THE ADVENTURES 
 OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 BY FRANK L. PACKARD
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF 
 JIMMY DALE 
 
 By FRANK L. PACKARD 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "Greater Love Hath No Man," Etc. 
 
 A. L. BURT COMPANY 
 
 Publishers New York 
 
 Published by arrangements with GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1917, 
 GEORGE H. DOR AN COMPANY 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1914, 1915, BY STREET & SMITH 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PART ONE: THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 FAGS 
 
 I. THE GRAY SEAL 
 
 II. BY PROXY 31 
 
 III. THE MOTHER LODE .......* 61 
 
 IV. THE COUNTERFEIT FIVE 89 
 
 V. THE AFFAIR OF THE PUSHCART MAN .... 118 
 
 VI. DEVIL S WORK 143 
 
 VII. THE THIEF 173 
 
 VIII. THE MAN HIGHER UP 202 
 
 IX. Two CROOKS AND A KNAVE 230 
 
 X. THE ALIBI 258 
 
 XI. THE STOOL-PIGEON 286 
 
 PART TWO: THE WOMAN IN THE CASE 
 
 I. BELOW THE DEAD LIKE 315 
 
 II. THE CALL TO ARMS 324 
 
 III. THE CRIME CLUB 333 
 
 IV. THE INNOCENT BYSTANDER ........ 345 
 
 V. ON GUARD 354 
 
 VI. THE TRAP 361 
 
 VII. THE "Houn" ............. 372 
 
 VIII. THE TOCSIN 382 
 
 IX. THE TOCSIN S STORY . . . . . .389 
 
 X. SILVER MAG 403 
 
 XL THE MAGPIK 412 
 

 
 vi CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XII. JOHN JOHANSSON FOUR-TWO-EIGHT 422 
 
 XIII. THE ONLY WAY .434 
 
 XIV. OUT OF THE DARKNESS 443 
 
 XV. RETRIBUTION 450 
 
 XVI. "DEATH TO THE GRAY SEAL!" ... , 460
 
 PART ONE: THE MAN IN THE CASE
 
 PART ONE: THE MAN IN THE CASE 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE GRAY SEAL 
 
 AMONG New York s fashionable and ultra-exclusive 
 clubs, the St. James stood an acknowledged leader- 
 more men, perhaps, cast an envious eye at its portals, of 
 modest and unassuming taste, as they passed by on Fifth 
 Avenue, than they did at any other club upon the long list 
 that the city boasts. True, there were more expensive clubs 
 upon whose membership roll scintillated more stars of New 
 York s social set, but the St. James was distinctive. It 
 guaranteed a man, so to speak that is, it guaranteed a 
 man to be innately a gentleman. It required money, it is 
 true, to keep up one s membership, but there were many 
 members who were not wealthy, as wealth is measured 
 nowadays there were many, even, who were pressed some 
 times to meet their dues and their house accounts, but the 
 accounts were invariably promptly paid. No man, once in, 
 could ever afford, or ever had the desire, to resign from the 
 St. James Club. Its membership was cosmopolitan; men 
 of every walk in life passed in and out of its doors, profes 
 sional men and business men, physicians, artists, merchants, 
 authors, engineers, each stamped with the " hall mark " of 
 the St. James, an innate gentleman. To receive a two weeks 
 out-of-town visitor s card to the St. James was something 
 to speak about, and men from Chicago, St. Louis, or San 
 Francisco spoke of it with a sort of holier-than-thou air 
 to fellow members of their own exclusive clubs, at home 
 again. 
 
 9
 
 10 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 Is there any doubt that Jimmie Dale was a gentleman an 
 innate gentleman ? Jimmie Dale s father had been a member 
 of the St. James Club, and one of the largest safe manu 
 facturers of the United States, a prosperous, wealthy man, 
 and at Jimmie Dale s birth he had proposed his son s name 
 for membership. It took some time to get into the St. 
 James; there was a long waiting list that neither money, 
 influence, nor pull could alter by so much as one iota. 
 Men proposed their sons names for membership when they 
 were born as religiously as they entered them upon the 
 city s birth register. At twenty-one Jimmie Dale was elected 
 to membership ; and, incidentally, that same year, graduated 
 from Harvard. It was Mr. Dale s desire that his son should 
 enter the business and learn it from the ground up, and 
 Jimmie Dale, for four years thereafter, had followed his 
 father s wishes. Then his father died. Jimmie Dale had 
 leanings toward more artistic pursuits than business. He 
 was credited with sketching a little, writing a little ; and he 
 was credited with having received a very snug amount from 
 the combine to which he sold out his safe-manufacturing 
 interests. He lived a bachelor life his mother had been 
 dead many years in the house that his father had left him 
 on Riverside Drive, kept a car or two and enough servants 
 to run his menage smoothly, and serve a dinner exquisitely 
 when he felt hospitably inclined. 
 
 Could there be any doubt that Jimmie Dale was innately a 
 gentleman ? 
 
 It was evening, and Jimmie Dale sat at a small table in the 
 corner of the St. James Club dining room. Opposite him sat 
 Herman Carruthers, a young man of his own age, about 
 twenty-six, a leading figure in the newspaper world, whose 
 rise from reporter to managing editor of the morning News- 
 Argus within the short space of a few years had been almost 
 meteoric. 
 
 They were at coffee and cigars, and Jimmie Dale was 
 leaning back in his chair, his dark eyes fixed interestedly 
 On his guest. 
 
 Carruthers, intently engaged in trimming his cigar ash OB
 
 THE GRAY SEAL 11 
 
 the edge of the Limoges china saucer of his coffee set, looked 
 up with an abrupt laugh. 
 
 " No ; I wouldn t care to go on record as being an advocate 
 of crime," he said whimsically ; " that would never do. But 
 I don t mind admitting quite privately that it s been a positive 
 regret to me that he has gone." 
 
 "Made too good copy to lose, I suppose?" suggested 
 Jimmie Dale quizzically. " Too bad, too, after working 
 up a theatrical name like that for him the Gray Seal 
 rather unique ! Who stuck that on him you ? " 
 
 Carruthers laughed then, grown serious, leaned toward 
 Jimmie Dale. 
 
 " You don t mean to say, Jimmie, that you don t know 
 about that, do you ? " he asked incredulously. " Why, up to 
 a year ago the papers were full of him." 
 
 " I never read your beastly agony columns," said Jimmie 
 Dale, with a cheery grin. 
 
 " Well," said Carruthers, " you must have skipped every 
 thing but the stock reports then." 
 
 " Granted," said Jimmie Dale. " So go on, Carruthers, 
 and tell me about him I dare say I may have heard of 
 him, since you are so distressed about it, but my memory 
 isn t good enough to contradict anything you may have to 
 say about the estimable gentleman, so you re safe." 
 
 Carruthers reverted to the Limoges saucer and the tip 
 of his cigar. 
 
 " He was the most puzzling, bewildering, delightful crook 
 in the annals of crime," said Carruthers reminiscently, after 
 a moment s silence. " Jimmie, he was the king-pin of them 
 all. Clever isn t the word for him, or dare-devil isn t either. 
 I used to think sometimes his motive was more than half for 
 the pure deviltry of it, to laugh at the police and pull the 
 noses of the rest of us that were after him. I used to dream 
 nights about those confounded gray seals of his that s where 
 he got his name; he left every job he ever did with a little 
 gray paper affair, fashioned diamond-shaped, stuck some 
 where where it would be the first thing your eyes would 
 light upon when you reached the scene, and "
 
 12 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 " Don t go so fast," smiled Jimmie Dale. " I don t quit* 
 get the connection. What did you have to do with this 
 er Gray Seal fellow? Where do you come in?" 
 
