The Gray Phantom Page 6

  CHAPTER VI

  THE PHANTOM ORCHID

  Cuthbert Vanardy sat in his library at Sea Glimpse and tried hard tofix his mind on Paxton's _Botanical Dictionary_. Despite his bestefforts it was a hopeless task. His thoughts would go gypsying, andevery now and then the print would blur and fade or dissolve intofanciful images that had nothing to do with hybridization andcross-pollination of orchids.

  A problem had been teasing Vanardy's imagination for months. He hadstruggled with it in idle moments, while resting from more ambitiousexperiments. Specimens from his gardens were shown each year at thehorticultural expositions in New York and Boston, where they createdmuch favorable comment among experts and caused endless speculationconcerning the identity of the anonymous exhibitor, who had privateand excellent reasons for remaining unknown. The problem he was nowworking on, however, was merely a diversion from his more seriouswork.

  He wanted to create a gray orchid. It was to be a particular shade ofgray--a dim, mystic gray, like the color of the sky just before dawn orthe hue of the sea in a light fog. The novelty of the idea appealed tohim and the task was proving difficult enough to give him gentlestimulation. Furthermore, gray always had been his favorite color. Andhe had almost decided that the hybrid, when once evolved, should beknown as The Phantom Orchid.

  It was merely a whim, of course--the vagary of a mind so active that itmust be working even at play. For the matter of that, he often toldhimself that of late years his life had been little else than asuccession of fancies and dim shades of reality. The gardens he hadplanted and the products that gained such flattering comment in thehorticultural journals had been nothing but a tangible expression of apassionate desire to blot out the past and efface that other self whomthe outside world called The Gray Phantom.

  In those other days he had gone, like a rollicking Robin Hood, fromone stupendous adventure to another. Without thought of sordid gain,but merely to assuage an inborn craving for excitement, he had dippedinto a whirl of exploits that caused the public to gasp and hold itsbreath. The police, bedeviled and outwitted at every turn, had grittedtheir teeth and muttered anathemas even while admitting that The GrayPhantom always played the game fairly and that his victims, more oftenthan not, were villains of a far blacker dye than he.

  It had been a mad carousal, and for a time it had given The Phantomall the thrills his nature craved. Nearly always his left hand hadtossed away what his right had plucked. Mysterious and untraceablecontributions had poured in upon hospitals, orphan asylums, societiesfor the protection of animals, and other philanthropic organizations.Widows, invalids, and paupers were befriended in a way that causedthem to believe in a return of the day of miracles. Dreamers starvingin garrets and inventors struggling to keep body and soul togetherwere tided over many a trying crisis.

  Through it all The Gray Phantom had maintained an elusiveness thatconfounded the keenest man hunters among the police and wrapped hisidentity in a mysterious glamour. Simple-minded people wonderedwhether he were a being of flesh and blood, or a shade on earthlyrampage. His one arrest, back in the early stages of his career, hadsettled their doubts once for all, but an astonishing escape a fewdays later caused them to wag their heads and speak in hushed tones ofa rogue whose feats and juggleries bewildered them.

  The Phantom laughed quietly at their perplexity. The performances thatawed and puzzled them seemed simple enough to him. He was merelyunleashing his imagination and giving free sway to his boundlessenergies of body and mind. In another age he might have been asea-roving viking or a builder of ancient empires. At times, when oneof his softer moods was upon him, he wondered why his restless spiritand the fires within him could not have found a different and moresoul-satisfying outlet. Then his thoughts would go back to dimlyremembered days, with their shadowy recollections of early orphanageand the peccadilloes of street urchins, and somehow he thought heunderstood.

  But as time passed his restless moods came back with increasingfrequency, and little by little he lost taste for the life he wasleading and the adventures that had made his sobriquet known fromcoast to coast. Then there came lapses between The Gray Phantom'sexploits, and finally they ceased altogether. The world, not knowingwith what lavish hand he had flung away his spoils, supposed he hadcollected his treasures and gone into hiding, and the police grimlypredicted that he would reappear as soon as he had squandered hisill-gotten gains. No one guessed that The Phantom had built ahermitage on a desolate hilltop where, surrounded by a few of his arttreasures and a small group of faithful followers, he was trying toreconstruct his life in peace.

