Chapter XV: Dr. Tagala

Helen's little wrist watch showed a quarter past four.

Getting up from the chair, she roamed aimlessly about the room. Presently she stopped at the table and gazed down. The initials she had heedlessly scrawled in the dust were still there. The faint tracings that had betrayed her knowledge of Mr. Shei's identity seemed fraught with fate now. With a few idle strokes of the hand she had signed her own death warrant.

She could not have mistaken the sinister gleam she had seen in Slade's eyes as he looked down at the letters in the dust. His eyes had spelled her doom just as surely as the tracings on the table spelled the name by which Mr. Shei was known to the world at large. And the slam with which he had closed the door told even more eloquently than words that her life was forfeit.

Suddenly she felt a little hysterical. The fatal secret she had learned, the spectacular intrigues of Mr. Shei, even the scrawl in the dust seemed so trivial now that she felt an impulse to laugh. It was grotesque, she thought, that such a little thing as a couple of initials traced on the surface of a table should mean the blotting out of her life.

The house was very silent. No one had entered the room since Slade's departure, and she had spent the intervening hours in a state of musing detachment. Her thoughts and fancies flitted about in circles, and she had a curious impression that only her mind was functioning and that her emotions were numb. The slanting rays of the sun glimmered pleasantly on the furniture and she wondered abstractedly whether she should ever see the sunlight of another day. She glanced down at her dress, trimmed with delicate touches of red, and the thought struck her that perhaps she was wearing it for the last time. It was odd, she mused, that the prospect held no terror for her, and that her only feeling was a sense of dull, aching void.

Voices in the hall outside started her out of her reverie. The Gray Phantom's name, spoken in excited tones, sent an emotional quiver through her being and awoke her from her lethargy. Sensations, gentle and stimulating ones, stirred in the depths of her consciousness.

"The Gray Phantom," she whispered, looking pensively at the door. He had inspired her with emotions that she had never been quite able to understand. At times they had terrified her by their strangeness and power, for she had felt as if they were rousing new impulses within her and sweeping her along toward an unknown destiny. His career, bright and swift as the flash of a meteor, had intrigued her imagination even while she felt awed and a little frightened at the stories she heard about him. Of late he had tried to throw off the shackles of the past and start a new life, and she had watched his efforts with a strange and bewildering sense of sponsorship.

The voices in the hall had ceased now, but the name that had been spoken was still echoing in her ears and vibrating against hidden cords in her consciousness. Of a sudden the prospect of death, which a few minutes before she had contemplated without fear, filled her with dread and poignant regrets. The mere mention of a name had inspired in her a vehement desire to live.

She tiptoed to the door. It did not surprise her that Slade had left it unlocked. The picket fence, the ferocious Caesar, and the attendants made such a precaution unnecessary. She stepped out in the hall, then looked hesitantly about her, but she could see nothing of the men whose voices she had heard a few moments ago. At the end of the hall a door stood open, and she moved silently in that direction. Entering, she ran her eyes over long white benches on which were bottles, jars, and queer-looking apparatus. There was a reek of chemicals in the air, and she guessed it was a laboratory of some sort. It all seemed a little strange to her, but in the next moment her attention was engaged by voices coming through a partly open door at one side of the large room.

"Oh, it's serious enough," one of them was saying, and she instantly knew that the speaker was Slade. "The Gray Phantom is the only man alive who can queer Mr. Shei's game."

The words were spoken in a tone of reluctant respect that gave Helen a thrill. Coming from an enemy, it was a striking tribute to The Phantom's genius and power.

"Ah, The Gray Phantom! I have heard the name. One of your fascinating master criminals, is he not?" The second man spoke with the exaggerated precision that characterizes the educated foreigner. "But why does The Gray Phantom interfere in the affairs of Mr. Shei?"

Slade chuckled grimly. "That's hard to tell, Doctor Tagala. Perhaps for a number of reasons. Maybe he dislikes to see another man excel him at his own game. There's such a thing as professional jealousy even among crooks, you know. All we know for certain is that he arrived in New York the day Mr. Shei's notices were posted. One of our men saw him, and he was watched almost from the moment of his arrival. His actions indicated plainly that he had gone on the warpath against Mr. Shei. Confound the infernal meddler!"

"But Mr. Shei is a resourceful man," observed Doctor Tagala. "He surely can devise some means whereby this impudent fellow may be restrained."

"He has already done so. As you know, he motored back to New York early this morning, but I had a long-distance telephone conversation with him a few minutes ago. He made a very good suggestion, but the execution of it will have to be left to you."

