Chapter XVI: The Other Link

The room was in total darkness save for a tiny sliver of light filtering in through a crack between the packing cases stacked against the window. The prowler advanced gropingly after closing the door behind him, and from time to time he cleared his throat with little rasping sounds, as some persons do when laboring under intense excitement.

The Phantom, wedged in a narrow opening between two rows of boxes, presently heard a faint scraping, as if the intruder were passing his hand back and forth in search of a light switch. All he could see was a shadow moving hither and thither in the gloom, but the prowler's quick breathing and jerky footsteps told that, whatever might be his errand, he was going about it in a state of great trepidation.

A sudden flash of light caused the Phantom to press hard against the wall, for he wished to ascertain the other's business before making his presence known. He judged from the sounds made by the prowler that he must be at the opposite side of the room, and a succession of loud, creaking noises indicated that he was dragging some of the cases away from the wall. After a little the sounds ceased and the only audible thing was the prowler's hard panting, mingling now and then with a low, hoarse mutter.

The Phantom stood very still. A curious feeling was stealing over him. It was the same weird and oppressive sensation he had experienced shortly after entering the room, but now it was more pronounced, filling him with a sense of awe which he could not understand.

The prowler's footfalls, moving toward the door, broke the spell. The Phantom, casting off the uncomfortable sensation with a shrug of his shoulders, stepped out from his hiding place just as a hand gripped the doorknob.

"Hello, Pinto!" He spoke in a drawl, toying carelessly with his pistol. Out of the corner of an eye he slanted a look at an object lying on the floor. It had not been there when he entered.

The patrolman's face had been white even before he spoke; now it was ashen and ghastly. His eyes, wide with horror, bored into the Phantom's face. Several times he moistened his twitching lips before he was able to speak.

"Where did you co--come from?" he gasped.

"Why, nowhere in particular. Just taking a walk. Changed my mind about going home. But don't look at me as if I was a ghost. Makes me nervous. Great heavens, what's this?"

He started at the grewsome heap on the floor as if he had just now chanced to cast eye upon it. Pinto made a heroic effort to steady himself. His quavering gaze moved reluctantly toward the motionless form lying a few feet from where he stood.

"That's--that's Mrs. Trippe," he announced, twisting his head and working his Adam's apple as if on the point of choking.

"So I see." The Phantom stepped closer to the body, regarded it gravely for a few moments, then lifted his narrowing gaze to the policeman's twitching face. "Where did it come from, Pinto?"

The officer was gradually gaining control of himself. He took out his handkerchief and mopped his perspiring forehead. "Awful sight--ain't it, Granger? I thought I heard some kind of racket just as I was passing the house. I tried the doors, and the one at the side was unlocked. I thought it was queer, for I had made sure it was locked when I passed the other time, so I ran up the stairs and looked around. When I came in here and turned on the light, I found that thing lying there. It broke me all up. Fine scoop for your paper, Granger, if you grab it before the other reporters do."

Smiling, the Phantom looked Pinto squarely in the eye. "Your story needs a little dressing up. It doesn't hang together. Maybe you would have been able to think up a better one if your nerves hadn't been on the jump. For one thing, Pinto, no cop goes into hysterics at sight of a dead body unless his conscience is giving him the jimjams. For another, you didn't find the body where it is lying now. Unless I am very much mistaken, you dragged it out from behind those packing cases."

He pointed to a corner of the room where several large boxes had been displaced. The shamefaced expression of a man caught in a clumsy lie mingled with the look of dread in Pinto's countenance.

"What you driving at?" he demanded with a feeble show of bluster.

The Phantom's mind worked quickly. In the last fifteen minutes his suspicions in regard to Pinto had become a certainty. The policeman's conduct left not a shred of doubt as to his guilt, but the evidence the law would require was still lacking. Pinto would soon gather his wits and invent a more plausible explanation than the one he had just given, and on an issue of veracity between the Gray Phantom and an officer of the law, the latter would have all the advantages. The Phantom, swiftly appraising the situation, saw that his only hope lay in subtler tactics. Perhaps by adroitly working on the policeman's evident pusillanimity he could induce him to make a clean breast of it.

"The game's up, Pinto," he said sternly. "You murdered Mrs. Trippe, just as you murdered Gage. Better come clean."

A ghastly grin wrinkled the patrolman's face. "Think so, eh? You newspaper guys think you're pretty wise, don't you? Well, what proof have you got?"

For answer the Phantom decided on a random thrust. He took a pencil and a sheet of paper from his pocket and, placing his pistol on a packing case, roughly sketched a ducal coronet. He held the design close to the patrolman's eyes.