  "Azurecrest" was the name he had given his secluded retreat, and therehe had tried to destroy the links that still chained him to the pastand to blot out the tantalizing visions of other days. For a time hehad almost succeeded; then a restlessness had come upon him for whichthe desolate hilltop afforded no relief, and he felt that his mountainretreat, with its collection of relics and reminders of bygone times,was too closely associated with the things he wanted to forget.Finally he had disposed of the place through a broker and purchased anarrow strip of land by the sea. He could not analyze the obscuremotives and hidden impulse that had impelled him to seek seclusion atSea Glimpse, a slender tongue of wooded land surrounded on three sidesby jagged coast line and in the rear by forest and farm land. Butwhile at work clearing the ground for his garden he had felt agrateful remoteness from things he wished to forget, and a measure ofpeace and satisfaction had come to him while he put his unpracticedhands to strange tasks or wandered among the trees and listened to themurmurs of the sea. He often wondered whether he would be content tospend his life in this secluded nook of the world where, safely hiddenand secure from intrusion, he could devote himself to his hobby andhis books.

  The question came back to him again as he closed his Paxton and got upto light the reading lamp. For months he had felt that the linksconnecting him with the past were snapping. The Gray Phantom hademerged from retirement only once, and then he had ventured forth in agood cause. In a little while, perhaps, he would be dead and almostforgotten. The gray orchid, if Vanardy should ever succeed in bringingit out, would be the living symbol of whatever had been good in hisother self. The thought more than once had appealed to his imaginationand the whimsical strain in his nature.

  He turned toward the window, but he had taken only a few steps when hestopped and looked dreamily into space. Memories thronged his mind anda face appeared out of nowhere--a woman's face. For months it hadhaunted him in his idle moments, inspiring him with vague andexhilarant emotions. He saw it now, softly radiant among the shadows,an enchanting embodiment of the bloom and freshness of youth thatpursued him with the persistence of a delicate scent or the strain ofan all-but-forgotten song.

  "Helen!" he murmured.

  The vision grew a little clearer. Now he could almost see her figure,slim and straight and moving with the easy swing and grace of a youngantelope. Echoes of her voice came to him, clear and unaffected andvibrant with joyous vivacity, each melodious note touching anharmonious chord within him. He remembered that her face had given hima curious impression of youthful buoyancy mingling with the sobernessof maturity. Her quick intuition, coupled with a strain of subtlety inher nature and a trace of precocious sophistication that was bothpuzzling and enchanting, had seemed to bridge the years that laybetween them. The vitalic sheen and the subtle aroma of her hair hadgiven him a foolish desire to see what sun and wind would do to it ifshe were to loosen it and romp in his garden.

  He sighed musingly. Months had passed since he had last seen her. Fora brief, unforgettable moment he had held her hand, and the contacthad given him a gentle, all-pervading thrill and filled him withstrange and tender emotions. Her eyes, warm and frank, but with atouch of shyness lurking in their depths, as if she were still alittle afraid of him, had inspired him with a tingling ecstasy such asThe Gray Phantom in his wildest triumphs had never experienced. Twicehe had written her since then, once to apprise her of his removal fromAzurecrest a
nd once to inquire concerning her well-being, but he hadneither expected nor received an answer. He had not forgotten that inthe eyes of the world he was still an outlaw, a hunted thing.

  Again he sighed. The vision was fading, and little of it remained withhim save a misty picture of loveliness. The moon was rising over thetree tops, throwing a white sheen over the landscape and the narrowwedge of water visible between the birches and hemlocks. The oldhouse, purchased by Vanardy in a dilapidated condition and withdifficulty rendered habitable, was silent but for the creepingwhispers of the wind. For a time the solitary figure at the windowstood lost in thoughts. His deep-gray eyes, rather too narrow forperfect symmetry, which had been known to stab and sting like rapiers,were not soft and luminous. Small wrinkles radiated from the outercorners, but the eyes themselves were animated by the slow twinklinggleam that characterizes the individual who sifts all the ups anddowns of life through a sieve of whimsical imagination. The sensitivenostrils and the full arch of the lips denoted a penchant fordistilling the maximum of thrills and emotions from the magic ofexistence. Here and there his face was lined and scarred, and even inrepose there was a tension about the lean, tall figure that made onethink of a cocked trigger.