 " I ? I had a good deal to do with him," said Carruthers 
 grimly. " I was a reporter when he first broke loose, and^the 
 ambition of my life, after I began really to appreciate what 
 he was, was to get him and I nearly did, half a dozen 
 times, only " 
 
 " Only you never quite did, eh ? " cut in Jimmie Dale 
 slyly. " How near did you get, old man ? Come on, now, 
 no blurring ; did the Gray Seal ever even recognise you as a 
 factor in the hare-and-hound game ? " 
 
 " You re flicking on the raw, Jimmie," Carruthers an 
 swered, with a wry grimace. " He knew me, all right, con 
 found him ! He favoured me with several sarcastic notes 
 I ll show em to you some day explaining how I d fallen 
 down and how I could have got him if I d done some 
 thing else." Carruthers fist came suddenly down on the 
 table. " And I would have got him, too, if he had 
 lived." 
 
 " Lived ! " ejaculated Jimmie Dale. " He s dead, 
 then?" 
 
 " Yes," asserted Carruthers ; " he s dead." 
 
 " H m ! " said Jimmie Dale facetiously. " I hope the size 
 of the wreath you sent was an adequate tribute of your ap 
 preciation." 
 
 " I never sent any wreath," returned Carruthers, " for 
 the very simple reason that I didn t know where to send it, or 
 when he died. I said he was dead because for over a year 
 now he hasn t lifted a finger." 
 
 " Rotten poor evidence, even for a newspaper," com 
 mented Jimmie Dale. " Why not give him credit for having, 
 *ay reformed? " 
 
 Carruthers shook his head. " You don t get it at all, 
 Jimmie," he said earnestly. " The Gray Seal wasn t an 
 ordinary crook he was a classic. He was an artist, and the 
 ^rt of the thing was in his blood. A man like that could 
 *o more stop than he could stop breathing and live.
 
 THE GRAY SEAL IS 
 
 dead; there s nothing to it but that he s dead. I d bet a 
 year s salary on it." 
 
 " Another good man gone wrong, then," said Jimmie Dale 
 capriciously. " I suppose, though, that at least you dis 
 covered the woman in the case ? " 
 
 Carruthers looked up quickly, a little startled; then 
 laughed shortly. 
 
 " What s the matter ? " inquired Jimmie Dale. 
 
 " Nothing," said Carruthers. " You kind of got me for a 
 moment, that s all. That s the way those infernal notes 
 from the Gray Seal used to end up : Find the lady, old 
 chap ; and you ll get me. He had a damned patronising 
 familiarity that would make you squirm." 
 
 " Poor old Carruthers ! >; grinned Jimmie Dale. " You 
 did take it to heart, didn t you ? " 
 
 " I d have sold my soul to get him and so would you, 
 if you had been in my boots," said Carruthers, biting nerv 
 ously at the end of his cigar. 
 
 " And been sorry for it afterward," supplied Jimmie Dale. 
 
 " Yes, by Jove, you re right ! " admitted Carruthers, " I 
 suppose I should. I actually got to love the fellow it was 
 the game, really, that I wanted to beat." 
 
 " Well, and how about this woman ? Keep on the straight 
 and narrow path, old man," prodded Jimmie Dale. 
 
 " The woman ? " Carruthers smiled. " Nothing doing ! 
 I don t believe there was one he wouldn t have been likely 
 to egg the police and reporters on to finding her if there had 
 been, would he? It was a blind, of course. He worked 
 alone, absolutely alone. That s the secret of his success, 
 according to my way of thinking. There was never so 
 much as an indication that he had had an accomplice in 
 anything he ever did." 
 
 Jimmie Dale s eyes travelled around the club s homelike, 
 perfectly appointed room. He nodded to a fellow member 
 here and there, then his eyes rested musingly on his guest 
 again. 
 
 Carruthers was staring thoughtfully at his coffee cup. 
 
 " He was the prince of crooks and the father of origir
 
 14 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 nality," announced Carruthers abruptly, following the pause 
 that had ensued. " Half the time there wasn t any more 
 getting at the motive for the curious things he did, than 
 there was getting at the Gray Seal himself." 
 
 " Carruthers," said Jimmy Dale, with a quick little nod 
 of approval, " you re positively interesting to-night. But, 
 so far, you ve been kind of scouting around the outside 
 edges without getting into the thick of it. Let s have some 
 of your experiences with the Gray Seal in detail ; they ought 
 to make ripping fine yarns." 
 
 " Not to-night, Jimmie," said Carruthers ; " it would take 
 too long." He pulled out his watch mechanically as he 
 spoke, glanced at it and pushed back his chair. " Great 
 Scott!" he exclaimed. "It s nearly half-past nine. I d 
 no idea we had lingered so long over dinner. I ll have to 
 hurry ; we re a morning paper, you know, Jimmie." 
 
 " What ! Really ! Is it as late as that." Jimmie Dale rose 
 from his chair as Carruthers stood up. " Well, if you 
 must " 
 
 " I must," said Carruthers, with a laugh. 
 
 " All right, O slave." Jimmie Dale laughed back and 
 slipped his hand, a trick of their old college days together, 
 through Carruthers arm as they left the room. 
 
 He accompanied Carruthers downstairs to the door of the 
 club, and saw his guest into a taxi ; then he returned inside, 
 sauntered through the billiard room, and from there into 
 one of the cardrooms, where, pressed into a game, he played 
 several rubbers of bridge before going home. 
 
 It was, therefore, well on toward midnight when Jimmie 
 Dale arrived at his house on Riverside Drive, and was 
 admitted by an elderly manservant. 
 
 " Hello, Jason," said Jimmie Dale pleasantly. " You still 
 up!" 
 
 " Yes, sir," replied Jason, who had been valet to Jimmie 
 Dale s father before him. " I was going to bed, sir, at 
 about ten o clock, when a messenger came with a letter 
 Begging your pardon, sir, a young lady, and "
 
 THE GRAY SEAL 15 
 
 " Jason " Jimmie Dale flung out the interruption, sud 
 den, quick, imperative " what did she look like ? " 
 
 " Why why, I don t exactly know as I could describe her, 
 sir," stammered Jason, taken aback. " Very ladylike, sir, 
 in her dress and appearance, and what I would call, sir, 
 a beautiful face." 
 
 " Hair and eyes what color ? " demanded Jimmie Dale 
 crisply. " Nose, lips, chin what shape ? " 
 
 " Why, sir," gasped Jason, staring at his master, " I 
 I don t rightly know. I wouldn t call her fair or dark, 
 something between. I didn t take particular notice, and it 
 wasn t overlight outside the door." 
 
 " It s too bad you weren t a younger man, Jason," com 
 mented Jimmie Dale, with a curious tinge of bitterness in 
 his voice. " I d have given a year s income for your op 
 portunity to-night, Jason." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Jason helplessly. 
 
 " Well, go on," prompted Jimmie Dale. " You told her I 
 wasn t home, and she said she knew it, didn t she? And 
 she left the letter that I was on no account to miss receiving 
 when I got back, though there was no need of telephoning 
 me to the club when I returned would do, but it was im 
 perative that I should have it then eh ? " 
 
 " Good Lord, sir ! " ejaculated Jason, his jaw dropped, 
 " that s exactly what she did say." 
 
 " Jason," said Jimmie Dale grimly, " listen to me. If 
 ever she comes here again, inveigle her in. If you can t in 
 veigle her, use force; capture her, pull her in, do anything 
 do anything, do you hear? Only don t let her get away 
 from you until I ve come." 
 
 Jason gazed at his master {is though the other had lost 
 his reason. 
 
 " Use force, sir ? " he repeated weakly and shook his 
 head. " You you can t mean that, sir." 
 
 " Can t I ? " inquired Jimmie Dale, with a mirthless smile. 
 " I mean every word of it, Jason and if I thought there 
 was the slightest chance of her giving you the opportunity, 
 I d be more imperative still. As it is where s the letter?"
 
 16 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 w On the table in your studio, sir," said Jason, mechani 
 cally. 
 
 Jimmie Dale started toward the stairs then turned and 
 came back to where Jason, still shaking his head heavily, 
 had been gazing anxiously after his master. Jimmie Dale 
 laid his hand on the old man s shoulder. 
 
 " Jason," he said kindly, with a swift change of mood, 
 "you ve been a long time in the family first with father, 
 and now with me. You d do a good deal for me, wouldn t 
 you?" 
 
 " I d do anything in the world for you, Master Jim," 
 said the old man earnestly. 
 