"To me?"

"You remember hearing me speak of the young lady who came here looking for The Gray Phantom. Her name is Helen Hardwick, and she is much too astute for her own good. She's learned a number of things that won't bear repeating, and among them is the identity of Mr. Shei. Of course, as soon as I found out how much she knew, I saw that she would have to be put out of the way, and I told Mr Shei so over the telephone. He over-ruled my plan; or, rather, he suggested an improvement."

"What was it?"

"To let the young lady remain on earth five or six days longer; in other words, until Mr. Shei had cashed in his chips. You see, doctor, The Gray Phantom has quite a crush on the young lady, and he would rather go through hell fire than have a single hair on her head hurt."

Helen felt the blood rushing to her head.

"I am beginning to comprehend," remarked Doctor Tagala. "It is Mr. Shei's plan to keep The Gray Phantom in check by threatening to inflict harm on the young lady. An excellent idea, but a trifle vague."

"Oh, there's nothing vague about it, and it involves something far more substantial than mere threats. Can't you guess, doctor?"

There came an interval of silence. Evidently Doctor Tagala was exercising his imagination. Helen crept a little closer, then peered through the narrow crack between the door and the jamb. Only two or three feet from her, with his lips curled into a leer, sat Slade. Her eyes traveled a little farther until she saw Doctor Tagala, and suddenly she caught her breath. It required all her self-control to keep from betraying her presence. She had seen the face twice before, first in the Thelma Theater and later at the window of the room in which Slade had interviewed her shortly after her arrival at Azurecrest, and on each occasion the sight had given her a chill. The coarse and brutal features, framed by black hair that reached almost to the shoulders, stood out in sharp contrast to the man's cultured speech and polished manners. Again, as she saw the brutish lips and the flaming eyes, she received an impression of something evil and loathsome. She leaned weakly against the wall, and then she heard again Doctor Tagala's voice.

"I am very poor at making conjectures. You will have to enlighten me."

"Well, then, Mr. Shei's orders are that you are to inoculate the young lady with the laughing fever. You will calculate the dose just as you did in the cases of the seven millionaires. The Phantom will be told that the antidotes will be administered on the one condition that he goes back to his bailiwick and keeps his hands out of Mr. Shei's affairs. That will keep him on his good behavior for a week, and by that time Mr. Shei will have cleaned up."

"And the young lady?"

Slade laughed unpleasantly. "She knows too much, as I have already told you. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Much knowledge is apt to prove fatal. You will merely forget to administer the antidote when the time comes."

Doctor Tagala gave a rumbling laugh. Helen felt a sudden chill. She leaned weakly against the wall. Inoculation with what Slade had called the laughing fever seemed far more dreadful than death itself.

"By the way, doctor," Slade went on, "I hope the antidote is safely hidden?"

"You may rest assured on that point," Tagala declared. "I have hidden it so securely that not even Mr. Shei knows where to find it."

"Good. That being the case, our seven millionaire friends would be in a bad fix if a sudden misfortune should befall you."

"Nothing on earth could save them," said Tagala emphatically. "The secret is in my exclusive possession. No other man could diagnose the malady, much less prescribe a remedy. The lives of the seven gentlemen are absolutely in my hand."

"Then there isn't the slightest chance of Mr. Shei's plans falling through?"

"Not the slightest. The seven gentlemen will pay Mr. Shei's price, and within a week we shall all be rich beyond the dreams of avarice." The gloating tones hinted that Doctor Tagala's imagination was luxuriating in enchanting visions. "By the way, when do we inoculate the young lady?"

"Better wait till evening," suggested Slade. "There will be less danger of interruption then."

Helen turned away. She feared an involuntary cry of horror would betray her if she remained longer. Steadying herself with great difficulty, she stole out of the laboratory and slipped back into her room. Her watch showed half past five, and the inoculation would probably not take place for an hour or two. In the meantime she wanted to think and if possible find a way of escape, but the fierce pounding of the blood against her temples seemed to preclude clear thinking.

Her only distinct thought was that she must flee from Azurecrest no matter what dangers and difficulties she might encounter. She felt that The Gray Phantom would gladly fling his life away in order to protect her, but in this instance his hands were tied. He could not make a single move without rendering her predicament worse, and that fact would restrain him, much as he might rebel against his enforced inaction. Mr. Shei's men would point out to him that her safety depended on an unresisting attitude on his part. He could not know what she had just learned from the conversation between Slade and Tagala, that it was their intention to take her life, anyway.

