The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale by Frank L. Packard (page 4)

Why, then, Sonnino’s safe to-night? What was in that letter signed “J. Barca” that Clarie Archman had received? J. Barca was Gentleman Laroque; that would have been evident in any case, even if the Tocsin had not expressly said so–but the letter! Did the letter, apart from its incriminating ingenuity, supply the answer to his question? Had Sonnino, for instance, by some lucky turn, disposed of his stock in bulk, and was thus for the moment in possession of an unusually large amount of cash; or, inversely, had Sonnino received an unusual stock of stones? Either of these theories, and equally neither one of them, might furnish the answer! Jimmie Dale shrugged his shoulders grimly. He would find the answer–in Sonnino’s safe! One thing, however, one thing that might have had some bearing on Laroque’s choice, one thing for which he, Jimmie Dale, was grateful to Laroque for making such a choice, was that Sonnino’s place lent itself admirably to attack–from the standpoint of the attacker! A black courtyard, screened completely from the street; a house that–

Jimmie Dale looked up suddenly, and, as suddenly, leaning forward, he touched Benson’s shoulder. They were just approaching a restaurant and music hall known as “The Sphinx,” that was popular for the moment with the slumming parties from uptown.

“This will do. You may let me out here at The Sphinx, Benson,” he said quietly; and then, as the car stopped: “I shall not be long, Benson–perhaps half an hour–wait for me.”

Benson touched his cap. Jimmie Dale ran up the steps of the restaurant, entered, threaded his way through several crowded rooms where the midnight revelry was in full swing–and passed out of the place by a convenient rear exit that gave on the adjoining cross street. The car standing in front of The Sphinx would attract no notice; and he was now on the same street as Sonnino’s place, and only two short blocks away.

He started forward from the restaurant door–and paused, struggling with a refractory match in an effort to light a cigarette. A man brushed by him, making for the restaurant door, a tall, wiry-built, swarthy, sharp-featured man–and Jimmie Dale flipped the stub of his match away from him, and went on. Sonnino himself! There was luck then at the start–the coast was clear!

CHAPTER XV

CAUGHT IN THE ACT

It was one of those countless streets on the East Side each so identical with another–dark, not over clean, flanked on both sides with small shops, basement stores and tenement dwellings that crowded one upon the other in a sort of helpless confusion. Jimmie Dale moved quickly along. The whimsical smile was back on his lips. Sonnino, whose business, the money-lending end of it, would naturally have kept him late at work, was now evidently intent on a belated meal; Sonnino, therefore, could be counted upon as a factor eliminated for at feast the next half hour–and half an hour was enough, a little more than enough!

Jimmie Dale glanced back over his shoulder. There was no one in sight. A yard ahead of him, one of those relics of barbaric architecture, tunnelled as it were through the centre of a building that the space overhead might not be wasted, was the black driveway that gave entrance to the courtyard behind, where Sonnino lived alone in one of a half dozen small, tottering-from-age frame houses. Jimmie Dale drew closer to the wall, came opposite the driveway–and disappeared from the street.

It was the Gray Seal now, the professional Jimmie Dale, as silent in his movements as the shadows about him. He traversed the driveway, and emerged on the courtyard. Here, it was scarcely less dark. There was no moon, and no lights in any of the houses that made the rear of the courtyard. He could just discern the houses as looming shapes against the sky line, that was all.

He crossed the courtyard, and, reaching the line of door-stepless, poverty-stricken hovels–they appeared to be little more than that–crept stealthily along to the end house at the left, halted an instant to press his face against a black window pane, then tried the door cautiously. It was locked, of course. Again there came the whimsical smile, but it was almost hidden now by the black silk mask that he slipped quickly over his face. His finger tips, that were like a magical sixth sense to Jimmie Dale, embodying all the other five, felt tentatively over the lock, then slipped into his pocket, selected unerringly one of his picklocks, and inserted the little steel instrument in the keyhole. An instant more and the door was opening without a sound under Jimmie Dale’s hand. And then, the door open, he stepped over the threshold, and, in the act of closing the door behind him, stood suddenly rigid–and where the whimsical smile had been before, his lips were now compressed into a thin, straight line.

“What’s that?” came a hoarse, shaken whisper out of the blackness beyond.

“What’s _what_?” demanded another voice–the whisper this time sharp and caustic. “I didn’t hear anything!”

“Neither did I,” admitted the first speaker. “It wasn’t that–it was like a draft of air–as though the door or a window had been opened.”

“Forget it!” observed the second voice contemptuously. “Cut out the jumps–we’ve got to get through here before Sonnino gets back. You’d make a wooden Indian nervous!”

There was silence for an instant, then a curious gnawing sound punctuated with quick, low, metallic rasps as of a ratchet at work–and upon Jimmie Dale for a moment came stunned dismay. Time, the one factor upon which he had depended, was lost to him; Clarie Archman and Gentleman Laroque were already at work in there in that room beyond. He stood motionless, his brain whirling; and then slowly, without a sound, an inch at a time, he began to close the door behind him. He could see nothing; but the door connecting the two rooms was obviously open–the distinctness with which the whispering voices had reached him was proof of that. They were working, too, without light, or he would have got a warning gleam when he had looked through the window. And now–what now? The picklock was shifted to his left hand, as he drew his automatic from his pocket. There was only one answer to the question–to play the game out to the end, whatever that end might be!

Beneath the mask his face drew into chiselled lines, as the picklock silently locked the door. There was one exit from that inner room, and only _one_–through the room in which he stood. The Tocsin had drawn an accurate word-plan of the crude, shack-like place, and now in his mind he reconstructed it here in the darkness. The doorway into a small hall that led to the stairs adjoined the doorway of that inner room where the two were now at work–and in that room were no windows, it was a sort of blind cubby-hole where Niccolo Sonnino transacted his most private business.

Jimmie Dale crept forward up the room. There was no answering creak of board or flooring, no sound save that gnawing sound, and the rasping click of the ratchet. His place of vantage was against the wall between the two doors–there, be could both command the exit from, and see into, the inner room, while the doorway into the hall provided him with a means of retreat should the necessity arise. And then, suddenly, halfway up the room, he dropped down behind what was evidently a jeweller’s workbench. A whisper, obviously Laroque’s this time, came once more from the inner room.

“Shoot the flash again!” And then, savagely: “Curse it, not on the _ceiling_! Can’t you hold it steady! What the devil is the matter with you!”

There was no answer. A dull glimmer of light filtered through the doorway, but from the position in which he lay Jimmie Dale could distinguish nothing in the inner room itself.

“All right! That’ll do!” Laroque growled presently.

The light went out. Jimmie Dale crept forward again. And now he gained the rear wall of the room, and crouched down close against it between the two doorways.

Came the sound of breathing now, heavy, as from sustained exertion, making almost an undertone of the steady _click-click-click_ of the ratchet, and the sullen gnaw of the bit. The minutes passed. The flashlight went on again–and Jimmie Dale strained forward. Two dark forms, backs to him, were outlined against the face of the safe which was at the far side of the room, a nickel dial glistened in the white ray–he could make out nothing else.

Then darkness again. And again, after a time, the flashlight. Ten, fifteen, perhaps twenty minutes dragged by. Jimmie Dale might have been a shadow moving against the wall for all the sound he made as he changed his cramped position; but, just below the mask, his lips were pressed fiercely together. Would Gentleman Laroque never get through! Sonnino was not only likely to return in a very few minutes now, but was almost certain to do so. Under his breath Jimmie Dale cursed the gangster’s bungling methods–and not for their crudity alone. His first impulse had been to surprise the two, hold them up at the revolver point, but the result of such an act would have been abortive, for the disfigured safe would stand a mute, incontrovertible witness to the fact that an _attempt_ to force it had been made–and, whether it was actual robbery or attempted robbery that was proved against the son, it in no way deflected the blow aimed at David Archman. And, besides, there was the letter! If he, Jimmie Dale, had been in time even to have prevented Gentleman Laroque from sinking a bit into the safe, the letter would have counted not at all–but now it counted to the extent that it literally meant life and death. Who had it? Not Clarie Archman–that was certain. And the Tocsin had not said–obviously because she, too, had been in the dark in that respect. Therefore he could only wait, watch and follow every move of the game throughout the rest of the night, if necessary! It was the only course open to him; the letter, not the robbery, was paramount now.

A curious, muffled, metallic thump, mingled with a quick, low-breathed, triumphant oath, came suddenly from the inner room–and then Laroque’s voice, eager, the words clipped off as though in feverish elation:

“There she is! One nice little job–eh? Well, come on–shoot your light into her, and let’s take a look at the Christmas tree!”

The flashlight’s ray flooded the interior of the open safe. Laroque, on his knees, laughed suddenly, and thrust his hand inside.

“What did I tell you, eh?” he chuckled. “I got the straight tip, eh? Four thousand, if there’s a cent!”

Laroque began to remove what were evidently packages of banknotes from the safe–but Jimmie Dale was no longer watching the scene. He had edged suddenly back into the doorway of the hall, and was listening now intently. A footstep–he could have sworn he had caught the sound of a footstep–seemed to have come from just outside the front window. But all was still again. Perhaps he had been mistaken. No! Slight as was the sound, he heard, unmistakably now, a key grate in the lock–and then, stealthily, the front door began to open.

A bewildered look came into Jimmie Dale’s face, as he retreated further back into the hallway itself now. It was probably Sonnino; but why did Sonnino come stealing into his own house like–well, like any one of the three predatory guests already there before him? And then Jimmie Dale’s face cleared. Of course! From the window the glow of the flashlight in the inner room could be seen. Sonnino was forewarned, and undoubtedly–forearmed!

The front door closed softly, so softly that had Jimmie Dale, supersensitive as his hearing was, not been intent upon it, it would have escaped him. The glow from the inner room, faint as it was, threw into shadowy relief a man’s form tiptoeing forward–and then a board creaked.

“_What’s that_!” came in a wild whisper from Clarie Archman.

“Got ’em again!” Laroque snapped back. “You make me tired!”

“Let’s get out of here! Let’s get out of here–quick!” Clarie Archman’s voice, not so low now, held a tone of frantic appeal.

“Nix!” said Laroque, in a vicious sneer. “Not till the job’s done! D’ye think I’m going to spend half an hour cracking a safe and take a chance of missing any bets? We’ve got the coin all right, but there ought to be one or two of Sonnino’s sparklers lying around in some of these drawers, and–“

There was a click of an electric-light switch, a cry from Clarie Archman, the inner room was ablaze with light, and–Jimmie Dale had edged forward again out of the hallway–Sonnino, revolver in hand, was standing just over the threshold facing Gentleman Laroque and the assistant district attorney’s son.

Then silence–a silence of seconds that were as minutes. And then Gentleman Laroque laughed gratingly.

“Hello, Sonnino!” he said coolly. “A little late, aren’t you? You’ve kept me stalling for the last five minutes. Know my friend–Mr. Martin Moore, alias Mr. Clarie Archman? Clarie, this is Signor Niccolo Sonnino, the proprietor of this joint.”

And then to Jimmie Dale, where before his mind had groped in darkness to reconcile apparently incongruous details, in a flash there came the light. The “plant” was a little more intricate, a little more cunning, a little more hellish–that was all!

The boy, white to the lips, was swaying on his feet, grasping at the table in the centre of the room. He looked from one to the other, a miserable, dawning understanding in his eyes.

