CHAPTER X
A SHOT
At noon of the same day a scene equally tense, but of quite adifferent character, was being enacted in the library of W. RufusFairspeckle.
Dazedly The Gray Phantom set the telephone down. In tones too low forthe older man to catch, he mumblingly repeated the startling messagethat had just come to him over the wire: "Mr. Shei speaking. If youvalue Miss Hardwick's life, I would advise you to abandon your presentplans."
One by one, and in the order in which they had been spoken, the wordstrickled into his benumbed consciousness. He had heard Mr. Shei'svoice over the wire. He had been mistaken, then, and the shrunken andwizened man seated before him with eyes staring and mouth agape couldnot be Mr. Shei. Even the evidence of the typewritten slips lying onthe desk seemed to mean nothing against the fact that the notoriousrogue had just communicated with him by telephone.
"What--what's the matter?" stammered Mr. Fairspeckle, who, not havingthe faintest inkling as to the nature of the message received by ThePhantom, was at a loss to understand the latter's demeanor. "Anythingwrong?"
The Phantom scarcely heard him. The significance of the last part ofMr. Shei's message came to him in a flash. In a twinkling his mind wasfunctioning again. His eyes were threatening, like miniature thunderclouds. A new and dynamic impulse seemed to dominate his whole being.He snatched up the telephone directory and found a number. Then hefairly hurled himself at the telephone, frantically jigged the hook upand down, shouted a number into the transmitter, and waitedbreathlessly till the connection was established.
A woman's voice, evidently that of a servant, answered. Miss Hardwickwas not in, she explained, and when pressed for further informationadmitted that she had not been seen since breakfast the previous day.Mr. Hardwick, ill at ease because of his daughter's absence, wasinstituting inquiries for her in various directions, and the servantdid not know where he could be reached.
The Phantom's eyes blazed as he set the instrument down with a slam.Mr. Fairspeckle, a flabbergasted look in his bulging eyes, seemedutterly at a loss to comprehend what was going on. For a moment ThePhantom eyed him narrowly, then cast a bewildered glance at thetypewritten slips, and finally turned abruptly on his heels and dashedfrom the room.
No one interrupted him. He suspected that Haiuto was lurking somewherein the background, but he saw nothing of the sly-footed servant as herushed from the apartment and, forgetting the existence of theelevator, scurried down three flights of stairs. The ferret-eyedindividual whom he had seen from the window was still standing at theopposite curb, but he did not deign a single glance in The Phantom'sdirection. Block after block, spurred on by a medley of anguishingdoubts and suspicions, The Phantom continued his heedless progress,conscious only of the one agonizing thought that something hadhappened to Helen Hardwick.
Presently he awoke to a realization of the futility and recklessnessof his conduct. His fears for Helen Hardwick had blunted his wits andstultified his reason, making him forget his old-time caution andnimbleness of mind. To no purpose he was rushing blindly into a net ofdangers. With a mutter of disgust at his childish impetuosity, he drewin his steps and turned into a convenient doorway. A glance up anddown the street assured him that, thanks to luck alone, his headlongcourse seemed to have attracted no attention. He scanned the crowd onall sides, but there was no sign of either espionage or pursuit. Hehad vaguely expected to be followed by the keen-eyed watcher he hadseen on the sidewalk outside the Whipple Hotel, but the man wasnowhere in sight. For the present, at least, The Phantom was safe. Nowhe must think clearly and act coolly.
He could not rid himself of the suspicion that Helen's volatile natureand venturesome disposition had led her into some fearful predicament.He knew she had an infinite capacity for handling difficultsituations, but the knowledge gave him scant comfort. He revolved theproblem of her disappearance in his mind. She had been missing formore than twenty-four hours. He sensed a dim significance in the factthat she had passed out of sight the morning following the tragedy atthe Thelma Theater, and of a sudden he asked himself whether therecould be any possible connection between her disappearance and thedeath of Virginia Darrow.
Several circumstances lent plausibility to the theory. Chief amongthem was the mysterious warning The Phantom had received from Mr.Shei, the man who was generally believed to have been implicated inMiss Darrow's death. The Phantom's mind was working swiftly now,leaping barriers and rushing straight to conclusions. It was Helen'splay, he remembered, that had been produced on the night of thetragedy, and it was very probable that she had been present at the_premiere_ performance. Knowing her as he did, he thought itconceivable that she had come into possession of some vital factsbearing on the tragedy. Her inquisitive mind, though untainted byvulgar curiosity, was always dipping into mysteries of one sort oranother, and it was possible that on this occasion her natural benthad led her into conflict with Mr. Shei.
