For a moment he lay still, tracing with his eyes the shadows' fanciful shapes on the ceiling; and then suddenly he flung the covers from him, got out of bed, snatched up a dressing gown, and crossed the room to an easy chair by the window. He sat down and stared out into the night.
Rest! Quiet! He could no longer rest, because his mind would no longer remain quiet but ground on and on like the turning of a mill wheel that never ceased. The first night—when he had been wounded and the loss of blood had weakened him—yes. But not now! Thank God, he had regained consciousness in time that night to prevent Jason telephoning for a doctor! With the papers full of the burglar in evening clothes who was believed to have been hit by a shot as he had leaped through the library window of the Froomes' mansion on Fifth Avenue, it would have been perhaps a little awkward for Jimmie Dale to explain a bullet wound in his side even to a trusted physician! It had been only a flesh wound. Jason and Benson between them had done famously with him here at home. It was healing now. That was three nights ago. It was still sore and stiff—he gritted his teeth as a twinge of pain caught him suddenly—but it was healing nicely.
He had not stayed in bed any more than he could help after the first day—when he could elude Jason's watchfulness. He had been afraid of that, more afraid of doing that than of the wound itself. One got weak staying in bed. One's legs needed exercise—and there had been the combined lengths of the dressing room and bedroom for surreptitious constitutionals!
Well, he had been well repaid for the wound; not merely in the sense that young Culver was probably walking the streets to-night a free man, but in the sense that there had come into his hands another clue, another instrument through which his chances of running the Phantom to earth became at once now definite, tangible and concrete. Bunty Myers, the rat-faced underling, the chief tool of the Phantom! It was Bunty Myers who had been talking to the Phantom that night when he, Jimmie Dale, had heard those voices which had seemed to come out of the nowhere in Mother Margot's room. Therefore Bunty Myers knew where that conversation had taken place; and therefore, whether the man himself realised the full significance of it or not, Bunty Myers held the secret of the phantom clue to the lair where his master hatched his devil's work.
Jimmie Dale nodded to himself. It was a decided, even drastic change from the Phantom's accustomed line of action. From the time the Phantom had physically disappeared as Gentleman Laroque, the man had drawn a veil of secrecy and seclusion about himself that had rarely been broken—certainly never to the extent of admitting any one into the secret of his actual retreat before. True, he had many domiciles, many aliases. That was why the Tocsin had first called him the Phantom. But this was the centre of the web, the one place that he, Jimmie Dale, had sought and struggled vainly with every resource at his command to find. And now Bunty Myers had been admitted, if not into the secret itself, at least into the precincts of the hidden refuge. Why? Did it evidence weakness? The first cracking of the line of defence? It was certain that the Phantom's ranks had become sadly thinned. Little Sweeney, perhaps the most versatile and cunning of the Phantom satellites, was dead; and two out of the four trusted pawns who had had their rendezvous in the back upstairs room at Wally Kerrigan's “club,” Spud MacGuire and Muller, were dead. The percentage was very heavy! There remained only Bunty Myers, the Kitten, and Mother Margot. The circle was narrowing. Was that why, where previously Mother Margot had always been called from the pushcart on Thompson Street to the telephone in the rear of that malodorous little second-hand store to act as the mouthpiece of the “Voice,” where previously all communications had passed through her, the Phantom had now changed his tactics and admitted his tools to personal interviews?
A frown, half of perplexity, half of annoyance, gathered on Jimmie Dale's forehead. This might or might not be the reason. Very much more likely not! He had forgotten for the moment that Mother Margot had been away that night.
