Imitation jade was what Mr. Gage called it. I never got the story straight, but it seems the Phantom had been carrying it around as a kind of keepsake for years. He lost it finally, and somehow it got into Mr. Gage’s hands. The Phantom wanted it back, but Mr. Gage was just stubborn enough to hang on to it. They had an awful rumpus, and I think the Phantom threatened to get Mr. Gage some day.”

“All that fuss about a piece of phony jade? The Phantom must have had some particular reason for wanting it back. What was it shaped like?”

“It was a funny kind of cross, with eight tips to it.”

“A Maltese cross, maybe.” Lieutenant Culligore whistled softly. “The Phantom’s a queer cuss. Likely as not he thought more of that piece of imitation jade than most people would of a thousand dollars. What I don’t see is why Gage wouldn’t give it up. Unless,” he added with a shrewd grin, “he knew how badly the Phantom wanted it and hoped to make him cough up some real dough for it. Wasn’t that it?”

A shrug was the housekeeper’s only response.

“And the Phantom, of course, balked at the idea of paying good money for his own property. But it seems Gage would have given it up when he saw that it was putting his life in danger. I suppose, though, he thought the Phantom was only bluffing. He didn’t believe anybody would commit a murder over a thing that could be bought for a few cents.”

Again the housekeeper shot Pinto a queer glance. “If you don’t want me any more, I think I’ll——”

“Just a moment,” interrupted Culligore. “I want you to show me the letter Gage got yesterday.”

With a sullen gesture she stepped to the desk, fumbled for a few moments among the drawers, then drew forth a letter and handed it to the lieutenant. Culligore examined the envelope and the superscription under the light, then pulled out the enclosure.

“‘The Gray Phantom neither forgives nor forgets,’” he read aloud. “Short and to the point. Now let’s have a look at the Maltese cross. But wait—here’s the medical examiner. You’re late, doc.”

“Car broke down.” The examiner, a thickset, bearded, crisp-mannered individual, put a few questions to Culligore and Pinto, then uncovered the body, explored the region of the wound with an expert touch, and finally jotted down a few notes in a red-covered book. As he rose from his kneeling position, the lieutenant gave him a signal out of the corner of his eye, and the two men left the room together.

“Just one question, doc.” Culligore spoke in low tones, as if anxious that Pinto and the housekeeper should not hear. “About that wound. How long did Gage live after he was stabbed?”

“Not very long.”

“Long enough to tell Pinto the name of the man who stabbed him?”

The examiner looked startled. “Yes, in all probability. Say, you don’t suspect that cop in there of——”

“Not after what you’ve told me.” Culligore wheeled on his heels and re-entered the inner room. His upper lip brushed the tip of his nose, signifying he had learned something interesting. Pinto was replacing the cover over the body, while the housekeeper, standing a few paces away, was regarding him with a fixed, inscrutable look.

“Now let’s see the Maltese cross,” directed the lieutenant.

The woman jerked herself up. Her eyes held a defiant gleam, but it died away quickly. With evident reluctance she approached the desk and pointed.

“There’s a hidden drawer back there in the corner,” she announced. “I don’t know how to open it. You’ll have to find that out for yourself.”

Culligore, after looking in vain for a concealed spring, took a small tool from his kit. To locate the drawer without the woman’s help would have been a difficult task, for it was ingeniously hidden in an apparently solid portion of the desk. With a few deft twists and jerks he forced it open and poured out the contents, consisting of a great number of small objects wrapped in tissue paper. Each of the little wads contained a diamond. Unwrapping one after another, Culligore gathered them in a glittering heap on the desk. The stones varied in size and brilliancy. Occasionally he raised one of them to the light and inspected it keenly, satisfying himself of its genuineness.

“Some eye-teasers!” he muttered. “But where’s the Maltese cross?”

The housekeeper’s face went blank. She stared at the diamonds, then at the empty drawer.

“It was there day before yesterday,” she declared. “Mr. Gage showed it to me.”

There was an odd tension in the lieutenant’s manner. “Did the Phantom know about the secret drawer and how to open it?”

The woman, one hand clutching the edge of the desk, seemed to ponder. “I don’t know. He might have. The Phantom called on Mr. Gage several times after they started quarreling. But——”

“Well, it doesn’t matter.” There was a strain of suppressed disappointment in Culligore’s tones, and his face hinted that an illusion was slipping away from him. “It looks as though the thing was settled. The Gray Phantom is the only man I know who would pass up some fifty thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds after taking the trouble to steal a gewgaw worth about two bits.”

With dragging gait he left the room, stepped behind the counter outside, and spoke into the telephone. In a few moments now the alarm would go out and a thousand eyes would be searching for the Gray Phantom. Culligore, tarrying for a little after he had hung up the receiver, looked as though he were in a mood to quarrel with his duty and with the facts staring him in the face. Then he shrugged, as if to banish regrets of which he was half ashamed, and his face bore a look of dogged determination when he stepped back into the bedroom.

“We’ll get him,” he announced with grim assurance. “Inside fifteen minutes there’ll be a net thrown around this old town so tight a mouse couldn’t wriggle through.”

He picked up his hat and kit, and just then his eyes fell on the housekeeper’s face. In vain he exercised his wits to interpret the sly gaze with which she was fixing Patrolman Pinto.

Did it mean fear, suspicion, horror, hate, or all four?

CHAPTER III—BLUE OR GRAY?

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