CHAPTER VI--THE WAY OUT
Dusk was falling, and the little room was almost dark. The suddenattack, all the more surprising because of Pinto's previous air ofstolidity, had left the Phantom a trifle dazed, but in a twinkling herealized the full seriousness of his dilemma. The door had no soonerslammed than he was on his feet, regaining his breath and flexing hismuscles for action.
With a spring agile as a panther's he threw himself against the door.Once it had succumbed to the superior weight of Patrolman Pinto's body,but the Phantom's leaner and nimbler figure was no match for its solidresistance. After thrice hurling himself against the obstruction, he sawthat he was only wasting time and strength.
Hurriedly he switched on the light. From his pocket he took a boxcontaining an assortment of small tools which on several occasions hadstood him in good stead. In vain he tried to manipulate the lock,finding that it was too solidly imbedded in the wood. Next he tried thehinges, but the flaps were fastened on the other side of the door andtherefore inaccessible. He cudgeled his wits, but to no avail; evidentlythe door was an impassable barrier. It seemed by far the mostsubstantial part of the room, suggesting that Gage might have had itspecially constructed as a protection against burglars.
He sprang to the window, then recalled that he had already ascertainedthat it was too narrow to permit him to crawl through. Anotherprecaution of the wily Sylvanus Gage, he grimly reflected. His eyes,quick and crafty, darted over floor, ceiling, and walls, but nowherecould he see a sign of a movable panel or a hidden passage, and heremembered Mrs. Trippe's statement that headquarters detectives hadspent half a day searching for a secret exit. Though he worked his witsat furious speed, the situation baffled his ingenuity.
The Phantom perceived he was trapped. The amazing luck that had attendedhim in the past had made him reckless and indiscreet, and now it seemedto have deserted him like a fickle charmer. He supposed that Pinto, tooshrewd to attempt to deal single-handed with such a slippery anddangerous adversary as the Gray Phantom, was already in communicationwith headquarters, summoning reenforcements. In a few minutes he wouldbe hemmed in on all sides and pounced upon by overwhelming numbers ofpolicemen, and in a little while the newspapers would shriek thesensation that at last the Gray Phantom had been captured.
It surprised him that he could view the end of his career withphilosophical calm, unaffected by vain regrets. He had always suspectedthat some day an overbold play on his part would result in his undoing,and he had trained himself to look upon his ultimate defeat with theindifference of a cynic and fatalist, but he had never guessed that thecrisis would come like this. He smiled faintly as it dawned on him thatthe disaster which now stared him in the face was the direct result ofhis determination to vindicate himself in the eyes of a woman. He hadplayed for high stakes in the past, but Helen Hardwick's faith in himwas the highest of them all.
His smile faded as quickly as it had come. There was a sting in therealization that his boldest and biggest game was foredoomed to failure.Only a few more minutes of liberty remained, and after that all chanceof exculpating himself would be gone. Officer Pinto, having becomefamous of a sudden as the Gray Phantom's captor, would now, more thanever before, be beyond suspicion, and he could be depended upon to makethe most of his advantage. The Phantom, whose hands had never beensullied by contact with blood, would be an object of horror and loathingas the perpetrator of a vile and sordid murder. Helen Hardwick, like allthe rest, would shudder at mention of his name.
The dismal thoughts went like flashes through his mind. Only a fewminutes had passed since the door slammed. The thought of Helen Hardwickcaused a sudden stiffening of his figure and imbued him with a fiercedesire for freedom. He refused to believe that his star had set and thatthis was the end. Many a time he had wriggled out of corners seeminglyas tight and unescapable as the present one, chuckling at thediscomfiture of the police and the bedevilment of his foes. Why could henot achieve another of the astounding feats that had made his namefamous?
He spurred his wits to furious effort, repeatedly telling himself thatsomewhere there must be a way out. It was hard to believe that a manlike Sylvanus Gage, living in constant danger of a surprise visit by thepolice, had not provided himself with an emergency exit. Despite thefailure of the detectives to find it, there must be a concealed door orsecret passage somewhere, though without doubt it was hidden in a wayworthy of Gage's foxlike cunning.