He brushed his hand across his eyes, as he winced suddenly again with pain. He wondered if Mother Margot were back yet. That was a curious telephone booth at the back of the second-hand store where she received her messages! A side door that opened on the lane—and the booth in a sort of back storeroom! He had, of course, investigated the place almost immediately after that night at Mrs. Kinsey's when Mother Margot had imparted her unwilling information about it, and the result of that investigation had been to make it plain that the telephone itself was purely a part, just as Mother Margot's rooms were, of the Phantom's equipment, and that Mezzo himself, who was a doddering, almost senile old man, was not even a pawn—merely a convenience. The old Italian, whose hearing was probably just good enough and no more to distinguish the ringing of the bell, whose trade was among a clientele far removed from such luxuries, could have no possible use for a telephone, let alone one in a booth, and less possible excuse for the expense that one involved. He was simply paid to keep it there. That was obvious. Well, it had served still another purpose—since he, Jimmie Dale, had not infrequently used it himself! The Phantom was not the only one who called Mother Margot to the phone, or the only one to whom the old hag paid allegiance! He smiled grimly. Perhaps he counted too much on that! Because he, Jimmie Dale, as the Gray Seal, had once caught Mother Margot in the act of double-crossing her own pals, it was no guarantee that, though he might hold her in a sort of allegiance therefrom, she would be above double-crossing him too!
He shook his head. No! He had watched her too closely. He was not prepared to say what she might do if she got the chance, but so far he was satisfied that she had played straight with him—only, so far, the little information she had had to give had not brought him much nearer to his goal.
His mind reverted to Bunty Myers. Bunty Myers had come out of the affair that night at Twisty Munn's when he had shot Kid Gregg without a breath of suspicion attaching to him. Again Jimmie Dale smiled grimly. He remembered that, as he had run down the stairs with the awakened tenement howling about his ears, the thought had flashed through his mind that if Twisty Munn had recognised Bunty Myers the latter would have the police drag-net sweeping the city, yes, and the country, for him, and he would be hard put to it to find cover. But, as it had turned out, whether Twisty Munn had really recognised Bunty Myers or not, Twisty Munn had remained silent on the subject. Yesterday's papers had been full of the affair. Twisty Munn was by nature an ingenious and versatile liar, and he had run true to form. Himself in the very act of receiving the stolen contents of Martin K. Froomes' safe when the shooting occurred, Twisty Munn had, of course, as an incentive for remaining silent the undesirability of implicating himself in a criminal transaction; and again, he might not actually have known who Bunty Myers was, or, if he had, the fear of reprisals if he snitched might also very logically account for his reticence. Twisty Munn, so Twisty Munn swore, knew absolutely nothing about the matter, except that he and Kid Gregg had been sitting in his room talking when the door had burst open and a couple of men he had never seen before had entered. Kid Gregg had jumped to his feet and pulled his gun, and just as he fired one of the others had dropped him. He, Twisty Munn, didn't know what it was all about, s'help him God! but he had a hunch it was a personal row between Kid Gregg and one of the other men over some moll or other.
Quite so! Into Jimmie Dale's dark eyes there came an ironical gleam. There was nothing to disprove it. Twisty Munn's story fitted into the balance of the night as perfectly as though it were the truth! Well, that left Bunty Myers free! That was what counted. It would be easier to find Bunty Myers now than if he had taken to cover from the police. And it was Bunty Myers that he, Jimmie Dale, wanted now!
And then Jimmie Dale shook his head again—in sudden irritation now. Had he forgotten too that since the night Little Sweeney had masqueraded as Isaac Shiftel and paid for it with his life, Bunty Myers had already sought cover, perhaps more as a precautionary measure than because he was actually “wanted” for that affair, but nevertheless had completely forsaken his usual haunts; and had he also forgotten a night not long ago when, as Smarlinghue, he had searched vainly through the length and breadth and in the most hidden places of the underworld for the man? He had wanted Bunty Myers then, hadn't he? And he had not found him.
The strong, square jaws locked with a snap. Yes! That was true! But he wanted the man more now, wanted him vitally. He would find him, that was all!
And then, what?
Jimmie Dale's laugh, short, hard, mirthless, rang low through the room. And then, what? The