“You–you know my name?” His voice was scarcely audible.

“Sure!” said Laroque–and yawned insolently.

“So!” purred Sonnino, in excellent English. “Is it so! A thief! The son of the so-honest Mister Attorney–a thief!”

“It’s a lie!” The boy’s hands, clenched, were raised above his head, and then shaken almost maniacally in Gentleman Laroque’s face. “It’s a lie! I–I don’t understand, but–but you two, you devils, are together in this!”

“Sure!” retorted Laroque, as insolently as before–and flung the other’s hands away. “Sure, we are!”

“It’s a lie!” said the boy again. “I was in a hole. I needed money. You told me you knew a man who would lend it to me. That’s why I came here with you, and then–and then you held me here with your revolver, and began to open that safe.”

“Sure!” returned Laroque, for the third time. “Sure–that’s right! Well, what’s the answer?”

“This!” cried the boy wildly. “I don’t know what your game is, but this is my answer! Do you think I would have touched that money, or have let you–once I got out of here where I could have got help! I’m not a thief–whatever else I may be. That’s my answer!”

Niccolo Sonnino’s smile was oily.

“It is a little late, is it not?” he leered. “Listen, my little young friend; I will tell you a story. You work for a bank, eh? The bank does not like its young men to speculate–yes? But why should you not speculate a little, a very little, if you like–if you get the very private and good tips, eh? It is not wrong–no, certainly, it is not wrong. But at the same time the bank must not know. Very well! They shall not know–no one shall know. You are not the young Mr. Archman any more, you are–what is the name?–Martin Moore. But Martin Moore must have an address, eh? Very well! On Sixth Avenue there is a little store where one rents boxes for private mail, and where questions are never asked–is it not so, my very dear young friend?”

The boy was staring in a demented way into Sonnino’s face, but he did not speak.

“Aw, hand it to him straight!” Gentleman Laroque broke in roughly. “I don’t want to hang around here all night. Here, Archman, you listen to me! We piped you off on that lay about two weeks ago–and it looked good to us, and we played it for a winner, see? You got introduced to me, and found me a pretty good sort, and we got thick together–you know all about that. Also, you get introduced to some new brokers, who said they’d take good care of your margins–maybe they only ran a bucket-shop, but you didn’t know it! All right! You got snarled up good and plenty. Yesterday you were wiped out, and three thousand dollars to the bad besides, and they were yelling for their money and threatening to expose you. They gave you until to-morrow morning to make good. You told me about it. I told you this morning I thought I knew a man who would lend you the coin, and”–he laughed mockingly, and jerked his hand toward the safe–“well, I led you to it, didn’t I?”

“I–I don’t understand,” the boy mumbled helplessly.

“Don’t you!” jeered Laroque. “Well, it looks big enough for a blind man to see! We’ve got this robbery wished on you to a fare-thee-well! A young man who speculates, who uses an assumed name, and runs a private letter box on Sixth Avenue, and has forty-eight hours in which to square up his debts or face exposure, has a hell of a chance with a jury–_not_!”

The boy circled his lips with the tip of his tongue.

“But why–why?” he whispered. “I–I never did anything to you.”

“Sure, you didn’t!” Laroque’s tones were brutally amiable now. “It’s your father. We’ve an idea that maybe he won’t be so keen about going ahead with that little investigation of the private clubs after we’ve put a certain little proposition about his son up to him.”

“No, no! No–you won’t!” Clarie Archman’s voice rose suddenly shrill, beyond control. “You won’t! You can’t! You’re in it yourselves”–he pointed his finger wildly at one and then the other of the two men–“you–you!”

“Think so?” drawled Laroque. “All right, you tell ’em so–tell the jury about it, tell your father, who is such a shark on evidence, about it. Sure, I’m in on it with you–but you don’t know who I am. They’ll have a hot time finding J. Barca, Esquire! I’m thinking of taking a little trip to Florida for my health, and my valet’s got my grip all packed! Savvy? And now listen to Sonnino. Sonnino’s a wonder in the witness box. Niccolo, tell the jury what you know about this unfortunate young man.”

Sonnino, a wicked grin on his face, made a dramatic flourish with the hand that held the revolver.

“Well, I was asleep upstairs. I wakened. I thought I heard a noise downstairs. I listened. Then I got up, and went down the stairs quiet like a mouse. I turned on the light quick–like this”–he snapped his fingers. “Two men have broken open my safe, and they have my money, a lot of money, for I keep all my money there; I do not bank–no. They rush at me, they knock me down, they make their escape, but I recognise one of them–it is Mister the young Archman, who I have many times seen at The Sphinx Cafe–yes. Well, and then on the floor I find a letter.” He grinned wickedly again. “Have you the letter that I find–Mister Barca?”

“Sure,” said Gentleman Laroque–and reached into his pocket. “It was addressed to Martin Moore on Sixth Avenue, wasn’t it?”

“My God!” It came in a sudden, pitiful cry from the boy, and his hand involuntarily went to his own pocket. “You–you’ve got that letter!”

“Do you think you’re up against a piker game!” exclaimed Laroque maliciously. “Well then, forget it! You didn’t have this in your pocket half an hour before it was lifted by one of the slickest poke-getters in the whole of little old New York.” He was taking a letter from its envelope and opening out the sheet. “That’s the kind of a crowd that’s in on this, my bucko! Listen, and I’ll read the letter. It looked innocent enough when you got it, in view of what I told you about knowing a man who would lend you the money. But pipe how it sounds with Sonnino’s safe bored full of holes. Are you listening? ‘It’s all right. Niccolo Sonnino has got his safe crammed full to-night. Meet me at Bristol Bob’s at eleven. J. Barca.'”

There was silence in the room. Clarie Archman had dropped into a chair, and had buried his face in his arms that were out-flung across the table.

Then Laroque spoke again:

“Do you see where you stand–Clarie? Tell your story–and it’s the _story_ that sounds like a neat ‘plant’ of your lawyer’s to get you off. You only get in deeper with the jury for trying to _trick_ them, see? Here’s the evidence–and it’s got you cold. Sonnino recognises you. The letter is identified at the Sixth Avenue place, and _you_ are identified as the guy that’s been travelling under the name of Martin Moore. J. Barca has flown the coop and can’t be found, and–well, I guess you get it, don’t you?”

“What–what do you want?” The boy did not lift his head.

“We want your father to let up, and let up damned quick,” said Laroque evenly. “But we’ll give _you_ a chance to get out from under, and you can take it or leave it–it doesn’t matter to us. Your father’s got the papers and the affidavits in the ‘Private Club’ case in his safe at home to-night, and a lot of those affidavits he can never replace–we’ve seen to that! All right! You’ve got the combination of the safe. Go home and get that stuff and bring it here. If it’s here by four o’clock–that gives you about three hours–you’re out of it. If it isn’t, then your father gets inside information that the gang is wise to the fact that his son pulled a break tonight, but that they can keep Sonnino’s mouth shut if he throws up the sponge, and that if he doesn’t call it off with the ‘Private Club Ring,’ if he’s so blamed fond of prosecuting, he’ll get a chance to prosecute his own son–as a thief!”

The boy did not move.

“And just one last word,” added Laroque sharply. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking that if you refuse to get the affidavits it puts a crimp in us. It’s only because we’re playing white with you, and to give you a chance, that you’re getting any choice at all. We didn’t intend to give you one, but we don’t want to be too rough on you, so if you want to get out that way, and will agree to keep on queering your father’s game if he starts it over again, all right. But you want to understand that we hold just as big a club over your father’s head the other way.”

“_White!_ Playing white! Oh, my God!” Clarie Archman had lurched up from the chair to his feet. His face, haggard and drawn, was the face of one damned.

“Good-night!” said Laroque callously. “You know the way out! You’ve got till four o’clock. If you’re not back here then–” He shrugged his shoulders significantly. “You see, I’m not even asking you what you are going to do. We don’t care. It’s up to you. Either way suits us. And now–beat it!”

Jimmie Dale drew back for a second time that night into the hallway. A step, slow, faltering, unsteady, like that of a man blinded, passed out from the inner room, and passed on down the length of the front room–and the door opened and closed. Clarie Archman, with God alone knew what purpose in his heart, was gone.

From the thin metal case, by means of the tiny tweezers, Jimmie Dale took out a gray seal, laid the seal on his handkerchief, folded the handkerchief carefully, placed it in his pocket–and crept forward toward the inner door again. The two men were bending over the table, over the money on the table, dividing it. Jimmie Dale’s lips were mercilessly thin; a fury, not the white, impetuous heat of passion, but a fury that was cold, deadly, implacable, possessed his soul. He crept nearer–still nearer.

“The crowd that put this up says we keep it between us for our work,” said Laroque shortly. “A third for you, the rest for me. You sure you put _all_ they gave you in the safe–Niccolo?” He screwed up his eyes suspiciously. “You sure you ain’t trying to hold anything out on me? If you are, I’ll make you–“

The words died short on his lips–his jaw sagged helplessly.

Jimmie Dale was standing in the doorway.

“Niccolo, drop that revolver!” said Jimmie Dale softly. His automatic held a bead on the two men.

The revolver clattered to the table top. Neither of the men spoke–only their faces worked in a queer, convulsive sort of way, as they gazed in startled fascination at Jimmie Dale.

“Thank you!” said Jimmie Dale politely. He stepped briskly into the room, shoved Sonnino unceremoniously to one side, shoved his revolver muzzle none too gently into Laroque’s ribs, and went through the latter’s clothes. “Yes,” he said, “I thought quite possibly you might have one.” He pocketed Laroque’s revolver, and also Sonnino’s from the table. “And now that letter–thank you!” He whipped the letter from Laroque’s inside coat pocket and transferred it to his own, then stepped back, and smiled–but the smile was not inviting. “I’ve only about five minutes to spare,” murmured Jimmie Dale. “I’m in a _hurry_, Niccolo. I see some wrapping paper and string over there on top of the safe. Get it!”

The man obeyed mechanically, in a stupefied sort of way, and placed several of the sheets and a quantity of string upon the table. Laroque, silent, sullen, under the spell of Jimmie Dale’s automatic, watched the proceedings without a word.

“Now,” said Jimmie Dale, and an icy note began to creep into the velvet tones, “you two are going to make the first charitable contribution you ever made in your lives–say, to one of the city hospitals. Make as neat and as small a parcel of that money as you can, Niccolo.”

“Not by a damned sight!” Laroque roared out suddenly. “Who the blazes are you! Curse you, I–” He shrank hastily back before the ominous outthrust of Jimmie Dale’s automatic.

“Wrap it up, Niccolo, and tie a string around it!” snapped Jimmie Dale.

And again, but snarling, cursing now, the man obeyed.

Jimmie Dale’s hand went into his pocket, and came out with his handkerchief. He carried the handkerchief to his mouth, moistened the adhesive side of the gray paper seal, and pressed the handkerchief down upon the top of the parcel.

“It would hardly do for any one to know where the money really came from–would it?” observed Jimmie Dale, and smiled uninvitingly again.

The two men were leaning, straining forward, their eyes on the diamond-shaped gray seal–and into their faces there crept a sickly fear.

“The Gray Seal!” Sonnino stumbled the words.

