The Gray Phantom's Return, Page 4

  CHAPTER IV--MR. ADAIR, OF BOSTON

  "Roland Adair, Boston, Massachusetts." It was thus the Gray Phantominscribed the register at Hotel Pyramidion, while an affable clerkbeamed approval on his athletic and well-groomed figure.

  "What do you require, Mr. Adair?"

  "Parlor, bedroom, and bath, with southern exposure, preferably above thesixth floor."

  The clerk, intuitively sensing that the new arrival was one accustomedto having his wishes complied with, glanced at his card index. "We haveexactly what you want, Mr. Adair."

  "Good! I wish breakfast and the morning newspapers sent to my apartmentat once."

  "It shall be done, Mr. Adair." The clerk bowed debonairly, littlesuspecting that the new guest, who so unmistakably presented all theearmarks of a cultured and leisurely gentleman, was at this moment themost "wanted" man on the North American continent. The guest himselfgrinned in his short black beard while an elevator carried him to theninth floor, and an acute observer would have gained the impression thathe was bent upon an adventure hugely to his liking.

  He ate his breakfast slowly and with keen relish, meanwhile glancingover the newspapers, which were still featuring the East Houston Streetmurder as the chief sensation. Nothing had as yet been discovered whichthrew the faintest light on the peculiar manner in which the slayer hadleft the scene of his crime, and it was regarded as doubtful whetherthis mysterious phase of the case would be cleared up until after theGray Phantom's arrest. It had been ascertained that the notoriouscriminal was not aboard any of the vessels that had sailed for foreignports since the murder, so it was thought probable that the fugitive wasstill in the country, and it was confidently declared by policeofficials that the dragnet would gather him in before long.

  The accounts in the various papers were substantially similar, but againthe Phantom detected a faintly dissenting note in the _Sphere's_article. It was so slight as to be scarcely discernible, but to thePhantom it signified a lurking doubt in the writer's mind, and asuggestion that the _Sphere's_ reporter sensed a weak link in the chainof evidence.

  "I'll have a talk with the fellow," he decided. "I might ask him to takedinner with me this evening. He may prove interesting."

  He finished his coffee and lighted a long, thin cigar, then passed tothe window and watched the procession below. After his long andmonotonous seclusion at Sea-Glimpse the life of the city acted as agentle electric stimulant on his nerves. He glowed and tingled withsensations that had lain dormant during long months of tedium, and thestrongest and raciest of these was a feeling of ever present danger.

  The Gray Phantom did not deceive himself. His present adventure was byfar the most hazardous of his career. On the one hand he was threatenedby the nimble-witted man hunters of the police department, and on theother by the henchmen of the Duke. His only hope of safety lay in hissubtler intelligence, which had seldom failed him in moments of danger,and the temporary protection afforded by his beard.

  Luckily, the only photograph of him in existence, the one the newspapershad displayed on their front pages the morning after the murder, showedhim smooth shaven. The beard, giving him a maturer and somewhat moreprofessional appearance, afforded a thin and yet fairly satisfactorydisguise, but it would be of scant use if by the slightest misstep orcareless move he should attract suspicion to himself. In such an event,certain records filed away in the archives of the police would quicklyestablish his identity as the Gray Phantom. Nevertheless, he was pleasedthat the descriptions carried by the newspapers had made no mention of abeard.

  There was a measure of safety, too, in the sheer audacity with which hewas proceeding. The man hunters might look everywhere else, but theywould scarcely expect to find their quarry living sumptuously at afirst-class hotel. His free and easy mode of conduct, unmarked by theslightest effort at concealment, afforded a protection which he couldnot have found in the shabbiest hovel and under the most elaboratedisguise.