 " Well, then, remember this," said Jimmie Dale slowly, 
 looking into the other s eyes, " remember this keep your 
 mouth shut and your eyes open. It s my fault. I should 
 have warned you long ago, but I never dreamed that she 
 would ever come here herself. There have been times when 
 it was practically a matter of life and death to me to know 
 \vho that woman is that you saw to-night. That s all, 
 Jason. Now go to bed." 
 
 " Master Jim," said the old man simply, "thank you, sir, 
 thank you for trusting me. I ve dandled you on my knee 
 when you were a baby, Master Jim. I don t know what 
 it s about, and it isn t for me to ask. I thought, sir, that 
 maybe you were having a little fun with me. But I know 
 now, and you can trust me, Master Jim, if she ever comes 
 again." 
 
 "Thank you, Jason," said Jimmie Dale, his hand closing 
 with an appreciative pressure on the other s shoulder 
 " Good-night, Jason." 
 
 Upstairs on the first landing, Jimmie Dale opened a door v 
 closed and locked it behind him and the electric switch 
 clicked under his fingers. A glow fell softly from a cluster 
 of shaded ceiling lights. It was a large room, a very large 
 room, running the entire depth of the house, and the effect 
 of apparent disorder in the arrangement of its appointments 
 seemed to breathe a sense of charm. There were great 
 cozy, deep, leather-covered lounging chairs, a huge, leather
 
 THE GRAY SEAL 17 
 
 Severed davenport, and an easel or two with half -finished 
 sketches upon them ; the walls were panelled, the panels of 
 exquisite grain and matching ; in the centre of the room stootf 
 a flat-topped rosewood desk; upon the floor was a dark, 
 heavy velvet rug; and, perhaps most inviting of all, there 
 was a great, old-fashioned fireplace at one side of the room 
 
 For an instant Jimmie Dale remained quietly by the door, 
 as though listening. Six feet he stood, muscular in every 
 line of his body, like a well-trained athlete with no single 
 ounce of superfluous fat about him the grace and ease of 
 power in his poise. His strong, clean-shaven face, as the 
 light fell upon it now, was serious a mood that became him 
 well the firm lips closed, the dark, reliant eyes a little 
 narrowed, a frown on the broad forehead, the square jaw 
 clamped. 
 
 Then abruptly he walked across the room to the desk, 
 picked up an envelope that lay upon it, and, turning again, 
 dropped into the nearest lounging chair. 
 
 There had been no doubt in his mind, none to dispel. It 
 was precisely what he had expected from almost the first 
 word Jason had spoken. It was the same handwriting, the 
 same texture of paper, and there was the same old haunt* 
 ing, rare, indefinable fragrance about it. Jimmie Dale s 
 hands turned the envelope now this way, now that, as he 
 looked at it. Wonderful hands were Jimmie Dale s, with 
 long, slim, tapering fingers whose sensitive tips seemed now 
 is though they were striving to decipher the message within. 
 
 He laughed suddenly, a little harshly, and tore open the 
 envelope. Five closely written sheets fell into his hand. 
 He read them slowly, critically, read them over again ; and 
 then, his eyes on the rug at his feet, he began to tear the 
 paper into minute pieces between his fingers, depositing the 
 pieces, as he tore them, upon the arm of his chair. The 
 five sheets demolished, his fingers dipped into the heap of 
 shreds on the *rm of the chair and tore them over and over 
 igain, tore them until they were scarcely larger than bits of 
 confetti, tore at them absently and mechanically, his eye* 
 *ver shifting from the rug at his feet
 
 18 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 Then, with a shrug of his shoulders, as though rousing 
 himself to present reality, a curious smile flickering on his 
 lips, he brushed the pieces of paper into one hand, carried 
 them to the empty fireplace, laid them down in a little pile, 
 and set them aiire. Lighting a cigarette, he watched them 
 burn until the last glow had gone from the last charred 
 scrap ; then he crunched and scattered them with the brass- 
 handled fender brush, and, retracing his steps across the 
 room, flung back a portiere from where it hung before a 
 little alcove, and dropped ou his knees in front of a round, 
 squat, barrel-shaped safe one of his own design and plan 
 ning in the years when he had been with his father. 
 
 His slim, sensitive lingers played for an instant among 
 the knobs and dials that studded the door, guided, it seemed 
 by the sense of touch alone and the door swung open. 
 Within was another door, with locks and bolts as intricate 
 and massive as the outer one. This, too, he opened ; and 
 then from the interior took out a short, thick, rolled-up 
 leather bundle tied together with thongs. He rose from 
 his knees, closed the safe, and drew the portiere across the 
 alcove again. With the bundle under his arm, he glanced 
 sharply around the room, listened intently, then, unlocking 
 the door that gave on the hall, he switched off the lights 
 and went to his dressing room, that was on the same floor. 
 Here, divesting himself quickly of his dinner clothes, he 
 selected a dark tweed suit with loose-fitting, sack coat from 
 his wardrobe, and began to put it on. 
 
 Dressed, all but his coat and vest, he turned to the leather 
 bundle that he had placed on a table, untied the thongs, 
 and carefully opened it out to its full length and again 
 that curious, cryptic smile tinged his lips. Rolled the oppo 
 site away from that in which it had been tied up, the leather 
 strip made a wide belt that went on somewhat after the 
 fashion of a life preserver, the thongs being used for shoulder 
 straps a belt that, once on, the vest would hide completely, 
 and, fitting close, left no telltale bulge in the outer garments. 
 It was not an ordinary belt ; it was full of stout-sewn, up 
 right little pockets all the way around, and in the pocket*
 
 THE GRAY SEAL 19 
 
 grimly lay an array of fine, blued-steel, highly tempered 
 instruments a compact, powerful burglar s kit. 
 
 The slim, sensitive fingers passed with almost a caress 
 ing touch over the vicious little implements, and from one 
 of the pockets extracted a thin, flat metal case. This Jim- 
 mie Dale opened, and glanced inside between sheets of oil 
 paper lay little rows of gray, adhesive, diamond-shaped seals. 
 
 Jimmie Dale snapped the case shut, returned it to its 
 recess, and from another took out a black silk mask. He 
 held it up to the light for examination. 
 
 " Pretty good shape after a year," muttered Jimmie Dale, 
 replacing it. 
 
 He put on the belt, then his vest and coat. From the 
 drawer of his dresser he took an automatic revolver and an 
 electric flashlight, slipped them into his pocket, and went 
 softly downstairs. From the hat stand he chose a black 
 slouch hat, pulled it well over his eyes and left the house. 
 
 Jimmie Dale walked down a block, then hailed a bus 
 and mounted to the top. It was late, and he found himself 
 the only passenger. He inserted his dime in the conductor s 
 little resonant-belled cash receiver, and then settled back 
 on the uncomfortable, bumping, cushionless seat. 
 
 On rattled the bus ; it turned across town, passed the 
 Circle, and headed for Fifth Avenue but Jimmie Dale, 
 to all appearances, was quite oblivious of its movements. 
 
 It was a year since she had written him. She! Jimmie 
 Dale did not smile, his lips were pressed hard together. 
 Not a very intimate or personal appellation, that but he 
 knew her by no other. It was a woman, surely the hand 
 writing was feminine, the diction eminently so and had she 
 not come herself that night to Jason! He remembered the 
 last letter, apart from the one to-night, that he had received 
 from her. It was a year ago now and the letter had been 
 hardly more than a note. The police had worked them 
 selves into a frenzy over the Gray Seal, the papers had 
 grown absolutely maudlin and she had written, in he! 
 characteristic way:
 
 SO THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 Things are a little too warm, aren t they, Jimmie? Let i 
 let them cool for a year. 
 
 Since then until to-night he had heard nothing from her. 
 It was a strange compact that he had entered into so 
 strange that it could never have known, could never know a 
 parallel unique, dangerous, bizarre, it was all that and more. 
 It had begun really through his connection with his father s 
 business the business of manufacturing safes that should 
 defy the cleverest criminals when his brains, turned into 
 that channel, had been pitted against the underworld, against 
 the methods of a thousand different crooks from Maine 
 to California, the report of whose every operation had 
 reached him in the natural course of business, and every 
 one of which he had studied in minutest detail. It had be 
 gun through that but at the bottom of it was his own 
 restless, adventurous spirit. 
 