“Put an outside wrapper around that package!” instructed Jimmie Dale coldly. He watched Sonnino perform the task with trembling fingers; and then, placing the package under his arm, Jimmie Dale backed to the door. There was a key in the lock on the inner side. He transferred it coolly to the outer side–and his voice rasped suddenly with the fury that found vent at last.

“You are a pair of hell hounds,” he said between his teeth; “but you are angels compared with the gang that hired you for this. Well, the game is up! David Archman will settle with _them_ when they face the investigation–and I will settle with _you_! One night, a year ago, in last January, a certain Fourth Avenue bank was looted of eighteen thousand dollars–_do you remember, Laroque?_ Ah, I see you do! The police are still looking for the man who pulled that job. What would you say, Laroque, would be the sentence handed out for that little affair to a man with, say, _your_ past record?”

Laroque’s lips were twitching; his face had gone gray.

“Fourteen years would be a light sentence, wouldn’t it?” resumed Jimmie Dale, an even colder menace in his voice. “And you remember Stangeist, and the Mope, and Australian Ike, don’t you, Laroque–you remember they went to the death house in Sing Sing–and you remember that the Gray Seal sent them there? Yes, I see you do; I see your memory is good to-night! Listen, then! I have heard it said that Gentleman Laroque, with his gangsters behind him, would stop at nothing where Gentleman Laroque’s own skin was concerned. I have heard it said that where Gentleman Laroque was known he was _feared_. Very well, Laroque, it is your turn to choose. You can choose between yourself and this ‘Private Club Ring’ who have purchased your services in this game to-night. I fancy you can find a means of inducing Sonnino here to keep his mouth shut; and I fancy that of the two evils–holding young Archman as a club over his father, or of your employers facing their trial and conviction–you can convince the ‘Private Club Ring’ that the lesser, the lesser as regards _your_ risk, say, is to face that trial and conviction. Do I make myself plain–Laroque? It is simply a question of not a word being said of what has happened to-night–or fourteen years in Sing Sing for you! I do not think you will find the task difficult when you add, to whatever arguments of your own you may see fit to employ, the fact that the Gray Seal, if your principals make a move, will expose them for this night’s work on top of what they will already have to answer for. Well–Laroque?”

There was silence for a minute. Sonnino, cringing, the suavity, the oiliness of manner gone, a man afraid, kept his eyes on the table, and kept passing his hands one over the other. Laroque was the gambler–a twisted smile was forced to his lips.

“You win,” he said hoarsely. “You can take it from me, I’ll go up the river for fourteen years for no one–I’ll take blasted good care of that! But you”–a rage, ungovernable and elemental, found voice in a sudden torrent of blasphemous invective–“you–we’ll get you yet! Some day we’ll get you, you cursed snitch, you–“

“Good-night!” said Jimmie Dale grimly, and, stepping swiftly back over the threshold, shut and locked the door.

He gained the street, gained his car in front of The Sphinx–and, twenty minutes later, after a break-neck run in which Benson for the second time that night defied all speed laws, Jimmie Dale alighted from his car at a street corner well uptown, dismissed Benson for the night, retraced his way half the distance back along the block, disappeared into a lane, and presently, taking a high fence with the agility of a cat in spite of, his encumbering package, dropped noiselessly down into a backyard.

It was well known ground to Jimmie Dale–as a boy he had played here in the Archman’s backyard, played here with Clarie Archman. His face masked again, he moved swiftly toward the rear of the house. There was still Clarie Archman. What would the boy do? Jimmie Dale’s hand, a picklock in it again, clenched fiercely. It was a hell’s choice they had given the boy–to rob his father, or go down himself, and drag his father with him, in ruin and disgrace! What would the boy do? Jimmie Dale was working silently at the back door now. It opened, and he stepped inside. He was here well ahead of the other, there was no possibility, granting even the start the boy had had, that Clarie Archman could have made the trip uptown in the same time. It was more likely that the boy might even linger a long while in misery and indecision before he came home. That was why he, Jimmie Dale, had dismissed Benson and the car for the night, and–

With a mental jerk, Jimmie Dale focused his mind on his immediate surroundings. It was dark; there were no lights in any part of the house, but he needed none, not even his flashlight–he knew the house as well and as intimately as his own. He was in the rear hall now, and now he opened a door, paused cautiously as the dull yellow glow from a dying grate fire illuminated the room faintly, then stepped inside. It was the Archman library, the room where David Archman did a great deal of his work at night A desk stood at the lower end of the room; and in the corner near the portiered windows was the lawyer’s safe.

Jimmie Dale closed the door, moved toward the window, drew the portieres aside, released the window catch, silently raised the window itself–it was only a drop a few feet to the yard! And then Jimmie Dale sat down at the desk.

A clock somewhere in the house struck a single note–that would be halfpast one. Time passed slowly, interminably. The clock struck again–two o’clock. And then suddenly Jimmie Dale rose from his chair, and slipped into the window recess behind the portieres. The front door closed, a step came along the hall, the library opened, closed again–and Clarie Archman, his face as the flickering firelight played upon it, like a face of death, came forward into the room.

For a moment the boy held motionless beside the desk, his eyes fixed in a sort of horrible fascination upon the safe–and then, slowly, he moved toward it, and dropped on his knees before it, and his fingers began to twirl the knob of the dial. His fingers shook, and he was a long time at his task–and then the handle turned, and the safe was unlocked, but Clarie Archman did not open the door. Instead, he drew back suddenly, and rose swaying to his feet, and covered his face with his hands.

“I can’t! Oh, my God, I–I can’t!” he moaned. He lowered his hands after a moment, and gazed around him unseeingly, a queer, ghastly look came into his face. “I–I guess–I guess there’s only one–one way to–to beat them,” he whispered. “One way to beat them, and–“

The package in Jimmie Dale’s hand dropped suddenly to the floor, he wrenched the portieres aside, and, with a low, sharp cry, sprang forward. The boy had taken a revolver from his pocket, and was lifting it to his head. Jimmie Dale struck up the other’s hand–but in time only to deflect the shot; too late to prevent it being fired. There was a flash in mid-air, the roar of the report went racketing through the silent house, and the revolver, spinning from the other’s hands, struck against the wall across the room.

And then Jimmie Dale had the boy by the shoulders, and was shaking him violently. Clarie Archman was like one stunned, numbed, and bereft of his senses.

“It’s all right–you’re clear! Do you hear–try and understand–you’re clear!” Jimmie Dale whispered fiercely. “Here’s your letter!” He thrust it into the other’s hand. “Destroy it! Those men–Sonnino–Barca–will say nothing. You don’t owe anybody any money–that bucket-shop was in the game with the rest, and–” Cries, voices, were coming from above now; and Jimmie Dale, like a flash, turned from the boy, leaped for the safe, wrenched the door open, reached in with both hands, and, snatching up an armful of the contents, spilled books and papers on the floor. He was back beside the boy in an instant. “Listen! You heard some one in here as you entered the house–you came into the room–_you caught me in the act_–you fired–you missed. And now–_fight_! Fight–pull yourself together–fight. They are coming!”

He caught the boy around the waist, and the two, locked together, reeled this way and that about the room. A chair, deliberately kicked over by Jimmie Dale, crashed to the floor. The cries drew nearer. Footsteps came racing madly down the stairs–and then the door of the library burst open, and David Archman, in pajamas, dashed through the doorway, and without a second’s hesitation, made for the two struggling forms–and Jimmie Dale, releasing his hold upon the boy, suddenly sent the other staggering backwards full into David Archman, checking David Archman’s rush–and, turning, sprang for the window, snatched up his package, hurled himself over the sill, dropped to the ground, and, racing for the fence, climbed it, and made the lane, just as a shot, from David Archman, no doubt, was fired from the window.

A moment more, and Jimmie Dale, his mask in his pocket, had emerged from the lane, and was walking nonchalantly along to the street corner; another, and he had boarded a street car–but under Jimmie Dale’s coat was a most suspicious bulge. Conscious of this, he left the street car a few blocks farther along, when he was far enough away to be certain that he would have eluded all pursuit–and walked the rest of the distance to Riverside Drive. If he had escaped unscathed, the package of banknotes had not–it was his coat that shielded them from view, not the wrappers, for the wrappers had been torn almost entirely away in his hasty exit over the fence.

He reached his home, and mounted the steps cautiously. There was Jason to consider–Jason with his lovable pernicious habit of sitting up for his master. Jason must not see those banknotes, that was obvious, and if Jason–yes!–Jimmie Dale was peering now through the monogrammed lace that covered the plate glass doors in the vestibule–yes, Jason was still sitting up. And then Jimmie Dale smiled that strange whimsical smile of his. Jason was still sitting up–asleep in the hall chair.

Softly, without a sound, Jimmie Dale opened the front door, entered, passed the old man, and went up the stairs. In his dressing room, he hid away the package that tomorrow, or at the first opportunity, would enrich some deserving charity, and, as silently as he had come up the stairs, he descended them again, passed by the old man again, and went out to the street once more. There was just one reason why Jason, tired out and asleep, sat there–only one–because Jason, old Jason, faithful, big-hearted Jason, loved his Master Jim.

Into Jimmie Dale’s eyes there came a mist. Perhaps that was why, because he could not see clearly, that he stumbled on his way up the steps again; perhaps that was why he made so much noise that it was Jason who opened the door and held out his hands for Jimmie Dale’s coat and hat.

“What!” said Jimmie Dale severely. “Sitting up again, Jason? Jason, go to bed at once!”

“Yes, sir,” said Jason. “Thank you, sir. Thank you, Master Jim, sir–I will.”

CHAPTER XVI

ONE CHANCE IN TEN

It was three nights later. Old Jason had placed a tray with after-dinner coffee and a liqueur set on the table at Jimmie Dale’s elbow–that was fully an hour ago, and both coffee and liqueur were untouched. Things were not going well. Apart entirely from all lack of success where the Tocsin was concerned, things were not going well. The fate of Frenchy Virat, the fate of the Wolf, and, added to this, the Gray Seal’s intervention in the plans and purposes of one Gentleman Laroque and certain gentlemen still higher up than Laroque, had not passed unmarked or unnoticed in the underworld. And now in the underworld a strange, ominous and far-reaching disquiet reigned. It was an underworld rampant with suspicion, mad with fury, more dangerous than it had ever been before.

Jimmie Dale’s hand reached abstractedly into the pocket of his dinner jacket for his cigarette case. He lighted a cigarette, leaned back once more in the big, leather-upholstered lounging chair, and his eyes, half closed, strayed introspectively around the luxuriously appointed room, his own particular den in his Riverside Drive residence. Once, a very long while ago, years ago, so long ago now that it seemed as though it must have been in some strange previous incarnation, back in those days when the Tocsin had first come into his life, and when he had known her only as the author of those mysterious letters, those “calls to arms” to the Gray Seal, she had written: “Things are a little too warm, aren’t they, Jimmie? Let’s let them cool for a year.”

A blue thread curled lazily upward from the tip of the cigarette. Jimmie Dale’s eyes fastened mechanically on the twisting, wavering spiral, followed it mechanically as it rose and spread out into filmy, undulating, fantastic shapes–and the strong, square jaw set suddenly hard. It was not so very strange that those words should have come back to him to-night! Things were “warm” now–and he could not let them “cool” for a year!