  Yet, despite all the safeguards his brain could invent, the situationwas perilous enough to give the Gray Phantom all the excitement hisnature craved. His pulses throbbed, and there was a keen sparkle in hiseyes as he left the hotel and went out on the streets. The very airseemed charged with a quality that held him in a state of piquantsuspense. The policemen appeared more alert than usual, and now and thensnatches of conversation reached his ears from little groups at streetcorners and in doorways who were avidly discussing the Gage murder andthe chances of the Gray Phantom being caught. At each subway entranceand elevated stairway loitered a seemingly slothful and impassivecharacter whom his trained eye easily identified as a detective.

  Chuckling softly in his beard, the Phantom walked on. No one seemed tosuspect that the striking and faultlessly garbed figure that sauntereddown the streets with such a carefree and easy stride, looking for allthe world like a leisurely gentleman out for his morning constitutional,might be the object of one of the most thorough and far-reaching manhunts ever undertaken by the police. Occasionally he paused to inspect awindow display, incidentally listening to a discussion in which his namewas frequently mentioned. The East Houston Street murder, which underordinary circumstances would have attracted but passing notice, hadbecome a tremendous sensation because of the Gray Phantom's supposedconnection with it.

  Gradually he veered off the crowded thoroughfares and entered into amaze of crooked, narrow, and squalid streets where housewives andchildren with dirt-streaked faces viewed his imposing figure with frankcuriosity. After a glance at a corner sign he turned east, quickeninghis pace a little and scanning the numbers over the doorways as heproceeded. One of the buildings, a murky brick front with a funeralwreath hanging on the door and a tobacconist's sign lettered across theground-floor window, he regarded with more than casual interest.

  "Sylvanus Gage, Dealer in Pipes, Tobacco, and Cigars," he read inpassing; then, after a moment's hesitation, he pursued his eastwardcourse, a thoughtful pucker between his eyes. He was trying to outline acourse of procedure, a matter to which hitherto he had given scantattention, for the Phantom was the veriest tyro in the science ofcriminal investigation. It occurred to him that one of his first stepsshould be an inspection of the scene of the murder.

  A few blocks farther east he turned into a once famous restaurant andordered luncheon. He dallied over the dishes, smoked a cigar while hedrank his coffee, and it was after three o'clock when he left the placeand headed in the direction of the tobacco store. This time he paused infront of the establishment, looked through the window, and finding theinterior deserted, resolutely rang the bell. Some time passed before theside door was opened by a flat-chested woman with sharp features andunkempt gray hair.

  "What do you want?" she demanded sulkily, regarding the caller withoddly piercing eyes. "Can't you see the store's closed?"

  The Phantom lifted his hat and smiled urbanely. "Sorry to intrude," hemurmured. "You are Mrs. Trippe, I believe?"

  "Well, suppose I am?"

  "The late Mr. Gage's housekeeper?"

  "What's that to you?"

  "I am Mr. Adair, of Boston," explained the Phantom, unruffled by herchurlish demeanor. He and the woman had met once or twice during hisstormy interviews with Gage, but he felt sure she did not recognize him."You may have heard of me as an amateur investigator of crime," he wenton easily. "I have established a modest reputation in that line. Thismorning I happened to read an account of Mr. Gage's tragic death, andsome of the circumstances impressed me as interesting. Could I troubleyou to show me the room in which the crime was committed?"

  His hand was in the act of extracting a bank note from his pocket, buthe checked it in time, a sixth sense warning him that Mrs. Trippe mightresent an attempt to grease her palm.

  "I don't see what you want to pester me for," she muttered sullenly,fixing him with a look of obvious suspicion. "The police have almostworried the life out of me with their fool questions and carryings-on.The case is settled and there's nothing more to investigate."

  "Sure of that, Mrs. Tri
ppe?" He had detected a faint hesitancy in herspeech and manner, and he was quick to take advantage of it.Incidentally he noticed that she had aged a great deal since he last sawher, and he doubted whether he should have recognized her if they hadmet by chance. "What about the murder's manner of escape?" he added. "Iunderstand that hasn't been explained yet."

  "Well, he escaped, didn't he? I don't see that it makes any difference_how_ he did it. The Gray Phantom always did things his own way. But,"after a few moments' wavering, "you can come in and look around."

  Her abrupt acquiescence surprised him, and he guessed it was not whollydue to a desire to be obliging. He wondered, as he followed her throughthe store, whether her decision to admit him was not prompted by a wishto see what deductions he would make after inspecting the scene of thecrime.

  She opened the inner door, remarking that the damage wrought by OfficerPinto had been repaired a few hours after the murder and that the policedepartment's seal had been removed only a short while ago. The Phantompassed into the narrow chamber, only slightly altered in appearancesince the time of his last visit. The realization that he was viewingthe scene of a crime supposed to have been perpetrated by himselfappealed strongly to his dramatic instinct, and the thought that at thismoment the police were searching for him with a fine-toothed comb lent atouch of humor to the situation.

  The woman stepped to the small window in the rear and raised the shade,then stationed herself at the door, peering at him out of wary,narrow-lidded eyes, as if intent on his slightest move. The Phantomglanced at the rickety desk at which Gage had sat while haggling overpetty sums and figuring percentages to the fraction of a cent.

  "I see one of the drawers has been forced open," he remarked.

  "Lieutenant Culligore did that," explained the woman. "That was thedrawer where Mr. Gage kept most of his valuables."

  "Including the Maltese cross," the Phantom smilingly put in.

  Mrs. Trippe nodded. "There's a spring somewhere that opens and shuts it,but none of us could find it, and so Lieutenant Culligore had to breakthe drawer open."

  "Yet the cross was gone," observed the Phantom, "and the drawer wasintact when Lieutenant Culligore found it. That would seem to indicatethat the murderer knew how to operate the spring."

  "Well, hasn't the Phantom proved that he knows just about all there isto know?"

  "I am sure the Phantom would feel highly complimented if he could hearyou say that." He smiled discreetly, realizing that here was anotheritem of proof, for he was willing to wager that, though he had neverseen Gage work the spring, he could have opened the drawer withoutlaying violent hands upon it. He turned to the window, carefullyexamined the catch, then raised the lower half and endeavored to thrusthis shoulders through the opening. The attempt satisfied him that even asmaller man than himself would have found it impossible to squeezethrough.

  That left only the door as a means of egress and ingress, and the doorhad been bolted on the inside when Officer Pinto arrived, whichcircumstance seemed to render it flatly impossible for the murderer tohave escaped that way. He tried the lock and examined the stout bolt,then stepped through to the other side, closing the door behind him. Awrinkle of perplexity appeared above his eyes. Even the Phantom's nimblewits could not devise a way of passing through the door and leaving itbolted on the inside. The feat did not seem feasible, and yet themurderer must have accomplished it. His face wore a frown as hereentered the little chamber.

  "Can't figger it out, eh?" The housekeeper seemed to have read his mind."Well, you needn't try. The police did, and they had to give it up as abad job. The Phantom has a cute little way with him, doing things sothey can't be explained."

  "And yet," facing her squarely, "you don't think the Phantom committedthe murder?"

  A scarcely perceptible shiver ran through her shrunken figure. "Whatelse can I think?" she parried.

  He shrugged his shoulders. The impression haunted him that she was notso sure of the Phantom's guilt as she appeared. He ran his eyes over thefloor, the walls, and the murky ceiling.

  "And you needn't try to find any hidden openings, either," she told him,again reading his unspoken thoughts. "A bunch of headquarters detectivesspent half a day tapping the walls and the ceiling and ripping up boardsin the floor. The Phantom----"

  The jangle of the bell at the outer door interrupted her, and she lookedscowlingly toward the front of the store. "I guess that's OfficerPinto," she muttered. "He's on night duty, but he's been prowling aroundhere most of the time since the murder, asking silly questions when heought to be in bed."

  A hard, wary glitter appeared in the Phantom's eyes as she left theroom. In an instant he had scented danger.