The Gray Phantom Part 26

He laughed, turned away from the cot, and uttered a gasp as he looked into the muzzle of Culligore's pistol. Every trace of color faded from his face, but he gathered himself quickly.

"You are a most astounding person, Culligore," he remarked coolly. "I wonder how you found your way down here. Not that it matters," he added with a shrug, "but I am naturally curious. I won't press you for the information, however. Any way I can be of service?"

"Yes, Mr. Shei," said Culligore, emphasizing each word and looking straight into the other's eyes, "you can hold out your hands and not make any fuss while I put the handcuffs on you."

Starr laughed derisively. "Sorry not to be able to oblige you, but I have a distinct aversion to handcuffs. Won't you sit down and be comfortable? An underground room like this has many advantages. In the chests you see against the walls I occasionally store things that the police and private detectives would give a great deal to be able to lay their hands on. It is an excellent hiding place, and it serves several other purposes besides."

"So I see," muttered Culligore with a glance at the man on the cot.

Fairspeckle's face bore a dazed look and he seemed to understand nothing of what was being said, but his staring eyes held an expression of terror.

"I would like to know," murmured Starr, fixing his pale eyes on the lieutenant's inscrutable face, "how and when you learned that I was Mr. Shei. I was under the impression that you suspected Fairspeckle."

"I meant you should be," said Culligore with a dry chuckle. "I knew somebody was listening behind the marble ledge the day I had that talk with The Gray Phantom upstairs, and I guessed it was either you or one of your men. I pretended to believe that Fairspeckle was Mr. Shei, and I encouraged The Phantom in thinking the same thing, but all the while I was talking for the benefit of the fellow behind the marble slab. I had a pretty good suspicion as to who Mr. Shei was, and I wanted to throw him off his guard. Once a man gets careless it isn't hard to catch him."

Starr grinned appreciatively. "I'll admit that you are far shrewder than you look, Culligore, but I am not so sure that I have been guilty of carelessness. That remains to be seen. What I am curious to know is when you first began to suspect that I was Mr. Shei. You see, I have nothing to fear from you, so I frankly admit the fact. But I would like to know by what sort of reasoning you were led to suspect me."

"There wasn't any course of reasoning," said Culligore, maintaining a steady grip on his pistol. "It was only a flash here and there. The first flash came when I saw the note Virginia Darrow sent you the night she died. I guessed then that she had learned in some way that you were Mr. Shei, and she wanted to tease you with it. A little later, when you were handed that b.u.mp on the nose, I didn't know exactly what to think. Then it came to me that, if you really were Mr.

Shei, you would have yourself a.s.saulted along with the others to turn suspicion away from you. It was a clever move, Mr. Starr, but it didn't fool me for long. Well, a number of other things happened that strengthened my suspicion, but I wasn't really sure until I walked into this room to-night."

Starr scowled a little. "You are a bit disappointing, Culligore. I had hoped you would give me an example of fine-spun deductive reasoning of the kind that always drips from the lips of story-book detectives.

Just one more thing before we close this pleasant interview. How do you account for Mr. Fairspeckle?"

"Oh, that part was fairly easy. Fairspeckle is a queer sort, but he never did any real harm. He's been troubled with insomnia, and when a man can't sleep, he's likely to do any foolish thing, from writing poetry on a park bench to murdering his mother-in-law. The deeper the mystery, the simpler the explanation. That has been my experience, and it has held true in Fairspeckle's case. I'm not dead sure of my facts, but I can make a pretty close guess. The night Mr. Shei's notices were posted, Fairspeckle had been roaming the town as he always did when he couldn't sleep. He saw one of the notices in Times Square and, being one of the seven richest men in town, he didn't like the idea a bit.

Then The Gray Phantom came strolling along, and Fairspeckle recognized him. Like many others, he jumped at the conclusion that The Phantom was Mr. Shei, and right away he began to study out a way of beating Mr. Shei's game.

"By some hook or crook he got The Phantom into his apartment, and there he tried to drug him. He had two objects in view. One of them was to keep The Phantom under cover for a time so he wouldn't be able to go on with his scheme, and the other was to get even with certain enemies of his by throwing an almighty scare into them. While the real Mr. Shei, as he supposed, was a prisoner in his apartment, he meant to carry the scheme just a step or two farther--just far enough to put fear into his old enemies. It just so happened that five of those enemies were among the seven richest men in town. Well, Fairspeckle got a typewriter and went to work and typed a new set of notices, supplementing the ones that had already been posted. I hope he had a good laugh while he was typing the seven names, for that's all the good his scheme did him. A few hours later he was kidnaped. That was another fairly clever move, Starr."