 He had meant to set the police by the ears, using his 
 gray-seal device both as an added barb and that no innocent 
 bystander of the underworld, innocent for once, might be 
 involved he had meant to laugh at them and puzzle them 
 to the verge of madness, for in the last analysis they would 
 find only an abortive attempt at crime and he had suc 
 ceeded. And then he had gone too far and he had been 
 caught by her. That string of pearls, which, to study 
 whose effect facetiously, he had so idiotically wrapped 
 around his wrist, and which, so ironically, he had been unable 
 to loosen in time and had been forced to carry with him in 
 his sudden, desperate dash to escape from Marx s the big 
 jeweler s, in Maiden Lane, whose strong room he had toyed 
 with one night, had been the lever which, at first, she had 
 held over him. 
 
 The bus was on Fifth Avenue now, and speeding rapidly 
 down the deserted thoroughfare. Jimmie Dale looked up 
 at the lighted windows of the St. James Club as they went 
 by, smiled whimsically, and shifted in his seat, seeking a 
 more comfortable position. 
 
 She had caught him how he did not know he had
 
 THE GRAY SEAL Jl 
 
 never seen her did not know who she was, though time 
 and again he had devoted all his energies for months at a 
 stretch to a solution of the mystery. The morning follow 
 ing the Maiden Lane affair, indeed, before he had break 
 fasted, Jason had brought him the first letter from her. It 
 had started by detailing his every move of the night before 
 and it had ended with an ultimatum : " The cleverness, 
 the originality of the Gray Seal as a crook lacked but one 
 thing," she had naively written, " and that one thing was 
 that his crookedness required a leading string to guide it 
 into channels that were worthy of his genius." In a word, 
 she would plan the coups, and he would act at her dictation 
 and execute them or else how did twenty years in Sing 
 Sing for that little Maiden Lane affair appeal to him? He 
 was to answer by the next morning, a simple "yes " or " no " 
 in the personal column of the morning News-Argus. 
 
 A threat to a man like Jimmie Dale was like flaunting a 
 red rag at a bull, and a rage ungovernable had surged upon 
 him. Then cold reason had come. He was caught there 
 was no question about that she had taken pains to show 
 him that he need make no mistake there. Innocent enough 
 in his own conscience, as far as actual theft went, for the 
 pearls would in due course be restored in some way to the 
 possession of their owner, he would have been unable to 
 make even his own father, who was alive then, believe 
 in his innocence, let alone a jury of his peers. Dishonour, 
 shame, ignominy, a long prison sentence, stared him in the 
 face, and there was but one alternative to link hands with 
 this unseen, mysterious accomplice. Well, he could at least 
 temporise, he could always " queer " a game in some specious 
 manner, if he were pushed too far. And so, in the next 
 morning s News-Argus, Jimmie Dale had answered " yes." 
 And then had followed those years in which there had been 
 no temporising, in which every plan was carried out to the 
 last detail, those years of curious, unaccountable, bewildering 
 affairs that Carruthers had spoken of, one on top of another, 
 that had shaken the old headquarters on Mulberry Street to 
 its foundations, until the Gray Seal had become a name to
 
 22 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 conjure with. And, yes, it was quite true, he had enterer* 
 into it all, gone the limit, with an eagerness that wa< 
 insatiable. 
 
 The bus had reached the lower end of Fifth Avenue, 
 passed through Washington Square, and stopped at the end 
 of its run. Jimmie Dale clambered down from the top 
 threw a pleasant " good-night " to the conductor, and headec 
 briskly down the street before him. A little later he crossed 
 into West Broadway, and his pace slowed to a leisure!^ 
 stroll. 
 
 Here, at the upper end of the street, was a conglomerate 
 business section of rather inferior class, catering doubtless 
 to the poor, f oveign element that congregated west of Broad 
 way proper, and to the south of Washington Square. The 
 street was, at first glance, deserted ; it was dark and dreary 
 with stores and lofts on either side. An elevated train 
 roared by overhead, with a thunderous, deafening clamour 
 Jimmie Dale, on the right-hand side of the street, glanced 
 interestedly at the dark store windows as he went by. And 
 then, a block ahead, on the other side, his eyes rested on an 
 approaching form. As the other reached the corner and 
 paused, and the light from the street lamp glinted on brass 
 buttons, Jimmie Dale s eyes narrowed a little under his 
 slouch hat. The policeman, although nonchalantly swing 
 ing a nightstick, appeared to be watching him. 
 
 Jimmie Dale went on half a block farther, stooped to the 
 sidewalk to tie his shoe, glanced back over his shoulder 
 the policeman was not in sight and slipped like a shadow 
 into the alleyway beside which he had stopped. 
 
 It was another Jimmie Dale now-- the professional Jin> 
 inie Dale. Quick as a cat, active, litVie, he was over a six- 
 foot fence in the rear of a building in a flash, and crouched, 
 a black shape, against the back door of an unpretentious, 
 unkempt, dirty, secondhand shop that fronted on West 
 Broadway the last place certainly in all New York that the 
 managing editor of the Nezvs-Argus, or any one else, for 
 that matter, would have picked out as the setting for tb;, 
 *econd debut of the Gray SeaL
 
 ^HE GRAY SEAL 
 
 From the belt around his waist, Jimmie Dale took the 
 black silk mask, and slipped it on; and from the belt, too, 
 came a little instrument that his deft fingers manipulated 
 i the lock. A curious snipping sound followed. Jimmie 
 l>de put his weight gradually against the door. The door 
 held fast. 
 
 " Bolted,** said Jimmie Dale to himself. 
 
 The sensitive fingers travelled slowly up and down the side 
 of the door, seeming to press and feel for the position of the 
 bolt through an inch of plank then from the belt came a 
 tiny saw, thin and pointed at the end, that fitted into the 
 little handle drawn from another receptacle in the leather 
 girdle beneath the unbuttoned vest. 
 
 Hardly a sound it made as it bit into the door. Half a 
 minute passed there was the faint fall of a small piece of 
 wood into the aperture crept the delicate, tapering fingers 
 came a slight rasping of metal then the door swung back, 
 the dark shadow that had been Jimmie Dale vanished, awl 
 the door closed again. 
 
 A round, white beam of light glowed for an instant and 
 disappeared. A miscellaneous, lumbering collection of junk 
 and odds and ends blocked the entry, leaving no more space 
 than was sufficient for bare passageway. Jimmie Dale moved 
 cautiously and once more the flashlight in his hand showed 
 the way for an instant then darkness again. 
 
 The cluttered accumulation of secondhand stuff in the 
 rear gave place to a little more orderly arrangement as he 
 advanced toward the front of the store. Like a huge firefly, 
 the flashlight twinkled, went out, twinkled again, and went 
 out. He passed a sort of crude, partitioned-off apartment 
 that did duty for the establishment s office, a sort of little 
 boxed-in place it was, about in the middle of the floor. 
 Jimmie Dale s light played on it for a moment, but he kept on 
 toward the front door without any pause. 
 
 Every movement was quick, sure, accurate, with not a 
 wasted second. It had been barely a mi-nute since he had 
 the back fence. It was hardly a <ju&rt? of m minute
 
 24 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 more before the cumbersome lock of the front door wafi 
 unfastened, and the door itself pulled imperceptibly ajar. 
 
 He went swiftly back to the office now and found it even 
 more of a shaky, cheap affair than it had at first appeared ; 
 more like a box stall with windows around the top than any 
 thing else, the windows doubtless to permit the occupant to 
 overlook the store from the vantage point of the high stool 
 that stood before a long, battered, wabbly desk. There was 
 a door to the place, too, but the door was open and the key 
 was in the lock. The ray of Jimmie Dale s flashlight swept 
 once around the interior and rested on an antique^ 
 ponderous safe. 
 