  A knock sounded, and he turned quickly. Through the door waddled a fatman with a woe-begone expression and a multiple chin. He groaned andpuffed as if the task of carrying his elephantine body through lifewas not a light burden. The newcomer was Clifford Wade, once The GrayPhantom's chief lieutenant and now the major-domo of his littlehousehold.

  "Wade," observed The Phantom, eyeing the fat man with disapproval,"you are getting soft. This easy and carefree existence isdemoralizing you completely."

  The other placed a stack of newspapers and a few letters on the table,then slumped into a chair and gazed ruefully down at the protrudingcurvature of his stomach.

  "I know, boss. I piled on two more pounds last week. Pretty soon Iwon't be able to go for the mail any more. If you'd only say the word,I'd round up the old gang, and we'd turn a few more tricks like theones we used to pull in the good old days. I'd work off this fat in notime."

  The Phantom shook his head. "No, Wade. You will have to try some otherform of fat reducer. I am through with the old life for good. It wasexciting while it lasted, but the novelty has worn off. It was only asort of emotional eruption, anyhow."

  Wade scowled, then delivered himself of a startling exclamation: "Hangthe women!"

  The Phantom raised his brows in surprise. "What's your grievanceagainst the fair sex, Wade? Hanging is pretty serious business, youknow. What atrocious crime have the women perpetrated against you todeserve such cruel punishment? You don't look like a man suffering thepangs of unrequited love. Your heart is intact, I hope?"

  "Oh, my heart's all right," Wade complained. "It's yours that I'mworrying about. Lately I haven't been able to dope you out at all,boss. If I didn't know you as well as I do, I'd say you've gone plumbdippy. There was a time not so long ago when you went in for biggame--real he-man stuff. There were a lot of men on the police forcewho used to have a funny feeling around the solar plexus whenever TheGray Phantom's name was spoken. You cut some fancy didos in thosedays, boss. Now--now you're poking seeds into the ground and talking ofreforming." Wade made a gesture of great disgust.

  "Granted," said The Phantom, smiling, "but is that any reason forexterminating the feminine sex?"

  "You bet it is. The trouble with you is that you've got too much girlon the brain, boss. You were all right until that pretty little skirtwith the big baby eyes happened along."

  "Oh, you mean Miss Hardwick?" There was an odd tension in ThePhantom's tones.

  "That's who I mean. She's easy on the eyes and all that, but she'ssure raised the devil with you. The old kind of life was good enoughfor you till she bobbed up. It was then you started all this mushytalk about going straight and changing your ways. I know because I'vebeen watching you."

  The Phantom was strangely silent. Twice he crossed the floor, thenpaused before the window and looked out into the shadowy landscape.There was a pensive gleam in his eyes, as if Wade's speech had turnedhis thoughts into new channels. Suddenly he laughed, and the newexpression that came into his face suggested that he had seen anall-revealing flash.

  "I am much obliged to you for that bit of psychoanalysis," he told thefat man. "You're right, Wade--absolutely right. I was a fool not to seeit before."

  "Not to see what?"

  A faint smile flickered across The Phantom's face. "That Miss Hardwickhas had a great deal to do with my determination to change my ways. Ihadn't realized it until you spoke just now. I had been inclined togive myself all the credit. Thanks to your somewhat crude but accuratestatement of the case, I can see now that all of it belongs to her."

  Wade's round little eyes, imbedded in layers of flesh, stareduncomprehendingly at The Phantom. "I don't get you at all, boss."

  "Then don't try. Your heart is in the right place, Wade, but you lackimagination and there are some things that you and I can't view fromthe same angle. Miss Hardwick's influence in my life is one of them.Sorry to disappoint an old pal, but my determination to stay on thestraight and narrow path is stronger than ever."