He ran to the door and shot the bolt. The police would be forced tobreak their way in, and this would give him a few moments' respite.Again, as several times before in the last few minutes, his eyes strayedto the window. Though he knew it was far too narrow to afford a means ofescape, it kept attracting his gaze and tantalizing his imagination.Deciding to make a second attempt, he hastened across the floor, pushedup the lower sash, and edged his shoulder into the opening. Writhe andwriggle as he might, he could not squeeze through. Even a man of Gage'sscrawny build would have become wedged in the frame had he attempted it.
Outside the house a gong clanged, signaling the arrival of the policepatrol. From the front came sharp commands and excited voices. Already,the Phantom guessed, a cordon was being thrown around the block,ensnaring him like a fish in a net. Precious moments passed, and stillhe was unable to take his eyes from the window. A vague andunaccountable instinct told him that his only hope of safety lay in thatdirection.
He raised the shade a little and looked out upon a court disfigured byramshackle sheds and heaps of refuse. Several temporary hiding placesawaited him out there, if he could only get through the window. Even anextra inch or two added to its width would enable him to wriggle out ofthe trap. But how----
The answer came to him with sudden, blinding force. Yet it was simpleand obvious enough; in fact, the only reason he had not thought of itbefore was that his mind had been searching for something more intricateand remote. It had not occurred to him that the extra inch or two thathe needed could be provided by the simple expedient of dislodging thewindow frame.
Already his fingers were tearing and tugging at the woodwork. He noticedthat the casements were thick, so that the removal of the frame wouldgive him considerable additional space, yet he had been at work only afew moments when he discovered that his plan was far more difficult ofexecution than he had expected. The frame, at first glance, ill-fittingand insecurely fastened, resisted all his efforts. His nails were tornand there were bleeding scratches on his fingers. He looked about himfor something that he could use as a lever.
Someone was trying the lock, then came a loud pounding on the door.
"Open!" commanded a voice.
The Phantom, failing to find any implement that would serve his purpose,inserted his fingers beneath the sill and tugged with all his strength.
"Come and get me!" was the taunt he flung back over his shoulder. Thenhe pulled again, but the sill did not yield. He straightened his bodyand attacked the perpendicular frame to the right but again heencountered nothing but solid resistance.
"The game's up, Phantom," said the voice outside the door. "Might aswell give in. If you don't we'll bust the door."
The Phantom worked with frantic strength. His knuckles were bruised, hismuscles ached, and sweat poured from his forehead.
"I'll drill a hole through the first man who enters this room," he criedloudly, hoping that the threat would cause the men outside to hesitatefor a few moments longer before battering down the door. Then, placinghis feet on the sill, he centered his efforts on the horizontal bar atthe top.
A quick glance through the window revealed a broad-shouldered man inuniform standing with his back to a shed. Evidently the cordon wastightening. Even if he succeeded in getting through the window, he wouldhave to fight his way through a human barrier. The outlook was almosthopeless, but he persisted with the tenacity that comes of despair. Hesprang from the sill, turned the electric light switch, plunging theroom into darkness and hiding his movements from the eyes of the manoutside, then leaped back to his former position
and tugged frenziedlyat the horizontal piece.
Of a sudden his hand slipped and a metallic protuberance scratched hiswrist. With habitual attention to detail, he wound his handkerchiefaround the injured surface, stopping the flow of blood. If by a miraclehe should succeed in getting out, he did not care to leave behind anyclews to his movements. Another sharp glance through the windowsatisfied him that the man at the shed was not looking in his direction.Then he ran his fingers along the horizontal frame, found the objectthat had wounded him, and discovered that it was a nail.
The hubbub outside the door had ceased momentarily. Suddenly there camea loud crash, as if a heavy body had dashed against the door. ThePhantom, a suspicion awakening amid the jumble of his racing thoughts,fingered the nail, twisting it hither and thither. It occurred to him ina twinkling that it was an odd place for a nail, since it could serve noapparent purpose. In a calmer moment he would have thought nothing ofit, but his mind was keyed to that tremendous pitch where minor detailsare magnified.
Another crash sounded, accompanied by an ominous squeaking of crackingtimber. He bent the nail to one side, noticing that its resistance topressure was elastic, differing from the inert feel of objects firmlyimbedded in solid wood. An inspiration came to him out of the stress ofthe moment. He twisted the nail in various directions, at the same timetugging energetically at a corner of the frame.
