Читать книгу The Gray Phantom's Return - Herman Landon - Страница 5

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Cuthbert Vanardy was conscious of a disquieting tension in the air. The long shadows cast by the trees that stood in clusters on the lawn of Sea-Glimpse impressed him as sinister harbingers of coming events. The wind had a raw edge, and it produced a dolorous melody as it went moaning over the landscape. Vanardy recognized the vague sense of depression and foreboding he experienced as he walked down the path that wound in and out among flower beds and parterres of shrubbery. He had noticed it often in the past, and always on the eve of some tragic event.

He could not understand, for of late his life had fallen into serene and humdrum lines, and there had been no hint of disturbing occurrences. His horticultural experiments had kept him well occupied, and he had derived a great deal of satisfaction from the favorable comments which the products of his gardens had created among experts at the horticultural expositions in New York and Boston, as well as from the speculations aroused concerning the identity of the anonymous exhibitor, who for private reasons preferred to remain unknown. Nothing of an exciting nature had happened in several months, and, but for his intangible misgivings, there was no sign of an interruption to his tranquil life.

On the veranda he stopped and looked back into the gathering dusk. The trees and shrubs, colored and distorted by his restless imagination, took on weird contours and seemed to assume life and motion. No doubt, he told himself, the premonitions he had felt of late were also the products of his fancy. They could be nothing else, for he had severed all the links connecting him with the old life. Time had quieted all the dreams and impulses of his former self. He smiled as it occurred to him that his highest ambition at the present moment was to produce a gray orchid.

It was only a whim, a diversion from more serious work, but the novelty of the experiment, as well as the difficulties in the way, appealed to him. By intricate cross-breeding he was gradually developing an orchid of a dim, mystic gray, his favorite color. When once evolved, the hybrid should be known as the Phantom Orchid. It would be the living symbol of whatever had been good in his other self, the Gray Phantom.

His thoughts went back to those other days when he had gone, like a swaggering Robin Hood, from one stupendous adventure to another. Even his bitterest enemies, and there had been many of them, had never accused the Gray Phantom of being actuated by considerations of sordid gain. The public had gasped and the police muttered maledictions as he gratified his thirst for thrills and excitement, always playing the game in strict accord with his code and invariably planning his exploits so that his victims were villains of a far blacker dye than he. Always his left hand had tossed away what his right hand had plucked. Hospitals, orphan asylums and other philanthropic organizations became the recipients of donations that were never traced to their source. Princely and mysterious gifts poured into garrets and hovels in a way that caused simple-minded people to believe in a return of the day of miracles.

The Gray Phantom, through it all, maintained an elusiveness that completely baffled the police and clothed his identity in a glamorous haze. So astounding were his performances that there were those who asked themselves whether he was not practicing black magic. Once, in the early days of his career, he fell into the clutches of the police, satisfying the superstitious ones that he was really a being of flesh and blood, but an amazing escape a few days later revived the gossip of a rogue who was in collusion with evil spirits. The Phantom was greatly amused, and spurred his energies to even more dizzying flights, but there were times when a softer mood came upon him, and then he wondered why his restless spirit could not have found a different outlet. Perhaps the reason was to be found in the remote and dimly remembered past when, friendless and homeless, he had derived his philosophy of life from thieving urchins and night-prowling gangsters.

The years passed, and the Gray Phantom’s adventures made his sobriquet known from coast to coast, but gradually the life he was leading began to pall on him. His exploits no longer gave him the thrills he craved, and he began to search, at first blindly and haltingly, for a more satisfying way of unleashing his boundless energies. There came long lapses between his adventures, and finally it began to be rumored that the Gray Phantom had gone into retirement with his accumulated treasures, for no one guessed that he had flung away his spoils as fast as he garnered them in. Nobody understood the true reason for the change that had come over him, and the Phantom least of all.