 Under the mask Jimmie Dale s lips parted in a smile that 
 seemed almost apologetic, as he viewed the helpless iron 
 monstrosity that was little more than an insult to a trained 
 cracksman. Then from the belt came the thin metal case and 
 a. pair of tweezers. He opened the case, and with the 
 tweezers lifted out one of the gray-coloured, diamond-shaped 
 seals. Holding the seal with the tweezers, he moistened the 
 gummed side with his lips, then laid it on a handkerchief 
 which he took from his pocket, and clapped the handkerchief 
 against the front of the safe, sticking the seal conspicuously 
 into place, Jimmie Dale s insignia bore no finger prints. 
 The microscopes and magnifying glasses at headquarters had 
 many a time regretfully assured the police of that fact. 
 
 And now his hands and fingers seemed to work like light 
 ning. Into the soft iron bit a drill bit in and through bit 
 in and through again. It was dark, pitch black and silent. 
 Not a sound, save the quick, dull rasp of the ratchet like 
 the distant gnawing of a mouse ! Jimmie Dale worked fast 
 another hole went through the face of the old-fashioned 
 safe and then suddenly he straightened up to listen, every 
 faculty tense, alert, and strained, his body thrown a little 
 forward. What was that! 
 
 From the alleyway leading from the street without, 
 through which he himself had come, sounded the stealthy 
 Tunch of feet Motionless in the utter darkness^ Jimmit
 
 THE GRAY SEAL 2fl 
 
 Oele listened there was a scraping noise in the rear some 
 
 one was climbing the fence that he had climbed ! 
 
 In an instant the tools in Jimmie Dale s hands disappeared 
 into their respective pockets beneath his vest- -and the 
 sensitive fingers shot to the dial on the safe. 
 
 " Too bad," muttered Jimmie Dale plaintively to himself. 
 " I could have made such an artistic job of it- -I swear I 
 could have cut Carruthers profile in the hole in less thati nr 
 time to open it like this is really taking the poor old thing 
 at a disadvantage." 
 
 He was on his knees now, one ear close to the dial, listen 
 ing as the tumblers fell, while the delicate fingers spun the 
 knob unerringly the other ear strained toward the rear of 
 the premises. 
 
 Came a footstep a ray of light a stumble nearer the 
 newcomer was inside the place now, and must have found 
 out that the back door had been tampered with. Nearer 
 came the steps still nearer and then the safe door swung 
 open under Jimmie Dale s hand, and Jimmie Dale, that h* 
 might not be caught like a rat in a trap, darted from th* 
 office but he had delayed a little too long. 
 
 From around the cluttered piles of junk and miscellany 
 swept the light full on Jimmie Dale. Hesitation for the 
 smallest fraction of a second would have been fatal, but 
 hesitation was something that in all his lift Jimmie Dale had 
 never known. Quick as a panther in its spring, he leaped 
 full at the light and the man behind it. The rough voice, 
 in surprised exclamation at the sudden discovery of the 
 quarry, died in a gasp. 
 
 There was a crash as the two men met and the other 
 reeled back before the impact. Onto him Jimmie Dale 
 sprang, and his hands flew for the other s throat. It was an 
 officer in uniform! Jimmie Dale had felt the brass buttons 
 as they locked. In the darkness there was a queer smile on 
 Jimmie Dale s tight lips. It was no doubt the officer whom 
 he had passed on the other side of the street. 
 
 The other was a smaller man than Jimmie Dale, but 
 powerful for his build and he fought now with all hi?
 
 26 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 strength. This way and that the two men reeled, staggered, 
 swayed, panting and gasping; and then they had lurched 
 back close to the office door with a sudden swing, every 
 muscle brought into play for a supreme effort, Jimmie Dale 
 hurled the other from him, sending the man sprawling back 
 to the floor of the office, and in the winking of an eye had 
 slammed shut the door and turned the key. 
 
 There was a bull-like roar, the shrill cheep-cheep-cheep 
 of the patrolman s whistle, and a shattering crash as the 
 officer flung his body against the partition then the bark 
 of a revolver shot, the tinkle of breaking glass, as the man 
 fired through the office window and past Jimmie Dale, 
 speeding now for the front door, a bullet hummed viciously. 
 
 Out on the street dashed Jimmie Dale, whipping the 
 mask from his face and glanced like a hawk around him. 
 For all the racket, the neighbourhood had not yet been 
 aroused no one was in sight. From just overhead came the 
 rattle of a downtown elevated train. In a hundred-yard 
 sprint, Jimmie Dale raced it a half block to the station, tore 
 up the steps and a moment later dropped nonchalantly 
 into a seat and pulled an evening newspaper from his 
 pocket. 
 
 Jimmie Dale got off at the second station down, crossed 
 the street, mounted the steps of the elevated again, and took 
 the next train uptown. His movements appeared to be some 
 what erratic he alighted at the station next above the one 
 by which he had made his escape. Looking down the 
 street it was too dark to see much of anything, but a con 
 fused noise as of a gathering crowd reached him from what 
 was about the location of the secondhand store. He listened 
 appreciatively for a moment. 
 
 " Isn t it a perfectly lovely night? " said Jimmie Dale ami 
 ably to himself. " And to think of that cop running away 
 with the idea that I didn t see him when he hid in a door 
 way after I passed the corner! Well, well, strange isn t 
 it?" 
 
 With another glance down the street, a whimsical lift of 
 iiis shoulders, he headed west into the dilapidated tenement
 
 THE GRAY SEAL 2? 
 
 quarter that huddled for a handful of blocks near by, just 
 south of Washington Square. It was a little after one 
 o clock in the morning now. and the pedestrians were casual. 
 Jimmie Dale read the street signs on the corners as he went 
 along, turned abruptly into an intersecting street, counted 
 the tenements from the corner as he passed, and for the 
 eye of any one who might be watching opened the street 
 door of one of them quite as though he were accustomed 
 and had a perfect right to do so, and went inside. 
 
 It was murky and dark within ; hot, unhealthy, with lin 
 gering smells of garlic and stale cooking. He groped for the 
 stairs and started up. He climbed one flight, then another 
 and one more to the top. Here, treading softly, he made an 
 examination of the landing with a view, evidently, to ob 
 taining an idea of the location and the number of doors that 
 opened off from it. 
 
 His selection fell on the third door from the head of the 
 stairs there were four all told, two apartments of twc 
 rooms each. He paused for an instant to adjust the blacl 
 silk mask, tried the door quietly, found it unlocked, openet 
 it with a sudden, quick, brisk movement and, stepping in 
 side, leaned with his back against it. 
 
 " Good-morning," said Jimmie Dale pleasantly. 
 
 It was a squalid place, a miserable hole, in which a sin 
 gle flickering, yellow gas jet gave light. It was almost bare 
 of furniture; there was nothing but a couple of cheap 
 chairs, a rickety table unpawnable. A boy, he was hardly 
 more than that, perhaps twenty-two, from a posture in which 
 he v/as huddled across the table with head buried in out- 
 flung arms, sprang with a startled cry to his feet. 
 
 " Good-morning," said Jimmie Dale again. " Your name s 
 Hagan, Bert Hagan isn t it? And you work for Isaac 
 Brolsky in the secondhand shop over on West Broadway 
 don t you?" 
 
 The boy s lips quivered, and the gaunt, hollow, half- 
 starved face, white, ashen-white now, was pitiful. 
 
 " I I guess you got me," he faltered. " I I
 
 28 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 you re a plain-clothes man, though I never knew dicks wore 
 masks." 
 
 " They don t generally," said Jimmie Dale coolly. " It i 
 a. fad of mine Bert Hagan." 
 
 The lad, hanging to the table, turned his head away for 
 a moment and there was silence. 
 
 Presently Hagan spoke again. " I ll go," he said numbly. 
 " I won t make any trouble. Would would you mind not 
 speaking loud ? I I wouldn t like her to know." 
 
 " Her? " said Jimmie Dale softly. 
 
 The boy tiptoed across the room, opened a connecting 
 door a little, peered inside, opened it a little wider and 
 looked over his shoulder at Jimmie Dale. 
 