Almost before he realized what he was doing, The Phantom was in ataxicab, shouting to the chauffeur to drive him to the Thelma Theater.It seemed the logical starting point in his search; at least, he didnot know where else to begin, and by visiting the scene of MissDarrow's death, he might be able to pick up some clew to Helen'smovements.
The doors were open, and he thought this somewhat strange in view ofthe fact that a poster on the outer wall announced that theperformances of "His Soul's Master" had been discontinued, but thecircumstance did not linger long in his mind. The box office and lobbybeing empty, he passed unchallenged into the auditorium. For a fewmoments, while his eyes grew accustomed to the dusk, he stood justinside the door, trying to call back to mind each detail of thetragedy as it had been narrated in the newspapers, and presently therecame to him a conviction that he was not alone, but that someone waswatching him intently.
He could not account for the impression, for no sound reached hisears, and the interior was only a mass of gently undulating shadows inwhich he saw no indication of another's presence. The atmosphere wassomewhat oppressive, and a multitude of faint scents lingered in theair, hinting that the theater had not been ventilated since the lastperformance. Glancing sharply into the gloom about him, The Phantomgroped his way down the center aisle, then explored the passageways ateach side of the house, and finally looked into each of the boxes. Hissearch availed him nothing, and at length he was forced to admit thathis imagination had tricked him.
Walking to the rear of the house, he stood with his back against apillar, and gazed toward the last row of seats to the left. It wasthere, according to the diagram he had seen in one of the papers, thatVirginia Darrow had sat when seized with the strange fit of laughter.Again he wondered what bearing the woman's death might have on Mr.Shei's latest venture. The connection, if there was one, seemed soremote that he came to the conclusion that Mr. Shei must be at work ona very intricate and deep-laid scheme. Then it occurred to him thathis speculations, founded on insufficient facts, were a waste of time.They were not helping him to solve the mystery of Helen Hardwick'sdisappearance.
As was his habit when he wished to concentrate his mind on a problem,he took a cigarette from his case, then struck a match against thesole of his shoe. Absently he held the fluttering light to the tip ofthe cigarette, and inhaled. Suddenly he sprang aside, for a sound, allbut too faint for his ears to detect, had warned him of danger, and inthe same instant a sharp crack and a flash of fire leaped out of thedarkness. Then an object whizzed past his head and with a thuddingsound imbedded itself in the pillar against which he had been leaning.
In a moment he had extinguished his cigarette. He could see now thatits glowing point, together with the match, had made him a target forthe person who had fired the shot. The bullet had passed so close tohis head that, but for his quick and agile backward spring, it wouldundoubtedly have killed him. His narrow escape had an exhilaratingeffect, and he dashed toward the point where he had seen the flash offire, determined to capture the would-be murderer. It was hisimpression that the shot had been fire
d only a dozen feet away, and hedid not think the man could have escaped.
In the gloom he could not distinguish objects clearly, and he dashedheadlong against a post. The contact sent a stinging sensation throughhis head, and in the same moment a figure glided silently past him andwas swallowed by the shadows at the other side of the house. Again ThePhantom rushed forward. A swiftly moving object, a shade darker thanthe surrounding dusk, was discernible down the aisle leading to theboxes at the right. The Phantom darted after it, but when he reachedthe point his quarry had disappeared. For an instant he stopped,uncertain which way to turn, and in the midst of his perplexity thevaricolored lights along the walls were flashed on.
The Phantom whirled round. Near one of the exits in the rear of thehouse stood a tall, slenderly proportioned man. His long, glossy hairwas rumpled, and even at a distance The Phantom could see that hisfeatures, so regularly molded as to give an impression of effeminacy,were intensely pale. He approached swiftly. The two men eyed eachother intently before either spoke.
"You are Mr. Starr, I believe?" began The Phantom, recognizing theother from photographs he had seen in the newspapers.
Starr nodded. His right hand was clutching a revolver. Coming closer,The Phantom noticed that his nose was discolored and swollen, probablythe result of the attack that had preceded the disappearance ofVirginia Darrow's body.
"I owe you an apology for intruding like this," he went on, "but theformalities can wait. There was a shot fired here a few moments ago,and I believe it was meant for me."
"I was at work in my office upstairs when I heard something thatsounded like a revolver shot," explained Starr. "I armed myself andcame down to investigate." His voice, at other times perfectlymodulated, was a little husky, and he seemed unduly conscious of hisdisfigured nose. He maintained a tight grip on his pistol whileregarding The Phantom with a look of suspicion.