Somehow, she told herself, she must manage to escape from the horrors awaiting her at Azurecrest. Even being clawed and torn by the savage dog seemed preferable to the slightest touch of Doctor Tagala's hand. She shuddered whenever her imagination conjured up a vision of his repelling features, and a hoarse cry rose in her throat at thought of being inoculated with the fearful malady. Miss Neville's maniacal outbursts were still ringing in her ears, and she remembered the hideous strains that had poured from the lips of the dying woman in the Thelma Theater.

The recollections filled her with sickening terror. With ghastly visions floating before her eyes, she rushed blindly from the room. The hall was deserted, and she scurried down the stairs as if pursued by a monster. She reached the outer door without hindrance, and a flickering hope began to stir within her as she scanned the wide stretch of lawn surrounding the house. The long shadows cast by the trees gave her an additional sense of safety. Swiftly, without a backward glance, she started to run. Her hopes rose higher and higher as she plunged into the thick shadows among the trees. In a few moments now, if her flight remained unnoticed, she would have reached the fence. Somehow she would manage to scale it, or maybe she could find an opening somewhere.

She quickened her pace, but of a sudden a low, rumbling growl sent a chill through her veins. She stopped, stood crouching behind the scraggy trunk of a hemlock, and glanced wildly in all directions. With great leaps and skips, a huge, black form was rushing toward her, its teeth gleaming ominously between slavering jaws. In a few moments it would be at her throat, and then---- Once more a vision of Doctor Tagala's repulsive features filled her with dread. Again she looked about her, then raced swiftly in the direction where the shadows were thickest. Behind her the underbrush crackled beneath the paws of the savage beast. In a moment or two he would be snapping at her heels.

Again hope rose within her. A squatty shed loomed within a narrow clearing. With the strength of frenzy she sped toward it. If she could reach it before the dog could overtake her, she would be temporarily safe. A great terror urged her on with the speed of the wind. Now the dog was snatching at the hem of her fluttering skirt, but she was already at the door. With a final exertion of strength she pushed it open and rushed in, then slammed it shut behind her. With a deep breath of relief she lurched against the wall. Suddenly she recoiled as from a blow.

"What are you doin' here?" queried a gruff voice.

She stared into the dusk around her. A few wisps of waning sunlight straggled in through a small window in the rear. Gradually, as her eyes grew accustomed to the dusk, she descried a stocky figure leaning over a shovel. It was the sour-faced individual who had opened the gate for her on her arrival at Azurecrest. Little by little, as her pupils responded to the dim light, she took in each detail of the scene. An amazed gasp slipped from her lips.

An oblong space had been torn up in the center of the flooring and on each side of it were little mounds of dirt. Instinctively she stepped closer and looked down into a rectangular hollow. She had a weird sensation that she was looking into a grave, and with a shudder she glanced up into the man's face.

"What--what's that?" she asked hoarsely, indicating the hollow.

The man guffawed. "Better not ask questions, miss. This is a nasty job, and you'd better clear out."

He looked aside just then, and she followed his glance. In a corner of the shed she saw a heap vaguely resembling a human form. Her feet seemed to drag her forward in spite of her horror, and she lifted the blanket that covered the figure. Then she stood rigid, her tightly drawn lips stifling the cry that rose in her throat. At once she recognized the features of Miss Neville, the woman whose maniacal laughter had startled her the night she arrived at Azurecrest. The face was white and rigid now, but the wraith of a ghastly smile lingered on her lips. A long, shuddering moan escaped her, and then she sank limply to the floor.

She had a weird sensation, during the hours that followed, that she was treading on the brink of oblivion. A merciful mist seemed to obscure everything. She was dimly aware of being carried from the shed and placed on a long, white table. Through the haze that engulfed her she glimpsed the repulsive features of Doctor Tagala. She felt a sting in the arm, and then a sickening substance raced through her veins. For a time she felt as though unseen hands were wafting her body through a limitless void. Somewhere--far away, she thought--there was laughter, and she had a curious impression that it was coming from her own lips.

Dawn came, and a flood of sunlight brightened the void through which she was roaming. The strange and wild fancies that had flitted around her throughout the night seemed to melt away, and now she saw things more clearly. She was standing at a telephone, and over the wire came a voice that sounded strangely familiar. Words poured from her lips, but they seemed futile and meaningless, and then an involuntary contraction of laryngeal muscles filled the room with wild strains of laughter. It frightened her, and just then a hand jerked her away.

"That'll do," said a voice, and she thought it was Slade's. "The Gray Phantom has heard enough."