 Jimmie Dale crossed to the boy, looked inside the other 
 room and his lip twitched queerly, as the sight sent a 
 quick, hurt throb through his heart- A young woman, 
 younger than the boy, lay on a tumble-down bed, a rag of 
 clothing over her her face with a deathlike pallor upon it, 
 as she lay in what appeared to be a stupor. She was ill, 
 critically ill ; it needed no trained eye to discern a fact all 
 too apparent to the most casual observer. The squalor, the 
 glaring poverty here, was even more pitifully in evidence 
 than in the other room only here upon a chair beside the 
 bed was a cluster of medicine bottles and a little heap of 
 fruit. 
 
 Jimmie Dale drew back silently as the boy closed the 
 door. 
 
 Hagan walked to the table and picked up his hat. 
 
 44 I m I m ready," he said brokenly. " Let s go." 
 
 " Just a minute," said Jimmie Dale. " Tell us about 
 it." 
 
 " Twon t take long," said Hagan, trying to smile. " She s 
 my wife. The sickness took all we had. I I kinder got 
 behind in the rent and things. They were going to fire us 
 out of here to-morrow. And here wasn t any money for the 
 medicine, and and the things she had to have. Maybe you 
 wouldn t have done it but I did. I couldn t see her dying 
 Jbere for the want of something a little money d buy and*
 
 THE GRAY SEAL 29 
 
 and I couldn t " he caught his voice in a little sob" I 
 couldn t see her thrown out on the street like that." 
 
 " And so," said Jimmie Dale, " instead of putting old 
 Isaac s cash in the safe this evening when you locked up, 
 you put it in your pocket instead eh? Didn t you know 
 vou d get caught ? " 
 
 "What did it matter? * said the boy. He was twirling 
 his misshappen hat between his fingers. " I knew they d 
 know it was me in the morning when old Isaac found it 
 gone, because there wasn t anybody else to do it. But I 
 paid the rent for four months ahead to-night, and I fixed 
 It so s she d have medicine and things to eat. I was going 
 to beat it before daylight myself I " he brushed his hand 
 hurriedly across his cheek " I didn t want to go to leave 
 her till I had to." 
 
 " Well, say " there was wonderment in Jimmie Dale s 
 tones, and his English lapsed into ungrammatical, reassuring 
 vernacular " ain t that queer ! Say, I m no detective. Gee, 
 kid, did you think I was ? Say, listen to this ! I cracked old 
 Isaac s safe haH an hour ago and I guess there won t be 
 any idea going around that you got the money and I pulled 
 a lemon. Say, I ain t superstitious, but it looks like luck 
 meant you to have another chance, don t it ? " 
 
 The hat dropped from Hagan s hands to the floor, and he 
 swayed a little. 
 
 14 You you ain t a dick ! " he stammered. " Then how d 
 you know about me and my name when you found the safe 
 empty ? Who told you ? " 
 
 A wry grimace spread suddenly over Jimmie Dale s face 
 beneath the mask, and he swallowed hard. Jimmie Dale 
 would have given a good deal to have been able to answer 
 that question himself. 
 
 " Oh, that ! " said Jimmie Dale. " That s easy I knew 
 you worked there. Say, it s the limit, ain t it? Talk about 
 your luck being in, why all you ve got to do is to sit tight 
 and keep your mouth shut, and you re safe as a church. 
 Only say, what are you going to do about the money, now
 
 30 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 you ve got a four months start and are kind of landed on 
 your feet?" 
 
 " Do? " said the boy. " I ll pay it back, little by little. I 
 meant to. I ain t no " He stopped abruptly. 
 
 " Crook," supplied Jimmie Dale pleasantly. " Spit it right 
 out, kid; you won t hurt my feelings none. Well, I ll tell 
 you you re talking the way I like to hear you you pay that 
 back, slide it in without his knowing it, a bit at a time, when 
 ever you can, and you ll never hear a yip out of me ; but if 
 you don t, why it kind of looks as though I have a right to 
 come down your street and get my share or know the reason 
 why eh?" 
 
 " Then you never get any share,** said Hagan, with a catch 
 in his voice. " I pay it back as fast as I can." 
 
 " Sure," said Jimmie Dale. " That s right that s what I 
 said. Well, so long Hagan." And Jimmie Dale had 
 opened the door and slipped outside. 
 
 An hour later, in his dressing room in his house on River- 
 side Drive, Jimmie Dale was removing his coat as the 
 telephone, a hand instrument on the table, rang. Jimmie 
 Dale glanced at it and leisurely proceeded to remove his 
 vest. Again the telephone rang. Jimmie Dale took off 
 his curious, pocketed leather belt as the telephone repeated 
 its summons. He picked out the little drill he had used a 
 short while before, and inspected it critically feeling its 
 point with his thumb, as one might feel a razor s blade 
 Again the telephone rang insistently. He reac ied languidly 
 for the receiver, took it off its hook, and held it to his 
 ear. 
 
 " Hello ! * said Jimmie Dale, with a sleepy yawn. " Hello! 
 Hello ! Why the deuce don t you yank a man out of bed at 
 two o clock in the morning and have done with it, and eh ? 
 Oh, that you, Carruthers ? " 
 
 " Yes," came Carruthers voice excitedly. " Jimmie, lis 
 ten listen ! The Gray Seal s come to life ! He s just pulled 
 a break on West Broadway ! " 
 
 " Good Lord ! " gasped Jimmie Dale. " You don t say ! "
 
 CHAPTER H 
 
 BY PROXY 
 
 ""PHE most puzzling bewildering, delightful crook in 
 the annals of crime," Herman Carruthers, the editor 
 of the Morning News-Argus, had called the Gray Seal ; and 
 Jimmie Dale smiled a little grimly now as he recalled the 
 occasion of a week ago at the St. James Club over their 
 after-dinner coffee. That was before his second debut, with 
 Isaac Brolsky s poverty-stricken premises over on West 
 Broadway as a setting for the break. 
 
 She had written : " Things are a little too warm, aren t 
 they, Jimmie ? Let s let them cool for a year." Well, they 
 had cooled for a year, and Carruthers as a result had been 
 complacently satisfied in his own mind that the Gray Seal 
 was dead until that break at Isaac Brolsky s over on West 
 Broadway ! 
 
 Jimmie Dale s smile was tinged with whimsicality now. 
 The only effect of the year s inaction had been to usher in 
 his renewed activity with a furor compared to which all that 
 had gone before was insignificant. Where the newspapers 
 had been maudlin, they now raved raved in editorials and 
 raved in headlines. It was an impossible, untenable, unbe 
 lievable condition of affairs that this Gray Seal, for all his 
 incomparable cleverness, should flaunt his crimes in the faces 
 of the citizens of New York. One could actually see the 
 editors writhing in their swivel chairs as their fiery de 
 nunciations dripped from their pens ! What was the matter 
 with the police? Were the police children; or, worse still, 
 imbeciles or, still worse again, was there some one " higher 
 up " who was profiting by this rogue s work ? New York 
 would not stand for it New York would most decidedly 
 
 31
 
 82 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 not and the sooner the police realised that fact the better! 
 If the police were helpless, or tools, the citizens of New York 
 were not, and it was time the citizens were thoroughly 
 aroused. 
 
 There was a way, too, to arouse the citizens, that was 
 both good business from the newspaper standpoint, and 
 efficacious as a method. Carruthers, of the Morning News- 
 Argus, had initiated it. The Morning News-Argus offered 
 twenty-five thousand dollars reward for the capture of the 
 Gray Seal! Other papers immediately followed suit in 
 varying amounts. The authorities, State and municipal, 
 goaded to desperation, did likewise, and the five million men, 
 women, and children of New York were automatically 
 metamorphosed into embryonic sleuths. New York was 
 aroused. 
 
 Jimmie Dale, alias the Gray Seal, member of the ultra- 
 exclusive St. James Club, the latter fact sufficient in itself 
 to guarantee ms social standing, graduate of Harvard, in 
 heritor of his deceased father s immense wealth amassed in 
 the manufacture of burglar-proof safes, some of the most 
 ingenious patents on which were due to Jimmie Dale him- 
 self, figured with a pencil on the margin of the newspaper 
 he had been reading, using the arm of the big, luxurious, 
 leather-upholstered lounging chair as a support for the paper. 
 The result of his calculations was eighty-five thousand 
 dollars. 
 