  Wade made a wry face. "You'll suit yourself, of course, but it mightinterest you to know that another man is stealing your thunder whileyou're dancing to the piping of a skirt." He opened one of thenewspapers he had placed on the table and pointed to a black-facecaption. The Phantom, looking over his massive shoulders, read:

  MR. SHEI'S NAME ON DYING LIPS

  His eyes narrowed gradually as he read the highly colored account ofthe tragedy in the Thelma Theater. There was a pucker of perplexity onhis forehead when he finished.

  "Wonder what Mr. Shei is up to this time," he mumbled, gazingthoughtfully at the floor. "I've been following the fellow's exploitsfor some time. This is a bit out of the ordinary--eh, Wade?"

  "You said it, boss. And you can bet your sweet life he's getting readyfor something big this time. Unless I'm a poor guesser, the affair atthe Thelma last night was only the beginning. Mr. Shei's schemes rundeep, and he never strikes a blow unless he's got an object in view.There's something queer about the murder of that woman, boss."

  The Phantom nodded. "Looks as though you were right, Wade. Mr. Shei isout after big game this time, and in all likelihood the Thelma affairis only the prelude. But I don't see how--"

  "There's another queer thing about this Mr. Shei," interrupted the fatman. "Maybe you've noticed it. I don't know how many jobs he's pulledoff, but every one of them has shown the slickest kind of workmanship.What's more," and Wade's eyes peered cunningly into the other's face,"most of them look as though you'd had a hand in them yourself. That'swhat I meant when I said another man is stealing your thunder."

  The Phantom started; then a thin smile parted his lips. "Yes, I havenoticed it, Wade. I have studied Mr. Shei's methods as carefully ashas been possible from the superficial and distorted newspaperaccounts, and I have observed that he has done me the questionablehonor of adopting some of the methods and stratagems I used topractice in the past. In a number of instances he has copied mytechnique so closely that I've often wondered whether I've beenwalking in my sleep or whether my old self has come back in a newform. It's been almost uncanny." He laughed musingly. "What do youmake of it, Wade?"

  "I think you'd better take another fling at the old game before thisMr. Shei gets a monopoly on it."

  "I didn't mean that. How do you account for the similarity ofmethods?"

  The fat man pondered. "Somebody has studied your tricks and put theminto practice. Somebody that's been close enough to you to watch youin action. Maybe," and the glow of a sudden idea lighted up his face,"a member of our old crowd. Say, boss, wouldn't it be a joke on you ifMr. Shei should turn out to be a graduate of your own gang?"

  "Worse than a joke," said The Phantom grimly. He paced the floor withquick, short steps, his hands clenched at his back. "I have given themysterious Mr. Shei a great deal
of thought in the past few months,and I fear you are right. His tactics so closely resemble mine that Isuspect he learned them from me at firsthand. In the old days I oftentook a sort of foolish pride in teaching my methods to the moreadaptable ones among the members of my organization. It pleased me towatch their development under my training. I didn't realize then whatI was doing. Now----" He shrugged as if to dismiss a futile regret."Yes, it's quite likely that Mr. Shei is a former pupil of mine."

  "Well, what are you going to do about it?"

  The Phantom stopped abruptly, gazing at the fat man with a far-awaygleam in his eye, as if they were miles apart.

  "I thought The Gray Phantom was dead," he murmured. "It appears I havebeen mistaken. If Mr. Shei is a product of The Gray Phantom's brain,then my old self is still active. For every crime committed by Mr.Shei, The Gray Phantom bears responsibility." He gave a dismal laugh."And I thought I had destroyed most of the links connecting me withthe old times."

  "Well," said Wade again, this time a little testily, "just what areyou going to do about it?"

  The Phantom did not answer immediately. He was staring absent-mindedlyinto space. Presently he looked at his watch; then he noddedthoughtfully.

  "Wish you would pack my grip, Wade."

  The fat man started from the chair. "Not going away?"

  "Yes; there's a train for New York a few minutes past midnight. In themorning, bright and early, I shall start a little campaign."

  "Campaign?" Wade's eyes bulged. "What kind of campaign?"

  "The biggest one of my life, I think. I am going out to lay The GrayPhantom's ghost. In plain words, I propose to go on the warpathagainst the mysterious Mr. Shei. I fancy it will be quite an excitinglittle tussle, Wade."