“Warm!” He smiled a little mirthlessly. The comparison was very slight! Then, at the beginning, at the outset of the Gray Seal’s career, the police, it was true, had shown a certain unpleasant anxiety for a closer acquaintanceship, but that was about all. To-day, lashed on and mocked by a virulent press, goaded to madness by their own past failures to “get” the Gray Seal, to whose door they laid a hundred crimes and for whom the bars of a death cell in Sing Sing was the goal if they could but catch their prey, the police, to a man, were waging a ceaseless and relentless war against him; and to-day, joining hands with the police, the underworld in all its thousand ramifications, prompted by fear, by suspicion of one another, reached out to trap him, and to deal out to him a much more speedy, but none the less certain, fate than that prescribed by the statutes of the law!

He shook his head. It could not go on–indefinitely. The role was too hard to play; the dual life, in a sort of grim, ironical self-mockery, brought even in its own successful interpretation added dangers and perils with each succeeding day. As it had been with Larry the Bat, the more he now lived Smarlinghue the more it became difficult to slough off Smarlinghue and live as Jimmie Dale; the more Smarlinghue became trusted and accepted in the inner circles of the underworld, the more he became a figure in those sordid surroundings, and the more dangerous it became to “disappear” at will without exciting suspicion, where suspicion, as it was, was already spread into every nook and corner of the Bad Lands, where each rubbed shoulders with his fellow in the lurking dread that the other was–the Gray Seal!

The police were no mean antagonists, he made no mistake on that score; but the peril that was the graver menace of the two, and the greater to be feared, was–the underworld. And here in the underworld in the last few days, here where on every twisted, vicious lip was the whisper, “Death to the Gray Seal,” there had come even another menace. He could not define it, it was intuition perhaps–but intuition had never failed him yet. It was an undercurrent of which he had gradually become conscious, the sense of some unseen, guiding power, that moved and swayed and controlled, and was present, dominant, in every den and dive in crimeland. There had been many gang leaders and heads of little coteries of crime, cunning, crafty in their way, and all of them unscrupulous, like the Wolf, for instance, who had sworn openly and boastingly through the Bad Lands, and had been believed for a season, that they would bring the Gray Seal to a last accounting–but it was more than this now. There was a craftier brain and a stronger hand at work than the Wolf’s had ever been! Who was it? He shook his head. He did not know. He had gone far into the innermost circles of the underworld–and he did not know. He sensed a power there; and in a dozen different, intangible ways, still an intuition more than anything else, he had sensed this “some one,” this power, creeping, fumbling, feeling its implacable way through the dark, as it were, toward _him_.

Yes, it was getting “warm”–perilously warm! And inevitably there must come an end–some day. The warning stared him in the face. But he could not stop, could not heed the warning, could not let things “cool” now for a year, and stand aside until the storm should have subsided! Where was the Tocsin? If his peril was great–what was hers!

He surged suddenly upward from his chair, his hands clenched until the knuckles stood out like ivory knobs. The Tocsin! The woman he loved–where was she? Was she safe _to-night?_ Where was she? He could not stop until that question had been answered, be the consequences what they might! Warnings, the realisation of peril–he laughed shortly, in grim bitterness–counted little in the balance after all, did they not! Where was the Tocsin?

The telephone rang. Jimmie Dale stared at the instrument for a moment, as though it were some singular and uninvited intruder who had broken in without warrant upon his train of thought; and then, leaning forward over the table, he lifted the receiver from the hook.

“Yes? Hello! Yes?” inquired Jimmie Dale. “What is it?”

A man’s voice, hurried, and seemingly somewhat agitated, answered him.

“I would like to speak to Mr. Dale–to Mr. Dale in person.”

“This is Mr. Dale speaking,” said Jimmie Dale a little brusquely. “What is it?”

“Oh, is that you, Mr. Dale?” The voice had quickened perceptibly. “I didn’t recognise your voice–but then I haven’t heard it for a long while, have I? This is Forrester. Are–are you very busy to-night, Mr. Dale?”

“Oh, hello, Forrester!” Jimmie Dale’s voice had grown more affable. “Busy? Well, I don’t know. It depends on what you mean by busy.”

“An hour or two,” the other suggested–the tinge of anxiety in his tones growing more pronounced. “The time to run out here in your car. I haven’t any right to ask it, I know, but the truth is I–I want to talk to some one pretty badly, and I need some financial help, and–and I thought of you. I–I’m afraid there’s a mess here. The bank examiners landed in suddenly late this afternoon.”

“The–_what_?” demanded Jimmie Dale sharply.

“The bank examiners–I–I can’t talk over the ‘phone. Only, for God’s sake, come–will you? I’ll be in my rooms–you know where they are, don’t you–on the cottier over–“

“Yes, I know,” Jimmie Dale broke in tersely; then, quietly: “All right, Forrester, I’ll come.”

“Thank God!” came Forrester’s voice–and disconnected abruptly.

Jimmie Dale replaced the receiver on the hook, stared at the instrument again in a perplexed way; then, called the garage on the private house wire. There was no answer. He walked quickly then across the room and pushed an electric button.

“Jason,” he said a moment later, as the old butler appeared on the threshold in answer to the summons, “Benson doesn’t answer in the garage. I presume he is downstairs. I wish you would ask him to bring the touring car around at once. And you might have a light overcoat ready for me–Jason.”

“Yes, sir,” said the old man. “Yes, Master Jim, sir, at once.” His eyes sought Jimmie Dale’s, and dropped–but into them had come, not the questioning of familiarity, but the quick, anxious questioning inspired by the affection that had grown up between them from the days when, as the old man was so fond of saying, he had dandled his Master Jim upon his knee. “Yes, sir, Master Jim, at once, sir,” Jason repeated–but he still hesitated upon the threshold.

And then Jimmie Dale shook his head whimsically–and smiled.

“No–not to-night, Jason,” he said reassuringly. “It’s quite all right, Jason–there’s no letter to-night.”

The old man’s face cleared instantly.

“Yes, sir; quite so, sir. Thank you, Master Jim,” he said. “Shall I tell Benson that he is to drive you, sir, or–“

“No; I’ll drive myself, Jason,” decided Jimmie Dale.

“Yes, sir–very good, sir”–the door closed on Jason.

Jimmie Dale turned back into the room, began to pace up and down its length, and for a moment the reverie that the telephone had interrupted was again dominant in his mind. Jason was afraid. Jason–even though he knew so little of the truth–was afraid. Well, what then? He, Jimmie Dale, was not blind himself! It had come almost to the point where his back was against the wall at last; to the point where, unless he found the Tocsin before many more days went by, it would be, as far as he was concerned–too late!

And then he shrugged his shoulders suddenly–and his forehead knitted into perplexed furrows. Forrester–and the telephone message! What did it mean? There was an ugly sound to it, that reference to the bank examiners and the need of financial assistance. And it was a little odd, too, that Forrester should have telephoned him, Jimmie Dale, unless it were accounted for by the fact that Forrester knew of no one else to whom he might apply for perhaps a large sum, of ready money. True, he knew Forrester quite well–not as an intimate friend–but only in a sort of casual, off-hand kind of a way, as it were, and he had known him for a good many years; but their acquaintanceship would not warrant the other’s action unless the man were in desperate straits. Forrester had been a clerk in the city bank where his, Jimmie Dale’s, father had transacted his business, and it was there he had first met Forrester. He had continued to meet Forrester there after his father had died; and then Forrester had been offered and had accepted the cashiership of a small local bank out near Bayside on Long Island. He had run into Forrester there again once or twice on motor trips–and once, held up by an accident to his car, he had dined with Forrester, and had spent an hour or two in the other’s rooms. That was about all.

Jimmie Dale’s frown grew deeper. He liked Forrester The man was a bachelor and of about his, Jimmie Dale’s, own age, and had always appeared to be a decent, clean-lived fellow, a man who worked hard, and was apparently pushing his way, if not meteorically, at least steadily up to the top, a man who was respected and well-thought of by everybody–and yet just what did it mean? The more he thought of it, the uglier it seemed to become.

He stepped suddenly toward the telephone–and as abruptly turned away again. He remembered that Forrester did not have a telephone in his rooms, for, on the night of the break-down, he, Jimmie Dale, had wanted to telephone, and had been obliged to go outside to do so. Forrester, obviously then, had done likewise to-night. Well, he should have insisted on a fuller explanation in the first place if he had intended to make that a contingent condition; as it was, it was too late now, and he had promised to go.

The sound of a motor car on the driveway leading from the private garage in the rear reached him. Benson was bringing out the car now. Jimmie Dale, as he prepared to leave the room, glanced about him from force of habit, and his eyes held for an instant on the portieres behind which, in the little alcove, stood the squat, barrel-shaped safe. Was there anything he would need to-night–that leather girdle, for instance, with its circle of pockets containing its compact little burglar’s kit? He shook his head impatiently. He had already told Jason–if in other words–that there was no “call to arms” to the Gray Seal to-night, hadn’t he? It was habit again that had brought the thought, that was all! For the rest, in the last few days, since this new intuitive danger from the underworld had come to him, an automatic had always reposed in his pocket by day and under his pillow by night; and by way of defence, too, though they might appear to be curious weapons of defence if one did not stop to consider that the means of making a hurried exit through a locked door might easily make the difference between life and death, his pockets held a small, but very carefully selected collection of little steel picklocks. He smiled somewhat amusedly at himself, as he passed out of the room and descended the stairs to the hall below. The contents of the safe could hardly have added anything that would be of any service even in an emergency! His mental inventory of his pockets had been incomplete–there was still the thin, metal insignia case, and the black silk mask, both of which, like the automatic, were never now out of his immediate possession.

He slipped into his coat as Jason held it out for him, accepted the soft felt hat which Jason extended, and, with a nod to the old butler, ran down the steps, dismissed Benson, who stood waiting, and entered his car.

It was three-quarters of an hour later when Jimmie Dale drew up at the curb on the main street of the little Long Island town that was his destination.

“Pretty good run!” said Jimmie Dale to himself, as he glanced at the car’s clock under its little electric bulb. “Halfpast nine.”

He descended from the car, and nodded as he surveyed his surroundings. He had stopped neither in front of the bank, nor in front of Forrester’s rooms–it was habit again, perhaps, the caution prompted by Forrester’s statement relative to the bank examiners. If there was trouble, and the obvious deduction indicated that there was, he, Jimmie Dale, had no desire to figure in it in a public way. Again he nodded his head. Yes, he quite had his bearings now. It was the usual main street of a small town–fairly well lighted, stores and shops flanking the pavements on either side, and of perhaps a distance equivalent to some seven or eight city blocks in length. Two blocks further up, on the same side of the street as that on which he was standing, was the bank–not a very pretentious establishment, he remembered; its staff consisting of but one or two apart from Forrester, as was not unusual with small local banks, though this in no way indicated that the business done was not profitable, or, comparatively, large. Jimmie Dale started forward along the street. On the corner just ahead of him was a two-story building, the second floor of which had been divided into rooms originally designed to be used as offices, as, indeed, most of them were, but two of these Forrester had fitted up as bachelor quarters.