 He brushed the paper onto the Turkish rug, dove into the 
 pocket of his dinner jacket for his cigarettes, and began to 
 smoke as his eyes strayed around the room, his own par 
 ticular den in his fashionable Riverside Drive residence. 
 
 Eighty-five thousand dollars reward ! Jimmie Dale blew 
 meditative rings of cigarette smoke at the fireplace. What 
 would she say to that ? Would she decide it was " too hot " 
 again, and call it off? It added quite a little hazard to the 
 game quite a little! If he only knew who "she" was! 
 It was a strange partnership the strangest partnership 
 that had ever existed between two human beings. 
 
 He turned a little in his chair as a step sounded in thd
 
 BY PROXY 33 
 
 railway without that is, Jimmie Dale caught the sound, 
 muffled though it was by the heavy carpet. Came then *. 
 knock upon the door. 
 
 " Come in," invited Jimmie Dale. 
 
 It was old Jason, the butler. The old man was vism!) 
 excited, as he extended a silver tray on which lay a letter. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s hand reached quickly out, the lo^.g, slim 
 tapering fingers closed upon the envelope but his eyes 
 were on Jason significantly, questioning .y. 
 
 " Yes, Master Jim," said the old man, " I recognised it 
 on the instant, sir. After what you said, sir, last week, 
 honouring me, . might say, to a certain extent with your con 
 fidence, though I m sure I don t know wha* it all means, 
 
 " Who brought it this time, Jason ? " inquired Jimmie 
 Dale quietly. 
 
 " Not the young person, begging your pardon, not the 
 /oung lady, sir. A shuffer in a big automobile. Your 
 master at once, he says, and shoves the letter into my hand, 
 and was off." 
 
 " Very good, Jason," said Jimmie DaJe, *" You may 
 go." 
 
 The door closed. Yes, it was from her it was the same 
 texture of paper, there was the same rare, haunting fra 
 grance clinging to it. 
 
 He tore the envelope open, and extracted a folded sheet 
 of paper. What was it this time? To call the partnership 
 off agair until the present furor should have subsided once 
 more or the skilfully sketched outline of a new adventure? 
 Which? He glanced at the few lines written on the sheet, 
 and lunged forward from his chair to his feet. It was 
 neither one nor the other. It was 
 
 Jimmie Dale s face was set, and an angry red surge swept 
 his cheeks. His lips moved, muttering audibly fragment* 
 ft the letter, as he stared at it. 
 
 " incredible that you a heinous thing act instantly 
 
 this is ruin " 
 
 For an instant a rare occurrence in Jimmie Dale s life*
 
 34 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 oe stood like a man stricken, still staring at the sheet fn hit 
 hand. Then mechanically his fingers tore the paper into 
 little pieces, and the little pieces into tiny shreds. Anger 
 fled, and a sickening sense of impotent dismay took its 
 place; the red left his cheeks, and in its stead a grayness 
 came. 
 
 " Act instantly ! " The words seemed to leap at him, 
 drum at his ears with constant repetition. Act instantly! 
 But how ? How ? Then his brain that keen, clear, master 
 brain sprang from stunned inaction into virility again. Of 
 course Carruthers ! It was in Carruthers line 
 
 He stepped to the desk- -and paused with his hand ex 
 tended to pick up the telephone. How explain to Carru- 
 the/s that he, Jimmie Dale, already knew what Carruthers 
 might not yet have heard of, even though Carruthers would 
 naiurally be among the first to be in touch v/ith such affairs ! 
 Ko ; that would never do. Better get there himself at once 
 and trust to 
 
 The telephone rang. 
 
 Jimmie Dale waited until it rang again, then he lifted the 
 receiver from the hook. 
 
 -Hello?" he said. 
 
 " Hello! Hello ! Jimmie I " came a Yoice. " This is Car 
 ruthers. That you, Jimmu, ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Jimmie Dale- -and sat down limply in the 
 desk chair. 
 
 " It s the Gray Seal again. I promised you I d let you in 
 on the ground floor next time anything happened, so come 
 on down here quick if you want to see some of his work at 
 firsthand." 
 
 Jimmie Dale flirted a bead of sweat from his forehead. 
 
 " Carruthers," said Jimmie languidly, " you newspaper 
 chaps make me tired with your Gray Seal. I m just going 
 to bed." 
 
 " Bed nothing ! " spluttered Carruthers, from the other 
 end of the wire. " Come down, I tell you. It s worth your 
 while half the population of New York would give the 
 off their feet for the chance. Come down, you bias*
 
 BY PROXY 35 
 
 Idiot i The Gray Seal has gone the limit this time it s 
 murder." 
 
 Jimmie Dale s face was haggard. 
 
 " Oh ! " he said peevishly. " Sounds interesting. Where 
 are you ? I guess maybe I ll jog along." 
 
 " I should think you would ! " snapped Carruthers. " You 
 know the Palace on the Bowery ? Yes ? Well, meet me on 
 the corner there as soon as you can. Hustle! Good " 
 
 " Oh, I say, Carruthers ! " interposed Jimmie Dale. 
 
 " Yes ? " demanded Carruthers. 
 
 ** Thanks awfully for letting me know, old man." 
 
 ** Don t mention it ! " returned Carruthers sarcastically. 
 * You always were a grateful beast, Jimmie. Hurry up ! " 
 
 Jimmie Dale hung up the receiver of the city phone, and 
 took down the receiver of another, a private-house installa 
 tion, and rang twice for the garage. 
 
 " The light car at once, Benson," he ordered curtly. " At 
 once!" 
 
 Jimmie Dale worked quickly then. In his dressing room, 
 ne changed from dinner clothes to tweeds ; spent a second or 
 so over the contents of a locked drawer in the dresser, from 
 which he selected a very small but serviceable automatic, 
 and a very small but highly powerful magnifying glass 
 whose combination of little round lenoes worked on a pivot, 
 and, closed over one another, were of about the compass of 
 4 quarter of a dollar. 
 
 In three minutes he was outside the house and stepping 
 into the car, just as it drew up at the curb. 
 
 " Benson," he said tersely to his chauffeur, " drop me one 
 block this side of the Palace on the Bowery and forget 
 there was ever a speed law enacted. Understand ? " 
 
 " Very good, sir," said Benson, touching his cap. " I ll 
 do my best, sir." 
 
 Jimmie Dale, in the tonneau, stretched out his legs under 
 the front seat, and dug his hands into his pockets and in 
 side the pockets his hands were clenched and knotted fists- 
 Murder 1 At times it had occurred to him that there was & 
 possibility that some crook of the underworld would i
 
 36 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 tempt to cover his tracks and take refuge from pursuit by 
 foisting himself on the authorities as the Gray Seal. That 
 was a possibility, a risk always to be run. But that murder 
 should be laid to the Gray Seal s door! Anger, merciless 
 and unrestrained, surged over Jimmie Dale. 
 
 There was peril here, live and imminent. Suppose that 
 some day he should be caught in some little affair, recog 
 nised and identified as the Gray Seal, there would be the 
 charge of murder hanging over him and the electric chair 
 to face ! 
 
 But the peril was not the only thing. Even worse to 
 Jimmie Dale s artistic and sensitive temperament was the 
 vilification, the holding up to loathing, contumely, and ab 
 horrence of the name, the stainless name, of the Gray Seal. 
 It ivas stainless ! He had guarded it jealously as a man 
 guards the woman s name he loves. 
 
 Affairs that had mystified and driven the police dis 
 tracted with impotence there had been, many of them ; and 
 on the face of them crimes. But no act ever committed 
 had been in reality a crime none without the highest of 
 motives, the righting of some outrageous wrong, the pro 
 tection of some poor stumbling fellow human. 
 
 That had been his partnership with her. How, by what 
 amazing means, by what power that smacked almost of the 
 miraculous she came in touch with all these things and 
 supplied him with the data on which to work he did not 
 know only that, thanks to her, there were happier hearts 
 and happier homes since the Gray Seal had begun to work. 
 " Dear Philanthropic Crook," she often called him in her 
 letters. And now it was murder! 
 
