Professor Bendix and an assistant did appear here. I have two reports, neither of them checked sufficiently. One is that these two men escaped. The other is that one of them, presumably Bendix has been killed. I shall send at once a man disguised as Doctor Bendix to visit Mr. Havens in New York. This envoy will remove the publisher. I call for a volunteer."
Instantly, the Phantom's hand was raised in the air and his voice rang out:
"I, Commander Rotz, offer myself for that honor!"
There was an imperceptible silence while the eyes of every officer in the room turned toward him. Then the chilling voice of the unseen speaker again:
"Commander Rotz is accepted. He will advance at once, at the conclusion of this meeting, along the unnumbered gallery next to Shaft 9. He will be met. That is all, gentlemen. I, the Imperator, have spoken!"
The Phantom's pulse pounded wildly. He out-stared the eyes watching him, turned quickly and strode out of the barrack cavern, the Imperator's icy words ringing in his ears:
"Advance along the unnumbered gallery."
He would be met.
Chapter Ten.
Horror Cave
Van was gripped by the first real hope of unmasking the power-mad genius behind the Invisible Empire. It quickened his senses, keyed him to alertness.
Not once since he had tricked his way into this maze of subterranean passageways had he been able even to guess at the position of the headquarters of the organization. It would have been impossible to track out the black, labyrinthian corridors of this vast series of connected mines and expect to stumble upon the center of the hooded society.
Nor had he heard anyone except Kag mention so much as the existence of a leader. He suspected none of the robed members or the guards had ever seen the Imperator face to face. There seemed to be some unwritten law against speaking his name.
That was the most baffling phase of this strange underground hunt—the utter and impregnable silence of the members.
The Phantom had considered Vonderkag as a suspect, but the hunchback scientist seemed too excitable, too unstable to govern such a ruthless association of men. Yet, apart from Kag, who was there, of all those masked and hooded members, that he could challenge as being the Imperator? A single such open attempt would only end in his immediate death.
The fifty masked officers who had attended that cryptic meeting in the cavern barrack were automatically eliminated as ultimate Imperator suspects, for that cold, emotionless speech had been delivered from some point outside that underground chamber.
Van had thought of trying to escape from this subterranean warren, to contact Havens and get help. He'd have to get out and warn the publisher, after this last threat. But to have these tunnels surrounded by police or soldiers would be useless. The Invisible Empire would only fade deeper into the mines and emerge at will from a hundred different exits.
He was stopped by two guards at the entrance to the tunnel leading off from the cavern that had the concrete walled water door of steel. They let him through at mention of the name Commander Rotz.
He went on alone, his flashlight outlining the earth walls of the sharply rising passage.
The tunnel curved several times, and ended at an iron door that was unlocked. He swung it open, found that it was the entrance to an elevator. The car was empty.
Van stepped into the cage, closed the iron door, and tried the operating lever. The elevator would not lower, but it went up rapidly when he reversed the control.
So far as he could determine, there were no stage landings until the car stopped of its own accord. He opened the door again, stepped out into a short corridor.
Two more guards in robes, masks and hoods, stood before the only exit, a narrow steel door set in a wall of cement at the end of the passage. There was an electric battery lamp over their heads.
The Phantom advanced, gave his name again. A key jangled in the lock, and the door swung open for him. He stepped through the opening into a lighted room of solid white concrete, heard the door close and the lock click behind him.
An odor of disinfectant and medicine permeated the place which was a combination surgical ward and operating room. Against one wall was a glass cabinet holding several trays filled with delicate, razor-sharp instruments. Beyond it was another door opposite the one he had entered, closed and evidently locked from the other side.
In the center of the room stood two operating tables, with space to work between them.
Van's eyes slid around the place, and a low moan sounded behind him. He turned, stepped behind a screen, looked down at a cot. On that stiff bed lay a man whose face was scarcely recognizable as human!
Van gazed pityingly into the agonized eyes of the helpless patient, and drew in his breath sharply. The skin on that mutilated face had been removed from more than two-thirds of its area. The cheeks, jowls, jaw and nose were raw flesh, and both ears had been amputated. The pillow upon which the head rested was bloodstained, sticky with gore.
The man's eyes clung to the Phantom's masked face wildly, then roved to the bed stand at the head of the cot. Van followed that tortured glance, and started at what he saw.
On the enameled top of the stand lay a gold badge and an identification card. He picked them up, his own eyes narrowing as he read the name:
JUD MARKS
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Van's hand shoved back the black hood he wore, and jerked off his white mask. He reached beneath his black robe and his fingers dug into a pocket in the belt he wore under his clothes.
Then he bent over the man on the bed, and held before the Secret Service operative's eyes a small, flat platinum badge studded with bright diamonds set in the shape of a mask—the Phantom's seal. Few men had ever seen that badge, but its legend was a by-word of accomplishment in police circles, an emblem of terror among criminals.
The eyes of the tortured F.B.I. man became alive with recognition and hope as he stared at the diamond mask in Van's hand. He tried to nod, and his bloody lips formed the word "Phantom!"
Dick Van Loan replaced the badge in his belt, bent again over the man on the bed.
"Can you talk?" he asked eagerly. "Who brought you here?"
The G-man's mangled face shuddered with the effort to answer. His words came slowly, painfully weak:
"An attempt had been made to rob Smithsonian Institute—I was—guarding it—Hoods—like yours"—his agonized glance roved over Van's black costume—"jumped me—stealing a—meteor from—ore case. Been trying to make—me talk about the Bureau—since I woke up here—"
Van's eyes gleamed. That meteoric fragment he'd seen and that Kag had boasted about down in the furnace cavern—it had come from the Smithsonian Institute. Kag had gloated over its theft.
"Who