"We ought to search the house at once," suggested The Phantom. "Thescoundrel can't have gone far."
Starr readily acquiesced, but from time to time while they went onwith the search The Phantom felt the other's stealthy gaze searchinghis face, and each time he saw a look of dawning recognition inStarr's eyes. He thought nothing of it, for the capture of the man whohad fired the shot seemed of far greater importance. Deep in his mindwas a faint and remote hope that the fellow, if caught, might bepersuaded to tell something of what had happened to Helen Hardwick.
They searched every conceivable space in the auditorium, back of thestage, and finally in the storerooms and dressing rooms down below,but without avail. As they abandoned their quest The Phantom thoughthe saw signs of increasing nervousness on Starr's part.
"Strange how the scoundrel disappeared," he remarked when once morethey stood in the back of the auditorium.
"No stranger than what happened here night before last." Starr spokewith a touch of petulance in his voice and manner. "Mr. Shei and hishenchmen seem to have a knack of walking through solid walls. What Iobject to most is his evident determination to make my theater thescene of his diabolical activities. By the way," and he fixed ThePhantom with a look of mingled perplexity and suspicion, "haven't youand I met before?"
"Not in person, unless I am mistaken." The Phantom, alert against theslightest threatening move on the other's part, smiled faintly. "Thenewspapers have been kind enough to give me some publicity from timeto time, and you may have seen my photograph. Suppose we let it go atthat."
"As you wish, of course," murmured Starr, his lips twitching, "but weshall be able to talk to better advantage if we first complete theintroductions. I was almost certain I recognized you at first glance.You are The Gray Phantom. But don't get startled," he quickly added asThe Phantom suddenly stiffened. "My interest in life is purelyesthetic. I am trying, in my small and humble way, to uplift the dramafrom the sordid depths into which it has fallen through the stupidityand avarice of managers. The capture and punishment of criminalsinterest me not at all. To be perfectly frank with you, as between thepolice and a fascinating rogue like yourself, my sympathies are withthe latter."
He made an expressive gesture, and The Phantom watched with interestthe slight, quick and marvelously impressive motions of his hands.Though this was his first meeting with the man himself, the gestures,as well as the characteristic backward toss of the head, seemed oddlyfamiliar.
"I think you are mistaken about one thing," Starr went on, hisnervousness returning. "Is there any reason why anyone should wish toput you out of the way?"
"None that I know of," replied The Phantom thoughtfully. "I suppose Ihave enemies, but it didn't occur to me that anyone was after my lifeuntil that shot was fired."
"And weren't you a bit precipitate in jumping at the conclusion thatthe bullet was intended for you? Suppose you give me the details."
The Phantom told him the meager facts of the firing of the shot.
"There you are!" exclaimed Starr when he had finished. "The fellowcouldn't see your face. All he saw was the match, and he used that asa target, knowing you were holding it directly in front of your facewhile lighting the cigarette." He took a few quick, nervous steps backand forth. He clenched and unclenched his hands as if trying to quella rising trepidation. Suddenly he paused directly in front of ThePhantom. "That bullet was not intended for you, but for me," hedeclared emphatically.
"Are you sure?"
"Not sure, but I have the best of reasons for supposing that such isthe fact. I have had several intimations of danger in the past fewweeks, but it isn't necessary to go into details. Since night beforelast I have wondered what prompted Miss Darrow to send me thefacetiously worded note hinting that Mr. Shei was in the house. If shewere alive I am sure she could tell us several interesting thingsabout---- But what's the good of supposing? Miss Darrow will never beable to tell what was in her mind when she wrote me that note. Onlyone thing is certain. She was killed because she had, in someunexplained manner, learned Mr. Shei's identity."
The Phantom regarded him narrowly. "Some people seem to be of theopinion that I am Mr. Shei."
"Rot! The similarity between your tactics and those of Mr. Shei isonly superficial. The essential difference ought to be plain even to astupid headquarters detective. Besides, you never took life or---- Butthe idea is too absurd to waste breath on. Let us be practical. Youhave not yet explained why you are honoring the Thelma Theater withthis visit."
The Phantom was about to reply when one of the doors in front waspushed open and the shadow of a masculine figure fell across thefloor. After a glance into the face of the newcomer, The Phantomsensed danger and tried to retreat into a corner where the dim lightheld out a faint hope of brief security. But it was too late.
"Stay right where you are," commanded the man who had just entered."Didn't know The Gray Phantom was back in town. Step out here where Ican look at you."
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