He often wondered at the obscure impulses that had impelled him to seek seclusion at Sea-Glimpse, a narrow stretch of wooded land surrounded on three sides by jagged coast line and in the rear by forest and farm land. He could not understand them, except that his new mode of life gave him a sense of pleasing remoteness from things he wished to forget, and at times he thought he would be content to spend the rest of his days in this secluded nook, secure from intrusion and free to devote himself to his hobby and his books.

But to-night a vague unrest was upon him. He peered into the shadows, constantly growing longer and darker, and it seemed as if the ghostly figures of his past were reaching out for him. Perhaps, there was still a forgotten link or two that bound him to the old life. He shrugged, as if to banish disquieting thoughts, and entered the house. Stepping into the library, he lighted his reading lamp and took a work on horticulture from the shelf. There was a problem in connection with the gray orchid that he had not yet been able to work out satisfactorily. He sat down and opened the book, but the print danced and blurred beneath his eyes. A woman’s face appeared out of nowhere, the same face that had haunted him in idle moments for months. His mental picture was dim and fragmentary, and he could not distinctly remember even the color of the hair or whether the eyes were blue or gray, but the vision pursued him with the persistence of a haunting scent or a strain from an old familiar song.

Helen Hardwick and he had shared several adventures and perils together. Only a few months had elapsed since he rescued her from the clutches of the mysterious “Mr. Shei,” the leader of an arch-conspiracy which the Phantom had frustrated. About a year before that he had emerged from his retreat for long enough to restore to her father, curator of the Cosmopolitan Museum, a collection of Assyrian antiques that Hardwick had spent the best years of his life in gathering, and which had been stolen by a criminal organization headed by the Phantom’s old-time enemy and rival, “The Duke.” To Vanardy the achievement had meant little more than a pleasing diversion and an opportunity to humiliate a man whose personality and methods he abhorred, and Helen Hardwick’s gratitude had made him feel that she was giving him the accolade of an undeserved knightship. She had come to Sea-Glimpse to thank him, and her parting glance and smile were still vivid in his recollection. He often glanced dreamily at the spot where she had stood when for an instant her hand lingered within his. With the blood pounding against his temples, he had exerted all his power of will to restrain himself from calling her back. There were times when he regretted having let her go like that, without hope of seeing her again, but in his soberer moments he saw the inevitableness of the outcome. In the eyes of the world he was still an outlaw, and too great a gulf separated the Gray Phantom and Helen Hardwick. The memory of her eyes, warm, frank and bright, would be with him always. He had her to thank for the finest emotions he had ever experienced, and he would try to be content with that.

She seemed little more than a dream to him now, and even the dream was fragmentary. Again he thought it strange that he could not remember the color of her eyes or hair, and that little remained with him save a misty and tantalizing vision of loveliness.

He closed the book and passed to the window. The moon had risen, bathing the narrow strip of water visible between the birches and hemlocks in a white mist. The house, which Vanardy had restored from the dilapidated condition in which he had found it, was silent save for an occasional creaking of old timbers. Clifford Wade, once his chief lieutenant and now the major-domo of his little household, had gone to the village for the mail. The Phantom stood lost in reflections, his deep gray eyes soft and luminous. On occasion they could sting and stab like points of steel, but in repose they were the eyes of a dreamer. The nostrils were full and sensitive, and the arch of the lips was partly obscured by a short-cropped beard that would have made him hard to recognize from his photograph in a revolving case at police headquarters.

He turned as a knock sounded on the door. A fat man stepped through the door, groaning and puffing as if the task of carrying his huge body through life were the bane of his existence. Wade, the ostensible owner of Sea-Glimpse—for its real master was seldom seen beyond the boundaries of the estate—placed a bundle of mail on the table, gave his master a long-suffering look, and withdrew.

With a listless air Vanardy glanced at the mail and began to unfold the newspapers. He ran his eyes over the headlines, and a caption, blacker and larger than the rest, caught his languid attention. He stared at it for moments, as if his brain were unable to absorb its meaning. Slowly and dazedly he mumbled the words: