's what gets my goat. It's plain as day that Mr. Shei is The Gray Phantom. n.o.body but The Gray Phantom ever got away with a thing like this, and this job has all the ear-marks of his work.

Well," and his huge fist descended on the desk with a slam, "we'll get him yet, and when we do I'll see to it that he's put away for keeps."

Culligore drew the palm of his hand across his mouth as if to stifle one of his infrequent grins.

"Keeping something up your sleeve again?" demanded the inspector, who had noticed the gesture. "If you've got something on your mind, why don't you spring it?"

The lieutenant shifted his lanky figure in the chair. "I've been trying all day to get a line on Fairspeckle," he said slowly, without directly answering the inspector's question. "Queer how that old duffer vamoosed. I tried to question the j.a.p valet, but all he knows is that there are two b.u.mps on his head where there was only one before. The doctor and the nurse got rough treatment, too. Of a sudden the lights went out, and old Fairspeckle seemed to go out with them.

Anyhow, he was gone when the doctor came to." Culligore paused to light one of his vicious-looking cigars. "Something queer about that old goat's disappearance--eh, inspector?"

Stapleton stared hard at his subordinate, as if trying to read the thoughts stirring behind his stolid countenance. "Of course there is,"

he said irritably. "There's something queer about every disappearance.

Just what are you driving at? You don't doubt that Fairspeckle was kidnaped by Mr. Shei's agents?"

"I doubt everything, inspector. Know of any reason why Mr. Shei should go out of his way to abduct the old geezer?"

"No, I don't," admitted Stapleton after some thought. "The kidnaping of Fairspeckle doesn't seem to fit into the pattern of Mr. Shei's scheme. What's your idea, Culligore? You don't suppose Fairspeckle kidnaped himself?"

"Stranger things have happened, inspector. By the way," and the lieutenant reached into his pocket and took out several typewritten slips, "I meant to hand you these yesterday, but was too busy with other things. I found them beside the typewriter on Fairspeckle's desk. What do you make of them?"

Stapleton picked up the slips and glanced at them. His eyes widened into a stare as he read the typewritten lines. He read them twice, and then he transferred his gaze to Culligore.

"Holy mackerel!" he muttered. Then he sat silent for a time, wriggling his ample frame to and fro in the chair. "Why, these things make it look as though Fairspeckle was Mr. Shei."

"They show that the mystery isn't quite so simple as you thought, inspector. They sort of knock the pins from under your theory that The Gray Phantom is Mr. Shei."

For a few moments longer Stapleton's bewildered eyes rested on the slips. Then he read aloud the list of names beneath the introductory paragraph, and the pucker on his forehead deepened. Finally he looked quizzically at the lieutenant.

"Yes, I noticed it, too," said Culligore. "There's something queer about that list. Looks as though Mr. Shei, whoever he is, hadn't followed his original programme. Seven men were inoculated, but only five of them are named in Fairspeckle's list. The other two names don't jibe."

Stapleton pondered for a while. He seemed to have great difficulty readjusting his thoughts to a new fact.