Pinto glanced at the sketch. With a hoarse cry he shrank back a step, but in a moment, by an exertion of will power, he had partly mastered his emotion. He guffawed loudly.

"Looks like a crow's nest to me," he gibed.

"You recognized it just the same, Pinto. Your face told me you did, so there's no use denying it. You're a member of the Duke's crew. You had orders to kill Gage, and you did. It was fairly clever, too, the way you arranged things so suspicion would fall on--ahem, on the Gray Phantom. But the housekeeper somehow saw through you. She was wise to you. And so, fearing she might tell what she knew and send you to the chair, you killed her, too. Then----"

"You've got some imagination, you have!" jeered the policeman, struggling hard to maintain a grip on himself.

"Then," continued the Phantom coolly, "you carried the body up here and hid it. Not a very clever move, but you were scared at the time, and people do queer things when they are panicky. You realized the Phantom couldn't be blamed for the murder of Mrs. Trippe, for he was in jail when the job was done. Anyhow, everybody thought he was, which amounted to the same thing. You were in no condition to reason things out, and the only safe way out of the mess you had made seemed to be to hide the body. It would postpone discovery of the murder for a while and give you a chance to think. The hiding place you picked wasn't a very good one, but it was the best you could find in a hurry."

"Yeah?" taunted Pinto. "Been hitting the booze again, ain't you?"

"No; I'm sober for once. Well, Pinto, after our little talk a while ago you were a bit worried. You knew someone would find the body sooner or later, and you thought things would look better all around if you were the one to find it. Anyhow, there was no reason for keeping it hidden longer after it turned out that the police had nabbed the wrong man and the Phantom had no alibi. I suppose if I hadn't stopped you when I did, you would now be at the telephone reporting your discovery to the station house."

As he spoke, the Phantom studied every change of expression in the other's face. Pinto winced as if each word had been a needle prick, but he seemed to be drawing on a reserve force of fortitude, for his courage was rising rather than ebbing.

"After pulling all that dream stuff," he said sneeringly, "mebbe you'll come across with the evidence."

"Sure thing." The Phantom's tones belied his crumbling hopes. He realized he had no evidence, and Pinto showed no signs of breaking down. "If what I've said doesn't hit the bull's-eye, why did you sneak in here and drag the body out from behind the packing cases? You seemed to be making a bee line for it. How did you know it was there?"

"So that's what you call evidence!" Pinto sneered. "I guess if it comes down to brass tacks, my word's as good as yours. Now that you've got all that stuff off your chest, mebbe you'll answer a question or two, and you might begin by telling what you're doing here yourself."

"A reporter goes everywhere."

"Reporter--huh! You've been on the Sphere four weeks, and soused half the time. You came here from Kansas City. You worked on a newspaper there only a week or two, according to the dope the department got. Seems you've been tramping around a lot in your days. Mebbe you're an honest-to-goodness reporter, and mebbe you're not. I've got a hunch of my own."

"Let's hear it," said the Phantom lightly, though inwardly he felt somewhat uneasy. Pinto's gaze, constantly searching his face, was growing keener with every passing moment.

"Well, it looks mighty queer to me that you showed up in this burg just a few weeks ahead of the Phantom, especially since you two look so much alike. What's queerer still is that you got pinched the other day just when the Phantom was as good as caught in the net. He would have been hauled in if you hadn't been grabbed by mistake."

"So, that's it." The Phantom chuckled amusedly. "Just because it happened that way, you're thinking that I am acting as a foil for the Gray Phantom."

"You got me just right, Granger. I'm thinking that, though I'm not saying much about it yet. Here's another little thing I'd like to get your opinion on." He came a step closer, looked hard at the Phantom, and put the question sharply. "What's become of Helen Hardwick?"

"He-Helen Hardwick?" The Phantom stood rigid, mouth gaping and eyes staring.

"She's the one. They say the Phantom has a crush on her and that it was on her account he handed the Duke that wallop some months ago. She's supposed----"

The Phantom, his face deathly white, clutched Pinto's arm in a grip that made the policeman squirm. "What about Miss Hardwick?" he demanded hoarsely. "Has anything happened to her? Speak, man!"

Pinto freed his arm and gave him a searching look. "All I know is that she's missing, and I thought mebbe you----"

"Missing?" echoed the Phantom sharply. "What do you mean? Speak up!"

In his excitement he did not see that the look of perplexity in Pinto's eyes had given way to a cunning twinkle. In another moment the policeman had acted with a precision and a swiftness that indicated he was a far shrewder man that his looks led one to think. In an instant the pistol had been beaten from the Phantom's numb hand and in the space of a few seconds a steel link was gyved around his wrist.