Starr seemed to enjoy the compliment. "Thanks, Culligore," he murmured. "I knew you would appreciate that little touch. After overhearing the conversation between you and The Phantom, in which I thought you made it plain that both of you suspected Fairspeckle, I saw a still more effective way to divert suspicion from myself. Since you already suspected Fairspeckle, as I thought at the time, it occurred to me to let the suspicion take firmer root by having Fairspeckle disappear. A man who vanishes mysteriously is always an object of suspicion."

Culligore nodded absently. Only half his mind had been on Starr's speech. Now, still holding the automatic firmly leveled, he came a step closer to the other man.

"I don't like to muss you up," he said softly, "so please put out your hands and make no trouble."

Starr chuckled amusedly. "You are really surprisingly simple, Culligore. Your pistol doesn't frighten me, for I know you won't use it. And arresting me won't do you any good. If you put me in jail, the antidote will never be found, and then seven of the biggest men in the country will die. Don't you see, Culligore, that there isn't a thing you can do?"

His tones were soft and teasing, and his words expressed the same idea that Culligore himself had voiced in Inspector Stapleton's presence.

Slowly the lieutenant ran his eyes over the walls. The underground chamber, and especially the steel chests stacked along the side, would serve excellently as a hiding place. What more natural than the antidote should be concealed in one of the chests? It seemed----

He got no farther in his reasoning. Too swiftly for Culligore to interfere, Starr's hand moved to the wall at his side. A faint click sounded, and then blackness fell. Culligore sprang forward, but already a loud slam signified that the door had closed. He hurled himself against it, but he might as well have been pitting his strength against a brick wall.

"Trapped!" he muttered.

CHAPTER XXI

MR. SHEI'S STRATAGEM

A swarm of jumbled thoughts and emotions crowded each fraction of a second as The Gray Phantom, standing with his back against the door, heard Slade's slow and precise voice p.r.o.nounce the numerals. At each distinctly spoken word he started as if a rapier had prodded his flesh. His gaze was fixed on Helen, who from her position in the stairway stared down on the scene with eyes that appeared to see nothing, and the blank look in her face told him that she was mercifully oblivious of the meaning of it all.

With the speed of lightning, stray thoughts and impressions flashed through The Phantom's mind. Slade had warned him that Helen would die when he had counted ten, unless The Phantom surrendered in the meantime. At Helen's back, shielded by her body against a possible bullet from The Phantom's revolver, stood the executioner, ready to press the trigger.

Things swam in confusion before The Phantom's eyes. He would gladly have given his life if thereby he could save Helen from her predicament. But Slade dared not kill him just yet, not until he had learned where Doctor Tagala was hidden, and so he hoped to force The Phantom into submission by threatening Helen. The plan was subtle and fiendishly clever, and more than once, as the seconds dragged by, The Phantom had been on the point of yielding. The only thing that had restrained him was the belief that his surrender would only make the situation worse. It would deprive him of his precarious advantage, and then Helen's position would be doubly desperate.

Once he glanced at the automatic in his hand, wishing that he could fire a bullet into the figure crouching behind Helen. It was a forlorn hope, for the coward knew better than to expose himself. Again Slade's voice, p.r.o.nouncing each syllable with excessive precision, broke in upon his thoughts:

"--five--six--seven----"

The Phantom jerked up his head as an inspiration flashed through his mind. He still had an advantage, though his aching mind had not been able to grasp it until this very minute. Again his eyes sought the pistol drooping from his nerveless right hand.

"--eight--nine----" A note of hesitancy crept into Slade's accents, and he looked expectantly at The Phantom. Evidently he was reluctant to p.r.o.nounce the final word, the word that would mean Helen's death. He vastly preferred that The Phantom should accept his terms, but his face showed no sign of yielding from his purpose.

His lips opened, and in another moment the fatal word would have been spoken. But in that brief interval The Phantom acted, and the word never left Slade's lips. Instead he uttered a long-drawn-out exclamation of amazement.