Jimmie Dale turned the corner, walked down the side street to the office entrance that led to the floor above, opened the door, and ran lightly up the stairs. At the head of the stairs he paused to get his bearings once more. Forrester’s rooms were here directly at the head of the stairs, but he had forgotten for the moment whether they were on the right or left of the corridor; and the corridor being unlighted now and without any sign of life left him still more undecided. It seemed, though, if his recollection served him correctly, that the rooms had been on the right. He moved in that direction, found the door, and knocked; but, receiving no answer, crossed the hall again, and knocked on the door on the left-hand side. There was no answer here, either. He frowned a little impatiently, and returned once more to the right-hand door. Forrester probably was up at the bank, and had not expected him to make the run out from the city so quickly. He tried the door tentatively, found it unlocked, opened it a little way, saw that the room within was lighted–and suddenly, with a low, startled exclamation, stepped swiftly forward over the threshold, and closed the door behind him.

It was Forrester’s room, this one here at the right of the corridor–his recollection had not been at fault. It was Forrester’s room, and Forrester himself was there–on the floor–dead.

For a moment Jimmie Dale stood rigid and without movement, save that as his eyes swept around the apartment his face grew hard and set, his lips drooping in sharp, grim lines at the corners of his mouth.

“My God!” Jimmie Dale whispered.

There was a faint, almost imperceptible odour in the room, like the smell of peach blossom–he noticed it now for the first time, as his eyes fastened on a small, empty bottle that lay on the floor a few feet away from the dead man’s outstretched arm. Jimmie Dale stepped forward abruptly now, and knelt down beside the man for a hurried; examination. It was unnecessary–he knew that even before he performed the act. Yes–the man was dead He reached out and picked up the bottle. The odour was tell-tale evidence enough. The bottle had contained prussic, or hydrocyanic acid, probably the moist deadly poison in existence, and the swiftest in its action. He replaced the bottle on the spot where he had found it, and stood up.

Again, Jimmie Dale’s eyes swept his surroundings. The room in which he stood was a sort of living room or den. There was a desk over by the far wall, a couch near the door, and several comfortable lounging chairs. Forrester lay with his head against the sharp edge of one of the legs of the couch, as though he had rolled off and struck against it.

Opposite the desk, across the room, was the door leading into the second room of the little apartment. Jimmie Dale moved toward this now, and stepped across the threshold. The room itself was unlighted, but there was light enough from the connecting doorway to enable him to see fairly well. It was Forrester’s bedroom, and in no way appeared to have been disturbed. He remembered it quite well. There was a door here, too, that gave on the hall. He circled around the bed and reached the door. It was locked.

Jimmie Dale returned to the living room–and stood there in a sort of grim immobility, looking down at the form on the floor. He was not callous. Death, as often as he had seen it, and in its most tragic phases, had not made him callous, and he had liked Forrester–but suicide was not a man’s way out, it was the way a coward took, and if it brought pity, it was the pity that was blunted with the sterner, almost contemptuous note of disapproval. What had happened since Forrester had ‘phoned, that had driven the man to this extremity? When Forrester had ‘phoned he had appeared to be agitated enough, but, at least, he had seemed to have had hopes that the appeal he was then making might see him through, and, as proof of that, there had been unmistakable relief in the man’s voice when he, Jimmie Dale, had agreed to the other’s request. And what had been the meaning of that “financial help”? Had, for instance–for it was pitifully obvious that if the bank had been looted an _innocent_ man would not commit suicide on that account–a greater measure of the depredation been uncovered than had been counted on, so much indeed that, say, the financial assistance Forrester had intended to ask for had now increased to such proportions that he had realised the futility of even a request; or, again, had it for some reason, since he had telephoned, now become impossible to restore the funds even if they were in his possession?

A sheet of note paper lying on the desk caught Jimmie Dale’s eyes. He stepped forward, picked it up–and his lips drew tight together, as he read the two or three miserable lines that were scrawled upon it:

What’s left is in the middle drawer of the desk. There’s only one way out now–I don’t see any other way. I thought that I could get–but what does that matter! God help me! I’m sorry.

FLEMING P. FORRESTER.

I’m sorry! It was a pitiful epitaph for a man’s life! I’m sorry! Jimmie Dale’s face softened a little–the man was dead now. “I’m sorry…. Fleming P. Forrester”–he had seen that signature on bank paper a hundred times in the old days; he had little thought ever to see it on a document such as this!

He stared at the paper for a long time, and then, from the paper, his eyes travelled over the desk, then shifted again to Forrester–and then, for the second time, he knelt beside the other on the floor. For the moment, what was referred to as “being all that was left” in the middle drawer of the desk could wait. There was another matter now. He felt hurriedly through Forrester’s vest and coat pockets–and from one of the pockets drew out a folded piece of paper. It was not what he was looking for, but it was all that rewarded his search. He unfolded the paper. It was dirty and crumpled, and the few lines written upon it were badly penned and illiterate:

The ante’s gone up–get me? Six thousand bucks. You come across with that to-morrow morning by ten o’clock–or I’ll spill the beans. And I ain’t got any more paper to write any more letters on either–savvy? This is the last.

There was no signature. Jimmie Dale read it again–and abruptly put it in his own pocket. Yes, he had liked Forrester–well enough for this anyway! The man might have a mother perhaps–it would be bad enough in any case. And those other things, the empty bottle, the sheet of note paper with its scrawled confession–what about them? He returned with a queer sort of hesitant indecision to the desk. He had no right of course to touch them unless–

He shook his head sharply, as he pulled open the middle drawer of the desk.

“Newspapers–publicity–rotten!” he muttered savagely. “One chance in ten, and–ah!”

From the back of the drawer where it had been tucked in under a mass of papers, he had extracted a little bundle of documents that were held together by an elastic band. He snapped off the band, and ran through the papers rapidly. For the most part they were bonds and stock certificates indorsed by their owners, and evidently had been held by the bank as collateral for loans.

And then suddenly Jimmie Dale straightened up, tense and alert. He had no desire, very far from any desire to be caught here, or to figure publicly in any way in the case. The street door had opened and closed again. Footsteps, those of three men, his acute, trained hearing told him, sounded on the stairs. Again there came that queer, hesitant indecision as he stood there, while his eyes travelled in swift succession from the bank’s securities in his hand to the note on the desk, to the empty bottle on the floor, to the white, upturned face of the silent form huddled against the couch.

“One chance in ten,” muttered Jimmie Dale through his set lips. “One chance in ten–and I guess I’ll take it!”

The footsteps came nearer–they were almost at the head of the stairs now. But now Jimmie Dale was in action–swift as a flash and silent as a shadow in every movement. The bundle of securities was thrust into his pocket, the sheet of note paper followed, and, as a knock sounded on the door, he stooped, picked up the bottle from the floor, and darted into the adjoining room–and in another instant he had reached the locked door and was working at it silently and swiftly with a picklock.

CHAPTER XVII

THE DEFAULTER

At the other door the knocking still continued–and then it was opened–and there came a chorus of low, horrified, startled cries, and the quick rush of feet into the room.

The picklock went back into Jimmie Dale’s pocket, and crouched, now, his hand on the knob, turning it gradually without a sound, drawing the door ajar inch by inch, he kept his eyes on the doorway connecting with the other room. He could see the three men bending over Forrester. Their voices came in confused, broken, snatches:

“… Dead!… Good God!… Are you sure?… Perhaps he’s only fainted…. No, he’s dead, poor devil!…”

And then one of the men, the youngest of the three, a slight-built, clean-shaven, dark-eyed man of perhaps twenty-eight or thirty, rose abruptly, and glanced sharply around the room.

“Yes, he’s dead!” he said bitterly. “Any one could tell that! But he wouldn’t be dead, and this would never have happened if you’d done what I wanted you to do when you first came to the bank this afternoon. I wanted you to have him arrested then, didn’t I?”

One of the others–and it was obvious that the others were the two bank examiners–a man of middle age, answered soberly.

“You’re upset, Dryden,” he said. “You know we couldn’t do that–“

“On a teller’s word against the cashier’s–of course not!” the young man broke in caustically. “Well, you see now, don’t you?”

“We couldn’t do it then without proof,” amended the bank examiner quietly.

“Proof!” Dryden exclaimed. “My God–_proof!_ Who tipped your people off to have you drop in there this afternoon? I did, didn’t I? Do you think I’d do that without knowing what I was about! Didn’t I tell you that there was nothing but the office fixtures left! Didn’t I? There were only the two of us on the staff, and didn’t I tell you that I had discovered that the books were cooked from cover to cover? Yes, I did! And you had to get your pencils out and start in on a thumb-rule examination, as though nothing were the matter! Well, what did you find? The securities in a mess, what there was left of them–and what was supposed to be twenty thousand dollars that came out from the city yesterday nothing but a package of blank paper!”

“You didn’t know that yourself until half an hour ago when we started to check up the cash,” returned the other a little sharply.

“Well, perhaps, I didn’t,” admitted Dryden; “but I knew about the books.”

“Besides that,” continued the bank examiner, “Mr. Forrester was in town this afternoon when we got to the bank and this is the first time we have seen him, so we could not very well have done anything other than we have done in any case. I mention this because you are talking wildly, and that sort of talk, if it gets out, won’t do any of us any good. You don’t want to blame Mr. Marner here and myself for Mr. Forrester’s death, do you?”

“No–of course, I don’t!” said Dryden, in a more subdued voice. “I don’t mean that at all. I guess you’re right–I’m excited. I–well”–he motioned jerkily toward the form on the floor–“I’m not used to walking into a room and finding _that_.”

It was Marner, the other bank examiner, who broke a moment’s silence.

“We none of us are,” he said, and brushed his hand across his forehead. “A doctor can’t do any good, of course, but I suppose we should call one at once, and notify the police, too. I–“

Jimmie Dale had slipped through the door and out into the hall. A moment more and he had descended the stairs and gained the street, still another and he had stepped nonchalantly into his car. The car started forward, passed out of the lighted zone of the town’s main street–and in the darkness, headed toward New York, Jimmie Dale, his nonchalance gone now, leaned forward over the wheel, and the big sixty horse-power car leaped into its stride like a thoroughbred at the touch of the spur, and tore onward at dare-devil speed through the night.

His lips twisted in a smile that held little of humour. Back there in that room they would call a doctor, and they would call the police. And the doctor would establish the fact that Forrester had died from the effects of a dose of prussic acid; and the police would establish–what? Prussic acid was swift in its effect. If Forrester had died from that cause, how had he taken it himself, and out of what had he taken it? What the police would see would be quite a different thing from what he, Jimmie Dale, had seen when he opened the door of that room! Instead of the evidence of suicide, there was now every evidence of _murder_. The bank examiners on entering the room, started at what they saw, obsessed with the wreckage of the bank, might still for the moment have jumped to the conclusion, natural enough under the circumstances, of suicide; but the police, after ten minutes of unemotional investigation, would father a very different theory.

Jimmie Dale’s jaws clamped, as his eyes narrowed on the flying thread of gray road under the dancing headlights. Well, the die was cast now! For good or bad, his response to Forrester’s telephone appeal had become the vital factor in the case. For good or bad! He laughed out sharply into the night. He would see soon enough–old Kronische, the wizened, crafty, little chemist, who burrowed like a fox in its hole deep in the heart of the Bad Lands, would answer that question. Old Kronische had a record that was known to police and underworld alike–and was trusted by neither one, and feared by both. But he was clever–clever with a devilish cleverness. God alone knew what he was up to in the long hours of day and night amongst his retorts and test tubes in his abominable smelling little hole; but every one knew that from old Kronische _anything_ of a chemical nature could be obtained if the price, not a small one, was forthcoming, and if old Kronische was satisfied with the credentials of his prospective client.