"There, Mr. Gray Phantom!" exclaimed the policeman with a triumphant chuckle. "I guess you won't get away from me this time!"

The Phantom, at last sensing his danger, jumped to one side, but already the other link was fastened around the policeman's wrist. Pinto's words regarding Helen Hardwick had stunned him momentarily, and he had not seen his peril until it was too late. Now he was a prisoner, handcuffed to his captor!

"This is more like it!" exclaimed the policeman, kicking aside the pistol his prisoner had dropped and shoving his own weapon against the Phantom's diaphragm. "I've had a hunch all along that, if you weren't the Phantom himself, you were his alibi. I'm wise now, all right. You gave yourself away when I spoke the name of the moll. You turned white to the gills and almost jumped out of your shoes. Guess you forgot to play your role that time, Mr. Phantom. Granger, not being in love with the lady, wouldn't have thrown a fit like that. Well, we're off for the station. You can hand 'em the spiel you gave me, and see how much they believe of it."

"Before we start, tell me what you know of Miss Hardwick," pleaded the Phantom, for his own plight still seemed of secondary importance.

Pinto shrugged his shoulders. "She's vamoosed; that's all I know. Come along. Mebbe she'll drop in and see you when you're in jail."

"Jail!" He braced his weight against the pull at his wrist. "I'm not going to jail--not while Miss Hardwick's in trouble. You may be a little stronger than I, Pinto, but I'm in better trim, and you can't budge me."

The policeman tore at the link, but in vain. The Phantom dropped to the floor, dug his heels into a crack between two boards, and resisted with all his might. Pinto puffed and cursed, but he might as well have tried to lift himself by his own boot straps, and his efforts were further hampered by the necessity of keeping the pistol aimed with his free hand. The glint in his captive's eyes hinted that he was but waiting for a chance to land a blow with his fist between the policeman's eyes.

"Say, what's the use stalling?" argued Pinto, resorting to diplomacy while regaining his breath. "The game's up."

The Phantom knew it, but he was playing for time. Some unexpected turn might yet reverse the situation and give him the upper hand.

"You're done for, and you know it," said the policeman impressively. "Might as well give in."

"Wrong, Pinto. You seem convinced that I'm the Gray Phantom, and you ought to know that the Phantom never gives in. I can sit here as long as you can. Don't you think we had better compromise?"

"Compromise--your grandmother!" grumbled Pinto. "You'll never get out of this."

Still pointing the muzzle at his prisoner, he brought the butt of the weapon close to one of his pockets. Two fingers reached down and extracted a police whistle, and in an instant it was between his lips, giving forth a shrill blast. He waited expectantly for a few moments. Again and again the whistle shrieked, but no response came.

The Phantom grinned. "The acoustics are not all that might be desired. The windows are closed, and there are several heavy walls between here and the street. I fear, Pinto, that your lung power is going to waste."

Disgustedly Pinto dropped the whistle. He considered for a moment, then a grim smile lit up his face.

"You've sung your last tune, Mr. Phantom," he muttered. "There's always a way to handle the likes of you."

As he spoke, he quickly shifted his hold on the pistol, and in another moment the handle crashed down on the prisoner's head. Of a sudden the Phantom felt himself grow limp. A laugh broke hoarsely through the gloom that descended upon him. He heard a voice, but it sounded faint and remote, as if coming to him across a vast chasm.

"Guess you won't get out of _that!_"

Then, miles away, a door slammed. He exerted a supreme effort to shake off the numbness brought on by the unexpected blow. His eyes fluttered open. His mind struggled out of the blinding haze. The light was still on, and his staring eyes flitted slowly about the room. It seemed only a moment ago that the door had slammed. Pinto was nowhere in sight, and for a moment he wondered at this.

Then, his mind clearing, it came to him that the policeman had gone out to summon assistance. He had had his lesson, and this time he was taking no chances with so dangerous and elusive a prisoner as the Gray Phantom. Doubtless he would be back in a few moments, and then----

He raised himself to a sitting posture. A hideous recollection electrified his body and mind. Helen Hardwick was missing, Pinto had said. Perhaps she was in trouble; perhaps some desperate danger confronted her. He must find her at once, and he must get out of the room before Pinto returned with reenforcements.

He tried to rise, but something restrained him. It was the steel link around his wrist. Only a moment ago, so it seemed, the other link had been fastened to Pinto's hand. Now----

A groan of horror broke from his lips as he saw the thing to which he was linked by a band of steel. Pinto had, indeed, taken no chances. Even if the Phantom could get out of the room, his hand would be chained to the cold, dead hand of the housekeeper.