Chapter XXV: In a Circle of Light

She looked as though her whole being had frozen into rigidity, and the glacial stare of her eyes sent a chill through the Phantom's veins. In a moment he was on the running board, wrenching the door open. He did not notice that the car gathered speed just as he tumbled in.

"Helen!" he cried, throwing himself into the seat beside her. "What's the matter? What has happened? Can't you speak?"

Her body swayed slightly with the motions of the car, but otherwise she did not stir. She sat erect and immobile, with her face turned stonily to the window, as if neither hearing nor seeing. He took one of her hands. It was cold, clammy, and limp. A groan broke from his lips.

Then, from a corner of the car, two shadows leaped upon him with a suddenness that dazed him. The pistol was still in his hand, but a stinging blow over the knuckles made him drop it to the floor. Helen Hardwick's face, terribly still, held him under a spell while his arms were twisted behind him and his wrists secured with a stout cord that bit into his flesh. Not until his legs had also been manacled did a glimmering of the truth force itself through his numbed senses; but even then he could think of nothing but the woman at his side.

"Is she--dead?" he asked.

Someone laughed. "Oh, no! She will come out of it presently. We needed a decoy, and she refused to accommodate us, so we gave her a hypodermic injection. It worked fine."

He braced his muscles as a vivid realization of what had happened flashed upon him, but the cords about his wrists and ankles held his limbs. Again he had walked into a trap, but for once he did not blame himself for his lack of caution. With eyes open he would have rushed into a thousand traps if Helen Hardwick was the bait. He glanced out of the window, noticing that the car was gliding swiftly through dark and deserted streets.

A hand reached out and pulled down the blind, cutting off the view. The car was making numerous turns, and he soon lost all sense of direction. The man's explanation of Helen Hardwick's condition had removed a crushing weight of horror from his mind, and once more his head was functioning clearly.

"Another of the Duke's tricks, I suppose?" he remarked.

"You suppose correctly," was the answer. "You have slipped out of our hands often enough, but this time we have you. You haven't a chance in the world."

The Phantom was silent for a time, realizing that his captors had turned the trick neatly and with dispatch. Evidently they were men of much finer mental caliber than Matt Lunn and Dan the Dope. It had been a clever ruse, and they had set the trap very deftly.

"What's the programme?" he inquired.

"You will see soon enough."

The Phantom asked no more questions. Suddenly he remembered Granger, and he wondered whether the reporter had been able to follow the speeding car. It was doubtful, he thought, unless Granger had been lucky enough to find a taxicab in a hurry. Yet the fellow was resourceful and keen-witted, and it was possible----

His thoughts were rudely interrupted. The car slowed down, and almost in the same instant a hand gripped him around the throat and shoved him back against the cushion. Another hand put a cloth over his mouth, and he became conscious of a cloying, sickeningly sweetish odor. Gradually his sensations drifted into chaos as his head grew heavier and heavier. He heard voices, but they sounded as if coming from a great distance, and he had an odd feeling that the car was sliding down a bottomless abyss. Then a great void seemed to swallow him up, and he knew nothing more.

Finally, after what seemed a lapse of hours, his mind drifted out of the stupor. There was a burning sensation in his throat and he felt sick and weak. He tried to move, but something restrained him, and he had a dull impression that he was roped to a chair and that the chair itself was clamped to the floor. His eyelids fluttered weakly, and he closed them instinctively as a door opened behind him.

Two men were entering the room, and one of them was chuckling gleefully, as if he had just heard a good joke. Though his thoughts were wandering in a haze, it occurred to him that it might be well to feign unconsciousness. He closed his eyes tightly and sat motionless in the chair. The two men advanced until they stood in front of him. The Phantom felt their eyes on his face.

"Capital!" exclaimed one of them, and he thought there was something familiar about the voice. "Too bad the Duke can't be here and see this! It would do his soul good to see his old enemy strapped to a chair. Well, Somers, I guess this will be the end of the Gray Phantom."

The words stung the listener's senses like a whiplash. He tried to identify the voice, but he was unable to recall where he had heard it before.

"We've got him just where we want him," remarked the man addressed as Somers, "and I don't think he'll get away from us this time. It will be a miracle if he does."

"Not even a miracle can save him. The Phantom is done for. You did a good job, Somers."

"Oh, it was easy enough. All we had to do was to shoot some dope into the moll, pose her in the window of the car, and drive past the place where we had been tipped off we would find the Phantom. I was just wondering how to get him out of the joint, when he walks out of a doorway, catches a glimpse of the skirt, and rushes blindly into the trap. It worked like greased lightning. Looks as though he'd be dead to the world for quite a while yet."

The Phantom repressed a smile. His superb constitution was already shaking off the effects of the chloroform.

"How is the little doll?" inquired the first speaker, who seemed to be a man of authority in the Duke's organization.

"Chipper as a wild cat. She came to shortly after we got here. That kid had spunk, and she's all there on looks. I don't blame the Gray Phantom for falling for her. I would myself."

"Sentiment and business make a bad mixture," was the other's dry comment. "Don't let a pretty face bedevil you, Somers. The young lady is here to serve our purpose. After that----"

He stopped, and the ensuing pause somehow impressed the Phantom as ominous.

"Well, then what?" asked Somers, and there was a slight catch to his voice.

"She is a shrewd young thing and she knows too much for our good. Our safety demands that--but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it." He laughed again, as if to rid his mind of unpleasant thoughts. "I can scarcely realize that the Gray Phantom is in our power at last. It's almost too good to be true."

"It is true, though. Say, won't he get a jolt when he comes out of the daze and finds himself strapped to a chair?"

"That isn't the only jolt that's in store for him. We'll give him a glimpse of the big show, just for the moral effect it will have on him. Just a little eye teaser, you know, Somers. Is everything ready?"

"Ready to a dot. Want to have a look?"

The other answered affirmatively, and the two men left the room. The last part of the conversation had been unintelligible to the Phantom, and he did not try to puzzle it out. The unfinished sentence and its train of vaguely disturbing thoughts haunted him. Helen Hardwick was to serve some mysterious purpose. After that--he wondered why he felt a chill as he tried to imagine the rest. The words left unspoken suggested terrifying possibilities.

He opened his eyes. Evidently the two men had extinguished the lights upon leaving, for the room was dark. With the fragmentary sentence still echoing in his ears, he tore at the ropes, but the attempt only bruised his wrists.

Suddenly he sat still, his eyes fixed on a tiny light that had appeared in the back of the room. The point of luminance grew larger and larger, swelling into a circle of pale radiance, and in its center he saw something that caused him to wonder whether he was dreaming a madman's dream.