Yes–old Kronische! Old Kronische was the man, the one than; there was no possible hesitancy or question there–the question was how to reach old Kronische. Jimmie Dale shook his head in a quick, impatient gesture, as though in irritation because his brain would not instantly respond to his demand to formulate a plan. It seemed simple enough, old Kronische was perfectly accessible–but it was, nevertheless, far from simple. He could not go to old Kronische as Jimmie Dale, there was an ugly turn that had been taken in that room of Forrester’s now. If, as Jimmie Dale, he had had reason to keep out of the affair before, it was imperative that he should do so now–or he might find himself in a very awkward situation, so awkward, in fact, that the consequences might lead anywhere, and “anywhere” to Jimmie Dale, to the Gray Seal, to Smarlinghue, might mean ruin, wreckage and disaster. Nor, much less, could he risk going to old Kronische as Smarlinghue. He could not trust old Kronische. How, if old Kronische chose to “talk,” could Smarlinghue account for any connection with what had transpired in Forrester’s room? How long would it be, even if Smarlinghue were no more than put under surveillance, before the discovery would be made that Smarlinghue was but a role that covered–Jimmie Dale!

And then Jimmie Dale’s strained, set face relaxed a little. His brain had repented of its stubbornness, it seemed, and was at work again. There was a way, a very sure way as far as old Kronische being “talkative” was concerned, but a very dangerous way from every other point of view. Suppose he went to old Kronische–as Larry the Bat!

The car tore on through the night; towns and villages flashed by; the long, deserted stretches of road began to give way to the city’s outskirts–and Jimmie Dale began to drive more cautiously. Larry the Bat! Yes, it was perfectly feasible, as far as feasibility went. The clothes that he had duplicated at such infinite trouble were still hidden there in the Sanctuary. But to be caught as Larry the Bat meant–the end. That was the one thing the underworld knew, the one thing the police knew–that Larry the Bat was, or had been, the Gray Seal. Still, he had done it once before, and it could be done again. He could reach old Kronische’s without much fear of discovery after all, he would take good care to secure the few minutes necessary to make a “getaway” from the old chemist’s, and _afterwards_ old Kronische could talk as much as he liked about–Larry the Bat! Yes, that was the way! Old Kronische–and Larry the Bat. He, Jimmie Dale, would drive, say, to Marlianne’s restaurant, and telephone Jason to send Benson for the car–Marlianne’s, besides being a very natural stopping place, possessed the added advantage of being quite close to the Sanctuary.

His decision made, Jimmie Dale gave his undivided attention to his car, and ten minutes later, stopping in the shabby street that harboured Marlianne’s, he entered the restaurant, threaded his way through the small crowded rooms–for Marlianne’s, despite its spotted linen, was crowded at all hours–to a sort of hallway at the rear of the place, and entered the telephone booth.

He called his residence, and, as he waited for the connection, glanced at his watch. He smiled grimly. He could congratulate himself for the second time that night on having made a record run. It was not yet quite half-past ten, and he must have been at least a good twenty minutes in Forrester’s rooms. He rattled the hook impatiently. They were a long time in getting the connection! Halfpast ten! He could be at the Sanctuary in another few minutes, ten minutes at the outside; then, say, another twenty to rehabilitate Larry the Bat, and by eleven he–

“Yes–hello!”–he was speaking quickly into the ‘phone, as Jason’s voice reached him. “Jason, I am down here at Marlianne’s. Tell Benson to come for the car, and–” He stopped abruptly. Jason was talking excitedly, almost incoherently at the other end.

“Master Jim, sir! Is that you, sir, Master Jim! It–it came, sir, not ten minutes after you left to-night, and–“

“Jason,” said Jimmie Dale sharply, “what’s the matter with you? What are you talking about? What came?”

“Why–why, sir–I beg your pardon, sir, but I’ve been a bit uneasy ever since, sir. It’s–it’s one of those letters, Master Jim, sir.”

A sudden whiteness came into Jimmie Dale’s face, as he stared into the mouthpiece of the telephone. A “call to arms” from the Tocsin–_now_–to-night! What was he to do! It was not a trivial thing which that letter would contain–it never had been, and it never would be, and no matter under what circumstances it found him, he–

Jason’s voice faltered over the wire:

“Are you there, sir, Master Jim?”

“Yes,” said Jimmie Dale quietly. “Bring the letter with you, Jason, and come down with Benson. I will wait for you here–in the car outside Marlianne’s. And hurry, Jason–take a taxi down.”

“Yes, sir,” said Jason, his voice trembling a little. “At once, Master Jim.”

Jimmie Dale hung up the receiver, returned to the street, and seated himself in his car. How long would it take them to get here? Half an hour? Well then, for half an hour his hands were tied, and he could do nothing but wait. He glanced around him. It was curious! It was here in this very place that he had once found a letter from her in his car; it was even here that, without knowing it at the moment, he had really seen her for the first time. And now–what did it hold, this letter, this “call to arms” that he sat here waiting for, while out there in that little town a man lay dead on the floor of his room, and around whom, where there had once been the evidence of a coward’s guilt, crowned with the sorriest epitaph that ever man had written, there was now the evidence of a still blacker crime–the crime of murder.

He lighted a cigarette and smoked it through. Could it be _that_–in her letter! Intuition again? Well, why not–if old Kronische should answer the question as the chances were one in ten that old Kronische might answer it! Yes–why not! It would not be strange. Intuition–because somehow the feeling that it _was_ so grew stronger with each moment that passed–well, once before to-night he had said that intuition had never failed him yet!

The minutes dragged by interminably. He smoked another cigarette, and after that another. The clock under the hood showed five minutes past eleven; the minute hand crept around to eight, nine, ten minutes past the hour–and then a taxi swerved on little better than two wheels around the corner–and Jimmie Dale, springing from his seat, jumped to the pavement as the taxi drew up at the curb.

Jason, palpably agitated, and followed by Benson, descended from the taxi. Jimmie Dale dismissed the cab, and motioned Benson to the car.

“Well, Jason?” he said quickly.

“It’s here, sir, Master Jim”–the old butler fumbled in an inner pocket, and produced an envelope–“I–“

“Thank you! That’s all–Jason.” Jimmie Dale’s quick smile robbed his curt dismissal of any sting. “Benson, of course, will drive you home.”

“Yes, sir.” The old man went slowly to the car, and climbed in beside the chauffeur. “Good-night, sir!” Jason ventured wistfully. “Good-night, Master Jim!”

“Good-night, Jason–good-night, Benson!” Jimmie Dale answered–and, turning, started briskly along the street. Jason’s “good-night” had been eloquent of the old man’s anxiety. He would have liked to reassure Jason –but he had neither the time, nor, for that matter, the ability to do so. The old man would be reassured when he saw his Master Jim enter the house again–and not until then!

Jimmie Dale glanced about him up and down the street. The car had gone, and he was well away from the entrance to Marlianne’s. The street itself was practically deserted. He nodded quickly, and stepped forward toward a street lamp that was close at hand. As well here as anywhere! There was nothing remarkable in the fact that a man should stand under a street lamp and read a letter–even if he were observed.

He tore the envelope open, and, standing there, leaned in apparent nonchalance against the post–but into the dark eyes had leaped a sudden flash. One word seemed to stand out from all the rest on the written page he held in his hand–“Forrester.” He laughed a little in a low, grim way. His intuition had been right again then, and that meant–_what_? If she, the Tocsin, knew, then–his mind was working subconsciously, leaping from premise to a dimly seen, half formed conclusion, while his eyes travelled rapidly over the written lines.

“Dear Philanthropic Crook:–You will have to hurry, Jimmie…. I do not know what may happen…. Forrester … bank cashier at”–yes, he knew all that! But this–what was this? “Money lender…. Abe Suviney… bled him … early days in city bank … fellow clerk’s defalcation…. Forrester borrowed the money to cover it and save the other…. Suviney used it as a club for blackmail…. Forrester was trapped … could not extricate himself without inculpating his friend … friend died … Suviney put on the screws … to say anything then was to have it look like a dishonourable method of covering a theft of his own … would ruin his career … original amount four thousand … Forrester has been paying blackmail in the shape of exorbitant interest ever since … Suviney finally demanded six thousand to-day to be paid at once … this has nothing to do with the bank robbery, but would look black … added evidence….” He read on, his mind seeming to absorb the contents of the letter faster than his eyes could decipher the words. “English Dick … confession forged … organisation widespread … enormously powerful … leadership a mystery … rendezvous that English Dick visits is at Marlopp’s … Reddy Mull’s room … rear room … leaves cash and securities there under loose board, right-hand corner from door … twenty thousand cash to-night….”

Jimmie Dale was walking on down the street, his fingers picking and tearing the sheets of paper in his hand into minute fragments. There was a sort of cold, unemotional, unnatural calm upon him. It was all here, all, the Tocsin had–no, not all! She had not known of the last act in the brutal drama, for her letter had been written prior to that. She had not known that there was–_murder_. But apart from that, to the last detail, in all its hideous, relentless craft, the whole plot was clear. There was no need to go to old Kronische now, no need to assume the role of Larry the Bat. The question was answered–the confession _was_ a forgery–the evidence, not of suicide, but of murder, that he, Jimmie Dale, had left behind him in that room, was the evidence of fact.

He walked on–rapidly now–heading over in the direction of the Bowery. There had been neither ink nor pen upon the desk where he had found the confession, nor had there been a fountain pen in Forrester’s pocket when he had searched the other! He laughed out a little harshly. A strange oversight on some one’s part if there had been foul play–so strange that he had hesitated to believe it possible! And so it had been–one chance in ten, for there was nothing to have prevented Forrester from having written the note elsewhere than in his own room. But if Forrester had written it, he must of necessity have written it very recently, certainly _after_ he had telephoned, that is, within an hour; whereas, if it had been written by some one else and brought there, if it was forged, if it was murder and not suicide, the note must have taken long and painstaking effort to prepare beforehand. That was the question that old Kronische, the chemist, was to have answered, a question that was very much in the cunning old fox’s line–did the condition of the ink show that the note had been written within the hour? It was a very simple question for old Kronische, the man would have answered it instantly, for even to him, Jimmie Dale, the writing had not looked _fresh_. But there was no need of old Kronische now! And he, Jimmie Dale, understood now, too, the reason for Forrester’s appeal over the telephone. In some way Forrester, without going to the bank itself, had learned that the bank examiners had suddenly put in an appearance, had either discovered or deduced that something was wrong, and had realised that should Suviney’s demand for money, or Suviney’s blackmailing story become known, it would appear as damning evidence of a past record looming up to point suspicion toward him now. That was what he had meant by saying he needed financial help.

Jimmie Dale slipped suddenly into a lane, edged along the wall of the tenement that made the corner, pushed aside a loose board in the fence, passed into the little courtyard beyond, and, still hugging the shadows of the building, opened a narrow French window, and stepped through into a room. He was in the Sanctuary.

CHAPTER XVIII

ALIAS ENGLISH DICK

But Jimmie Dale lost no time in the Sanctuary. In the darkness he crossed the room, and from behind the movable section of the baseboard possessed himself of a pocket flashlight, and a small, but extremely serviceable, steel jimmy–and in a moment more was back in the lane, and from the lane again was heading still deeper into the heart of the East Side.