The Phantom's maneuver had been both swift and surprising. The blue steel of his automatic had flashed for an instant in the dim light, and then he had pressed its muzzle firmly against his heart. For a few moments the crowd stared in dumfounded amazement; then a startled look in Slade's face showed that he understood. He bit his lip and suppressed a cry of rage.

"If Miss Hardwick dies, I die, too," declared The Phantom in gritty accents; and the metallic gleam of his eye and the note of grim earnestness in his voice left no doubt of his sincerity. "And you can't afford to let me die, Slade. With me dead, you would never find Tagala, and then the bottom would drop out of Mr. Shei's scheme."

Slade fumed and gnashed his teeth in impotent rage. A glance at The Phantom's face, smiling and yet grimly determined, seemed to increase his fury. But The Phantom's airy confidence was all on the surface. He knew that his dramatic gesture had only postponed the crisis, and already his mind was planning another move.

At last Slade's rage cooled and his reason rea.s.serted itself. Pointing to the stairway, he bawled an order to the man behind Helen to take her back to her room. The Phantom drew a long breath of relief as she was half led, half carried up the remaining steps; but the comfort the sight gave him was of brief duration.

Now Slade's finger was pointing at himself. "Take his gun away," he ordered the men lined up behind him. "Make a rush for him, all at once, but don't shoot. Go!"

The men bounded forward, but in the same instant The Phantom's pistol spoke twice. Two yells of pain followed the sharp cracks of the weapon, and the leaders of the rush sank to the floor. The others stopped, stared diffidently at the steadily pointing pistol, then wavered and fell back. Once more The Phantom had triumphed. He cast a quick glance at the two who had fallen. He had aimed to cripple, not to kill, and he could see that their wounds were not serious.

Slade shook his fist at the cowering men.

"Are you all white-livered kittens?" he shouted. "Are you going to let one man bluff you? Rush at him again, all together!"

The Phantom tensed himself for the attack. He quavered inwardly as he recalled that only two slugs remained in his cartridge chamber. He crouched behind the pistol, fixing each man in turn with a piercing gaze. The line advanced with a rush. Someone, more intrepid than the others, seized one of his legs and tried to pull him to the floor, but The Phantom disposed of him with a vigorous kick. The next was dispatched with a well-aimed bullet, and the third went reeling to the floor from a blow with the b.u.t.t of his pistol. He took careful aim before he fired his one remaining shot, and a scream of agony told that the bullet had found its mark. Again the line wavered and broke.

On the floor lay five who had been maimed by The Phantom's bullets and one who was still unconscious from the blow with the pistol. Of the original eleven combatants only five remained, but also The Phantom's ammunition was spent, and at any moment one or more of the wounded might revive and get back into the fray.

Slade's face was white with helpless rage. He could not know that The Phantom's cartridge chamber was empty. He stamped his foot and again shook his fist at the men. Taking advantage of his temporary distraction, The Phantom glided forward and, stooping quickly, s.n.a.t.c.hed a pistol from the cramped fingers of one of the wounded. Then he threw down his own weapon and hurried back to his position at the door.

Slade noticed his sudden move out of the tail of an eye, but not soon enough to prevent it. He turned again to the remnant of his little army. His face was dark and bore an ominous scowl.

"We will get him yet," he declared, snarling. "Form a line and take aim, but don't shoot to kill. Aim for the arms and legs only. Don't shoot until I give the word."

The men spread out in a half circle, and The Phantom saw five pistols pointing at him. There was a malevolent grin on Slade's lips as he watched the preparations. Then he stepped to one side of the half circle.

"Fire!" he commanded.

The Phantom ducked just as a chorus of shots rang out. A stinging sensation in the shoulder told him he had been hit, but he choked back the cry of pain that rose in his throat. A dense film of powder hung in the air, and for a few moments the firing line was only a row of shadowy forms. The Phantom thought of flight, but someone opened a window and the smoke quickly scattered. In the next instant the blare of a motor horn was heard in the distance.

The men exchanged quick glances, and The Phantom fancied he saw a look of relief on Slade's face. In the muttered conversation that followed he made out the name of Mr. Shei, and new misgivings caused him to forget the stinging pain in his shoulder. Slade's handling of the situation had exposed him as a bungler, but for Mr. Shei's ingenuity and resourcefulness The Phantom had a high respect. If Mr. Shei had arrived, as the blare of the horn and the conversation among the men seemed to signify, then a new and more critical situation awaited him.