Once more a smashing force was hurled against the door, followed by aportentous, splintering crack. Quivering with suspense, his mind fixedwith desperate intentness on a dim, tantalizing hope, the Phantomcontinued to bend and twist the nail at all possible angles. He knewthat at any moment the door was likely to collapse, and then----
He uttered a hoarse cry of elation. Of a sudden, as he bent the nail ina new direction, it gave a quick rebound, and in the same instant theframe yielded to his steady pull, as if swinging on a hinge, revealingan opening in the side of the uncommonly massive wall. For a moment hisdiscovery dazed him, then a terrific crash at the door caused him topull himself together, and in a moment he had squeezed his figure intothe aperture.
He drew a long breath and wiped the blinding, smarting perspiration fromhis face. Thanks to an accidental scratch on the wrist, he haddiscovered Sylvanus Gage's emergency exit. And none too soon, foralready, with a splitting crash, the door had collapsed under therepeated onslaughts of the men outside, and several shadowy forms werebursting headlong into the room.
The Phantom, wedged in the narrow opening, seized the side of therevolving frame and drew it to. A little click signified that a springhad caught it and was holding it in place. Excited voices, muffled bythe intervening obstruction, reached his ears. He smiled as he picturedthe consternation of the detectives upon discovering that once more theGray Phantom had lived up to his name and achieved another of theamazing escapes that had made him feared and secretly admired by thekeenest sleuths in the country.
He had no fear that the police would follow him, for his discovery ofthe secret exit had been partly accidental and partly due to theaccelerated nimbleness of mind that comes to one laboring undertremendous pressure. To the police the nail on the top of the windowframe would be nothing but a nail. It is the hunted, not the hunter,whose mind clutches at straws, and they would never guess that the nailwas a lever in disguise. The Phantom, as he contemplated the ingeniousarrangement, found his respect for the dead man's inventiveness risingseveral notches.
From the other side of the wall came loud curses, mingling with dazedexclamations, baffled shouts and expressions of incredulity. With alaugh at the discomfiture of his pursuers, who but a few moments ago hadthought him inextricably trapped, the Phantom moved a little fartherinto the opening. It appeared to be slanting slowly into the ground, andit was so narrow that each wriggling and writhing movement bruised someportion of his body. Inch by inch he worked his way downward, wonderingwhither the passage might lead. Now the voices in the room were almostbeyond earshot, and he could hear nothing but a low, confused din.
Presently he felt solid ground at his feet, and at this point thepassage turned in a horizontal direction. There was a slight current ofdank air in the tunnel, suggesting that its opposite terminus might be acellar or other subterranean compartment. Limbs aching, he movedforward, with slow twists and coilings of the body. He estimated that hehad already covered half a dozen yards, and he wondered how much fartherthe passage might reach. One thing puzzled him as he writhed onward. Whyhad Gage not made use of the secret exit on the night of the murder? Wasit, perhaps, because the murderer had come upon him so suddenly that hehad not had time to reach the hidden opening?
He dismissed the question as too speculative. A few more twists andjerks, and he found himself in an open space where he could standupright and move about freely. For a few moments he fumbled around inthe inky darkness, finally encountering a stairway. He ascended asquietly as he could, taking pains that the squeakings of the decayingstairs should not disturb the occupants above. Reaching the top, helistened intently while his hand searched for a doorknob. Slowly andwith infinite caution he pushed the door open. Again he stopped andlistened. The room was dark and still, and he could distinguish noobjects, yet his alert mind sensed a presence, and he felt a pair ofsharp eyes gazing at him through the shadows.
Then, out of the gloom and silence came a voice:
"Don't move!"
The words were a bit theatrical, but the voice caused him to startsharply. A few paces ahead of him he saw a blurry shape. His hand dartedto his hip pocket; then he remembered that he had left his pistol in thegrip at his hotel, for when he started out he had not expected that hisenterprise would so soon take a critical turn.
"Hold up your hands," commanded the voice, and again an odd quiver shotthrough the Phantom.
Nonchalantly he found his case and thrust a cigarette between his lips.Then he struck a match, advanced a few paces, gazed sharply ahead as thefluttering flame illuminated the scene, and came to a dead stop.
He was looking straight into the muzzle of a pistol, and directly behindthe bluishly gleaming barrel he saw the face of Helen Hardwick.
The Gray Phantom's Return Page 6