English Dick! A twisted smile crossed his lips. Well as he knew the underworld and its sordid citizenship, he might be forgiven for not knowing English Dick. The man’s reputation had reached into every corner of the Bad Lands, it was true; but it had not been known that the man himself was on this side of the water. And that the secret had been kept spoke with grim and deadly significance for the power and cunning of the master brain to which the Tocsin had referred, for English Dick was known as the most famous forger in Europe, the best in his line, and as such, from afar, was worshipped as a demi-god by the underworld of New York.

Block after block of dark, ill-lighted streets Jimmie Dale traversed, until, perhaps fifteen minutes after he had left the Sanctuary, he swerved suddenly for the second time that night into a lane. He might not have known English Dick, but he knew Reddy Mull, and he knew Marloff’s! Reddy Mull was a gangster, a gunman pure and simple, whose services were at the call of the highest bidder; and Marlopp’s was a pool and billiard hall–to the uninitiated. Marlopp’s, however, if one had ears well trained enough to hear, resounded to the click of ivory that was not the click of pool and billiard balls! Upstairs, if one could get upstairs, a gambling hell supplanted the billiard hall below. It was an unsavoury place, the resort of crooks, some of whom lived there–amongst them, Reddy Mull.

Jimmie Dale, close against the fence, and halfway down the lane now, paused and looked about him, straining his eyes through the blackness–then with a lithe spring he caught the top of the fence, swung himself over, and dropped to the ground on the other side. The rear of a row of low buildings now loomed up before him across a narrow yard. Window lights showed here and there from the houses on either side; and from the upper windows of the house directly in front of him faint threads of light filtered out into the darkness through the cracks of closed shutters, but the lower part of the house was in blackness.

He crept forward silently across the yard. There was a back entrance, but it led to the basement–Jimmie Dale’s immediate attention was directed to the rear window, the window of one Reddy Mull’s room. And here, crouched beneath it, Jimmie Dale listened. From the front of the establishment came muffled sounds from the pool and billiard hall; there was nothing else.

The window was above the level of his head, but still easily within reach. He tested it, found it locked–and the steel jimmy crept in under the sash. A moment passed, there was a faint, almost indistinguishable creak; and then Jimmie Dale, drawing himself up with the agility of a cat, had slipped through, and was standing, listening again, inside the room.

The sounds from the pool room were louder, more distinct now, even rising once into a shout of boisterous hilarity; but there was no other sound. The round, white ray of Jimmie Dale’s flashlight circled the room suddenly, inquisitively–and went out. It was a bare, squalid place, dirty, filthy, disreputable. There was a bed, unmade, a table, a few chairs, a greasy, threadbare carpet on the floor–nothing else, save that his eyes had noted that the electric-light switch was on the wall beside the jamb of the door.

The flashlight winked again–and again went out. Jimmie Dale slipped his mask over his face, and moved forward toward the wall.

“Under loose board, right-hand corner from door,” murmured Jimmie Dale. He was kneeling on the floor now. “Yes, here it was!” His flashlight was boring down into a little excavation beneath the piece of flooring he had removed. He stared into this for a moment, his lips twitching grimly; then, with a whimsical shrug of his shoulders, he replaced the board, and stood up. He had found the hiding place without any trouble–but he had found it _empty_. “I guess,” said Jimmie Dale, with a mirthless smile, “that there’s a good deal of the bank’s property at large–temporarily!”

There was a chair by the wall close to the door, he had noticed. He moved over, and sat down–but, instead of his flashlight, his automatic was in his hand now. There was the chance, of course, that English Dick had already been here with that twenty thousand from the bank, and in that case, as witness the empty hiding place, Reddy Mull had already passed it on; but it was much more likely that neither one of the two had yet arrived. Which one would come first then–English Dick, or Reddy Mull? If it were Reddy Mull it would be unfortunate–for Reddy Mull. His, Jimmie Dale’s, immediate business was with English Dick, and he was quite content to leave Reddy Mull to the later ministrations of the police.

Jimmie Dale’s fingers tested the mechanism of his automatic in the darkness. Whose was the master brain behind all this? This crime to-night bore glaring evidence to the work of some far-flung, intricate and powerful organisation–the Tocsin was indubitably right in that. Was this the first concrete expression he had had of that undercurrent he had sensed of late as permeating the underworld, that he had sensed was reaching out as one of its objects for _him_ and that–

He came suddenly without a sound to his feet, and pressed back close against the wall, his body rigid and thrown forward like one poised to spring. There was a footstep outside the door, the rasp of a key in the lock, then a faint, murky path of light as the door opened, and a man stepped forward over the threshold. The key was inserted with another rasping sound in the inner side of the lock, the door closed, the key turned and was withdrawn, thrust evidently into its possessor’s pocket–and then Jimmie Dale, silently, in a lightning flash, was upon the other, his hand at the man’s throat, the cold, round muzzle of his automatic against the other’s face. There was a choked cry, the thud as of something dropping on the floor–and then Jimmie Dale spoke.

“Put your hands up over your head!” he breathed grimly–and, as the other obeyed, his own hand fell away from the man’s throat, and in a quick, deft sweep over the other’s clothing located the bulge of a revolver, and whipped it from the man’s pocket. He pushed the man with his automatic’s muzzle back against the wall, closer to the electric-light switch. Was it Reddy Mull–or English Dick? And then Jimmie Dale laughed low, unpleasantly, as he switched on the light. He was staring into a face that was white and colourless–the face of a man with a heavy black moustache, and whose slouch hat was jammed far down over his eyes. The process of elimination made it very simple–it was English Dick.

The man blinked, and wet his lips with his tongue, and at sight of Jimmie Dale’s mask, perhaps because it suggested a community of interest, tried to force a smirk.

“What’s–what’s the game?” he stammered.

“This–to begin with!” said Jimmie Dale grimly–and, stooping, picked up from the floor a small black satchel, the object that English Dick had dropped on entering the room. “Go over to that table!” ordered Jimmie Dale curtly.

The man obeyed.

“Sit down!” Jimmie Dale was clipping off his words in cold menace.

Again the man obeyed.

Jimmie Dale, his back to the door as he faced the other across the table, snapped open the bag. It was full to the top with banknotes and securities. Under his mask his lips curled in a hard, forbidding smile. He took from his pocket the package of the bank’s securities he had found in the drawer of Forrester’s desk, and laid it in silence on the table beside the satchel; beside this again, still in silence, he placed the bottle that had contained the hydrocyanic acid, and–after an instant’s pause–spread out the sheet of note paper bearing Forrester’s forged signature.

The man’s face, white before, had gone a livid gray.

“W-what do you want?” he whispered.

“I want you to write another confession.” There was a deadly monotony in Jimmie Dale’s voice, as he tapped the paper with the muzzle of his automatic. “This one is out of date.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” faltered English Dick. “So help me, honest to God, I don’t!”

“Don’t you!” There was a curious drawl in Jimmie Dale’s voice–and then in a flash his free hand swept across the table, jerked away the other’s moustache, and pushed the slouch hat up from the man’s eyes. “I mean that the game is up–_Dryden_.”

There was a low cry; and the man, with working lips, shrank back in his chair.

“You cur!” The words were coming fast and hot from Jimmie Dale’s lips now. “English Dick, alias Dryden, the bank teller! So, you don’t know what I mean! Listen, then, and I’ll tell you! Six months ago you got a position in the bank. Since then you’ve forged names right and left on securities, falsified the books, and stolen cash and securities. Day by day, working in with your gang, you’ve brought the loot here, coming in disguise of course, as you’ve come to-night, for it wouldn’t do for ‘Dryden’ to be seen in this neighbourhood! And you turned the loot over to Reddy Mull–by leaving it, if he didn’t happen to be around, under that loose board there in the corner.”

“My God!” The man’s face was ghastly. “Who–who are you?”

“To-day,” went on Jimmie Dale, as though he had not heard the other, “you came to the climax of the plan you had been working on for those six months–the bank was wrecked–and what little there was left you took”–he jerked his hand toward the open satchel–“replacing it at the last moment with previously prepared dummy packages. And you took it, you cur”–Jimmie Dale’s voice choked suddenly–“not only at the expense of a man’s life, but of his good name and reputation. You might have known, I do not know whether you did or not, that Forrester had some private trouble with a money lender, but I do not imagine that had anything to do with your having selected Forrester’s bank. Your object was to exploit a small bank where, with only one man from whom to hide your work, you could loot it thoroughly; and a forged confession clever enough to deceive any one in its handwriting and signature, and the man found dead from a dose of prussic acid, the empty bottle on the floor beside him, needed no other evidence to stamp him as the guilty man.”

English Dick was struggling to his feet; his eyes, in a sort of horrible fascination, on Jimmie Dale.

Jimmie Dale, pushed him savagely back into his seat. “Yes–you cur!” he said again. “You got your first fright when you found those evidences of suicide were gone–you even lost your nerve a little in your bluff with the bank examiners–and you hurried here the moment you could get away from the preliminary police investigation that followed–I was even afraid you might get here a little sooner than you did. Shall I give you the details of this afternoon and to-night? The plant was ready. You had sent for the bank examiners. You had already prepared the forged confession, and had a small package of securities ready. Forrester had gone to New York. You turned over the confession and the package of securities to your accomplice, or accomplices, to be left in Forrester’s room. I imagine that you telephoned, or sent a message, to New York to Forrester telling him that the bank examiners were in the bank, that there was something the matter, and for him to go to his rooms, and, say, meet you there before going to the bank. Your accomplice, for you established an alibi by remaining with the bank examiners, stole in after him, or even in the dark hallway stunned him with a black-jack, then forced the poison down his throat, laid him on the floor, placed the empty bottle beside him, and left the confession on the desk. The plan was very cunningly worked out. The bruise on Forrester’s head was most obviously accounted for–his head had struck, of course, against the leg of the couch–he was found lying in that position! It is strange, though, isn’t it, how sometimes the most cunning of plans go astray in the simplest and yet the most perverse of ways? Who, under the circumstances, would have thought of it! Your accomplice had simply to place a document already prepared upon the desk. Even you did not think to warn him yourself. It did not enter his head to see if there were pen and ink there with which it might have been written, or, failing that, a fountain pen in Forrester’s pocket–and there was neither the one nor the other. That’s all–except the name of the man who killed Forrester.” Jimmie Dale leaned forward sharply. “Who was it?”

English Dick wet his lips again.

“I–they–they’d kill me like–like a dog if I told,” he mumbled.

“_They?”_ The monosyllable came curt and hard.

“I don’t know,” said English Dick. “That’s God’s truth–I never knew–there’s a big gang–none of us know.”.

“But you know who worked with you in this.” Jimmie Dale was speaking through clenched teeth. “You know who killed Forrester.”

“Yes.” The man’s whisper was scarcely audible.

“Who?”

“Reddy–Reddy Mull.”

“Yes,” said Jimmie Dale in his grim monotone, “I thought so.”

He reached into the satchel where a small package of securities were wrapped up in a sheet of the bank’s stationery, removed the sheet of paper, and spread it out before English Dick. “Write it down!” he commanded–and the muzzle of his automatic jerked forward to touch the fountain pen in the other’s vest pocket. “Write it–all of it–your own share–Reddy Mull’s–the whole story!”

The man’s lips seemed to have gone dry again, and again and again his tongue circled them.

“I can’t!” he said hoarsely. “I daren’t–they’d kill me. And–and if they didn’t, it would send me up, and perhaps–perhaps to the chair.”

“You take your chances on that”–Jimmie Dale’s voice was low and even–“but you take no chances here–for there are none.” The automatic in Jimmie Dale’s hand edged ominously forward. “It’s Forrester’s exoneration–or you. Do you understand? And you make your choice–_now_.”

For an instant the man’s eyes met Jimmie Dale’s, then shifted, as though drawn in spite of himself, to the muzzle of Jimmie Dale’s automatic; and then his hand reached into his pocket for his pen.

From the pool room in front came an outburst of hand-clapping and applause–there was evidently a match of some kind going on. Jimmie Dale, his eyes on English Dick, as the latter began to write with a sort of feverish haste as though fear and a miserable desire to have done with it spurred him on, picked up the articles from the table, and placed them in the satchel. He waited silently then–and then English Dick pushed the paper toward him.

Jimmie Dale picked it up, and read it. It was all there, all of it–and the signature this time was not forged! He placed the paper in the satchel, and closed the satchel.

English Dick passed his hand across a forehead that beaded with perspiration.

“What are you going to do?” he asked under his breath.

“I’m going to see that this–and you–reaches the hands of the police,” said Jimmie Dale tersely. “We’ll leave here in a moment–by the window. There’s a patrolman who passes the end of the lane once in a while, and I expect, with the aid of a piece of cord and a pocket handkerchief as a gag, that he’ll find you there. My method may be a little crude, but I have reasons of my own for not walking into a police station with you. but before we go, there’s still that matter of–the men higher up. They needed a clever penman for this job and one who wouldn’t be recognised–and they got the best! Who brought you over from England?”

“A friend over there, one of the ‘swell ones,’ put it up to me,” English Dick answered heavily.

“Yes–and here?” prodded Jimmie Dale. “Who got you into the bank here?”

“I don’t know.” English Dick shook his head. “I reported to a man called Chester. He doped out the story I was to tell, and told me to go to the bank and apply for the job, and that it was already fixed.”

“I’d like to meet ‘Chester,'” said Jimmie Dale grimly. “Where does he live?”

“I don’t know,” said English Dick again. “I tell you, I don’t know! They’re big–my God, they’ll get me for this, if the law doesn’t! I don’t know where he lives–he always came to me. The only one I know is Reddy Mull, and–“

His voice was drowned out in a louder and more prolonged burst of applause from the pool room, which mingled shouts, cries and the thunderous banging of cue butts on the floor.

“A good shot!” said Jimmie Dale, with a grim smile.

“Yes,” said English Dick, “a good shot”–but into his voice had crept a new note, a note like one of malicious triumph.

Jimmie Dale’s lips set suddenly hard and tight. Yes, he _heard_ now–perhaps too late–what the other _saw_. The uproar that had drowned out all other sounds had subsided–_the door behind him had been unlocked and was now opening slowly_.

And then Jimmie Dale, quick as thought is quick, his fingers closed on the satchel, hurled himself around the table and to the floor. There was the roar of a report, a flash of flame, as Reddy Mull, hand thrust in through the partially open doorway, fired–a wild scream, as the shot, meant for him, Jimmie Dale, found another mark directly behind where he had been standing–and English Dick, reeling to his feet, pitched forward over the table, carrying the table with him to the floor. It had taken the time that a watch takes to tick. Came the roar of a report again, as Jimmie Dale fired in turn–at the electric-light bulb a few feet away from him on the wall. There was the tinkle of shattering glass–and darkness. Came shouts, cries, a yell from the door from Reddy Mull, a fusillade of shots from Reddy Mull’s revolver, the rush of many feet from the pool room–and Jimmie Dale, in the blackness, dropped silently from the window to the ground.

He gained the street; and, five minutes later, blocks away, he entered the private stall of a Bowery saloon. Here, Jimmie Dale added another paper to the contents of the satchel. The characters printed, and badly formed, the paper looked like this:

WITH THE COMPLIMENTS OF THE
/\
/ \
/ \
/ \
\ /
\ /
\ /
\/

“And I guess,” said Jimmie Dale grimly to himself, “that if I slip this to the police, the police will get–Reddy Mull.”

CHAPTER XIX

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

How far away last night, with Forrester’s murder and the sordid denouement in Reddy Mull’s room, seemed! How far away even half an hour ago this very night seemed! Just half an hour ago! Then, with no thought but one of dogged perseverance to keep up his quest, with neither hint nor sign that his quest was any nearer the end than it had ever been, he had entered Bristol Bob’s, here, in the role of Smarlinghue; and now, as a rift that had opened in the clouds, there had come sudden and amazing joy. It held him now in thrall. It threatened even to make him _forget_ that he was for the moment Smarlinghue–forget what, as Smarlinghue, Smarlinghue dare not forget–the role he played.

He leaned forward suddenly and caught up his whisky glass–whose contents had previously and surreptitiously been spilled into the cuspidor on the floor beside his chair. He lifted the glass to his mouth, his head thrown back as though to drain a final, lingering drop, then he thumped the glass down on the table, licked his lips–thin and distorted by “Smarlinghue’s” makeup–and wiped them with the sleeve of his threadbare coat.

A man at the next table, well known as the Pippin, young, flashily dressed, his almost effeminate features giving an added touch of viciousness, through incongruity, to his general appearance, twisted his head around and grinned with malicious derision.

Jimmie Dale’s fingers searched hungrily now through first one and then another of his ragged pockets, and finally extricated a dime and a nickel. With these he tapped insistently on the table, until an attendant answered the summons and supplied him with another drink.

He sat back then for a time; now eyeing the liquor, as though greedy for its taste, yet greedy, too, to prolong the anticipation, since from his actions there was apparently no means of further replenishing the supply; now glancing around the smoke-laden room where, on the polished section of the floor in the centre, a score of laughing, shrieking couples whirled and pranced in the unrestrained throes of the underworld’s latest dance; now permitting his eyes to rest with a sudden scowl on the man at the next table. He had no concern with the Pippin–nor had the Pippin any concern with him. The man, as he imbibed a number of drinks, simply seemed to find a certain: malevolent amusement in a contemptuous appraisal of his, Jimmie Dale’s, person; but the other, in spite of the new, glad exhilaration Jimmie Dale was experiencing, annoyed Jimmie Dale–the blatant expanse of pink shirt cuff, for instance, in order to display the Pippin’s diamond-snake links, famous from One end of the underworld to the other, was eminently typical of the man. The cuff links were undoubtedly an object of envy to the society in which the Pippin moved; they were even beautiful cuff links, it was true, oriental in design, never to be mistaken by any one who had ever seen them, and the stones with which they were set were credited generally in the underworld as being genuine, but–Jimmie Dale was hesitantly lifting his glass again in a queer, miserly sort of way. The Pippin had jerked a cigarette box from his pocket, stuck what was evidently the single cigarette it had contained between his lips; and now, tossing away the box, he pushed back his chair and stood up–but on the floor beneath the table, where it had fluttered unobserved when the cigarette box had been jerked from the pocket, lay a small folded piece of paper.

“If you hang around long enough, Smarly,” gibed the Pippin, as he passed by on his way toward the door, “maybe some of the rubber-necks off the gape-wagon will take pity on you and buy you another–the slumming parties are just crazy about broken-down artists!”

“You go chase yourself!” said Smarlinghue politely, through one corner of his twisted mouth.

Jimmie Dale’s eyes followed the other. The Pippin, threading his way amongst the tables, gained the door, and passed out into the street. And then Jimmie Dale’s eyes reverted to the piece of paper under the adjacent table. It was not at all likely that it was of the slightest importance or significance, and yet–Jimmie Dale stretched out his foot, drew the paper toward him, and, stooping over, picked it up. He unfolded it, and found it to contain several typewritten lines. He frowned in a puzzled way as he read them; then read them over again, and his frown deepened.

Melinoff has the goods. Go the limit if he squeals. Not later than ten-thirty to-night.

Jimmie Dale’s eyes lifted and strayed around the noisy, riotous dance hall. Just what exactly did the message mean? The Pippin was a bad actor–literally, as well as metaphorically. The Pippin, if asked, would probably still have styled himself an actor; but, though still young, his career on the stage had ended several years ago rather abruptly–with a year’s imprisonment! Jimmie Dale did not recall the details of the particular offence of which the Pippin had been found guilty, save that it had been for theft. It did not, however, matter very much. The Pippin of to-day as he was known to the underworld, to which strata of society he had immediately gravitated on his release from prison, was all that was of immediate interest. He had associated himself with a gang run by one Steve Barlow, commonly known as the Mole, and under this august patronage and protection had already more than one “job” of the first magnitude to his credit. The Pippin, in a word, was both an ugly and an unpleasant customer.

Jimmie Dale’s eyes continued to circuit the seedy dance hall. What was it that the Pippin was to procure from Melinoff, and for which, if necessary, the Pippin was to go “the limit”? Melinoff himself was not without reproach, either! What was the game? Melinoff was an old-clothes and junk dealer, and, as a side line, at times a very profitable side line, had been known to act as a “fence” for stolen goods. He had skirted for years on the ragged edge with the police, and then, caught red-handed at last, had changed his occupation for a more useful one during a somewhat prolonged sojourn in Sing Sing. Affairs after that had not prospered with Melinoff. His wife, honest if her husband was not, and already an old woman, had been hard put to it with the shabby shop and the meagre business she was able to transact; so hard put to it, indeed, that the wonder had been that she had managed to keep the roof over her head. She had died a few months after her husband’s release. Melinoff, if he had had no other virtue, had at least loved his wife, and the Melinoff of old, then a sprightly enough man for his years, was no more, and it was a decrepit, stoop-shouldered, dirty and grey-bearded figure that shuffled now around the old-clothes shop, apathetic of “bargains,” where before it had been a man whose keenness was matched only by the sort of eager craft and low cunning with which he had conducted his business.

A smile, half grim, half whimsical, flickered across Jimmie Dale’s lips. There were strange lives, strange undercurrents, always, ceaselessly, at work here in the underworld, here where the grist from the human mill found its place. Melinoff, the Pippin, each of those whirling figures out there on the floor, each of those men and women whose laughter rose raucously from the tables, or whose whisperings, as heads were lowered and held close together, seemed an unsavoury, vicious thing, had known a strange and tortuous path; yet strangest, most tortuous of them all, was–his own!

His fingers, as he thrust the Pippin’s note into the side pocket of his coat, touched the torn fragments of another note, tiny little particles of paper, torn over and over again into fine and minute shreds–the Tocsin’s note–the note that seemed suddenly to have changed all his life. It had come as her communications had always come–without bridging the way that lay between them, without furnishing him with a clue through the method employed for their transmission that would avail him anything, or supply him with any means of reaching her. It had been thrust into his hand by a street urchin, as he had entered the door of Bristol Bob’s that half an hour before. He had not even questioned the urchin–it would have been useless, futile, barren of results. A hundred previous experiences had at least taught him that! He could surmise about it, though, if he would; and, in view of the contents of the note itself, surmise, in all probability, with fair accuracy. The Tocsin had satisfied herself that he was neither at home nor at the club, and had, therefore, chosen an inconspicuous messenger to search for “Smarlinghue”