 Take Carruthers, for instance. For years, as a reportef 
 before he had risen to the editorial desk, he had been one of 
 the keenest on the scent of the Gray Seal, but always for the 
 sake of the game always filled with admiration, as he said 
 himself, for the daring, the originality of the most puzzling, 
 bewildering, delightful crook in the annals of crime. Car- 
 ruthcrs was but an example. Carruthers now would hunt 
 the Gray Seal like a mad dog. The Gray Seal, to
 
 BY PROXY 37 
 
 every one else, would be the vilest name in the land 
 a synonym for murder. 
 
 On the car flew and upon Jimmie Dale s face, as though 
 chiselled in marble, was a look that was not good to see. 
 And a mirthless smile set, frozen, on his lips. 
 
 " I ll get the man that did this," gritted Jimmie Dale be 
 tween his teeth. " I ll get him ! And, when I get nim, I ll 
 wring a confession from him if I have to swing for it ! " 
 
 The car swept from Broadway into Astor Place, on down 
 the Bowery, and presently stopped. 
 
 Jimmie Dale stepped out. " I shall not want you any 
 more, Benson," he said. " You may return home." 
 
 Jimmie Dale started down the block a nonchalant Jim- 
 tnie Dale now, if anything, bored a little. Near the corner, a 
 figure, back turned, was lounging at the edge of the sidewalk. 
 Jimmie Dale touched the man on the arm. 
 
 " Hello, Carruthers ! " he drawled. 
 
 " Ah, Jimmie ! " Carruthers turned with an excited smile. 
 * That s the boy ! You ve made mighty quick time." 
 
 " Well, you told me to hurry," grumbled Jimmie Dale. 
 ** I m doing my best to please you to-night. Came down in 
 Oiy car, and got summoned for three fines to-morrow." 
 
 Carruthers laughed. " Come on," he said ; and, linking his 
 arm in Jimmie Dale s, turned the corner, and headed west 
 along the cross street. " This is going to make a noise," 
 he continued, a grim note creeping into his voice. " The 
 biggest noise the city has ever heard. I take back all I 
 said about the Gray Seal. I d always pictured his cleverness 
 as being inseparable with at least a decent sort of man, even 
 if he was a rogue and a criminal, but I m through with that. 
 He s a rotter and a hound of the rankest sort! I didn t 
 think there was anything more vulgar or brutal than murder, 
 but he s shown me that there is. A guttersnipe s got more 
 decency! To murder a man and then boastfully label the 
 corpse is " 
 
 " Say, Carruthers," said Jimmie Dale plaintively, suddenly 
 hanging back, " I say, you know, it s it s all right for you 
 to mess up in this sort of thing, it s your beastly business^,
 
 38 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 and I m awfully damned thankful to you for giving me * 
 look-in, but isn t it er rather infra dig for me? A bit 
 morbid, you know, and all that sort of thing. I d never hear 
 the end of it at the club you know what the St. James is. 
 Couldn t 1 be Merideth Stanley Annstruther, or something 
 like that, one of your new reporters, or something like that, 
 you know ? " 
 
 Carruthers chuckled. " Sure, Jimmie," he said. " You re 
 the latest addition to the staff of the News-Argus. Don t 
 worry ; the incomparable Jimmie Dale won t figure publicly 
 in this." 
 
 " It s awfully good of you," said Jimmie gratefully. " I 
 have to have a notebook or something, don t I ? " 
 
 Carruthers, from his pocket, handed him one. " Thanks," 
 said Jimmie Dale. 
 
 A little way ahead, a crowd had collected on the side 
 walk before a doorway, and Carruthers pointed with a jerk 
 of his hand. 
 
 " It s in Moriarty s place a gambling hell," he explained. 
 " I haven t got the story myself yet, though I ve been in 
 side, and had a look around. Inspector Clayton discovered 
 the crime, and reported it at headquarters. I was at my 
 desk in the office when the news came, and, as you know the 
 interest I ve taken in the Gray Seal, I decided to cover * 
 it myself. When I got here, Clayton hadn t returned from 
 headquarters, so, as you seemed so keenly interested last 
 week, I telephoned you. If Clayton s back now we ll get 
 the details. Clayton s a good fellow with the press, and he 
 won t hold anything out on us. Now, here we are. Keep 
 close to me, and I ll pass you in." 
 
 They shouldered through the crowd and up to an officer 
 at the door. The officer nodded, stepped aside, and Car 
 ruthers, with Jimmie Dale following, entered the house. 
 
 They climbed one flight, and then another. The card- 
 rooms, the faro, stud, and roulette layouts were deserted, 
 save for policemen here and there on guard. Carruthers 
 led the way to a room at the back of the hall, whose door 
 was open and from which issued a hubbub of voices one
 
 BY PROXY 39 
 
 voice rose above the others, heavy and gratingly 
 placent. 
 
 " Clayton s back," observed Carruthers. 
 
 They stepped over the threshold, and the heavy voice 
 greeted them. 
 
 " Ah, here s Carruthers now ! H are you, Carruthers ? 
 They told me you d been here, and were coming back, so 
 I ve been keeping the boys waiting before handing out the 
 dope. You ve had a look at that eh ? " He flung out a fat 
 hand toward the bed. 
 
 The voices rose again, all directed at Carruthers now. 
 
 " Bubble s burst, eh, Carruthers ? What about the Prince 
 of Crooks ? Artistry in crime, wasn t it, you said ? " They 
 were quoting from his editorials of bygone days, a half 
 dozen reporters of rival papers, grinning and joshing him 
 good-naturedly, seemingly quite unaffected by what lay 
 within arm s reach of them upon the bed. 
 
 Carruthers smiled a little wryly, shrugged his shoulders 
 and presented Jirnmie Dale to Inspector Clayton. 
 
 " Mr. Matthewson, a new man of ours inspector." 
 
 " Glad to know you, Mr. Matthewson," said the inspec. 
 tor. 
 
 Jimmie Dale found his hand grasped by another that was 
 flabby and unpleasantly moist; and found himself looking 
 into a face that was red, with heavy rolls of unhealthy fat 
 terminating in a double chin and a thick, apoplectic neck 
 a huge, round face, with rat s eyes. 
 
 Clayton dropped Jimmie Dale s hand, and waved his own 
 in the air. Jimmie Dale remained modestly on the outside 
 of the circle as the reporters gathered around the police 
 inspector. 
 
 " Now, then," said Clayton coarsely, " the guy that s 
 croaked there is Metzer, Jake Metzer. Get that ? " 
 
 Jimmie Dale, scribbling hurriedly in his notebook like all 
 the rest, turned a little toward the bed, and his lower jaw 
 crept out the fraction of an inch. Both gas jets in the room 
 were turned on full, giving ample light. A man fully 
 dressed, a man of perhaps forty, lay upon his back on the
 
 40 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 Ded, on s arm outflung across the bedspread, the other dang 
 ling, with fingers just touching the floor, the head at an 
 angle and off the pillow. It was as though he had been 
 carried to the bed and flung upon it after the deed had been 
 committed. Jimmie Dale s eyes shifted and swept the room. 
 Yes, everything was in disorder, as though there had been a 
 struggle a chair upturned, a table canted against the wall, 
 broken pieces of crockery from the washstand on the car 
 pet, and 
 
 " Metzer was a stool pigeon, se? " went on Clayton, " and 
 he lived here. Moriarty wasn t on to him. Metzer stood in 
 thick with a wider circle of crooks than any other snitch 
 in New York." 
 
 Jimmie Dale, still scribbling as Clayton talked, stepped to 
 the bed and leaned over the murdered man. The murder had 
 been done with a blackjack evidently a couple of blows. 
 The left side of the temple was crushed in Right in the 
 middle of the forehead, pasted there, a gray-colored, dia 
 mond shaped paper seal flaunted itself the device of the 
 Gray Seal. In Jimmie Dale hand, h : dden as he turned his 
 hack, the tiny combination of powerful lenses was focused on 
 the seal. 
 
 Clayton guffaw d. " That s right ! " he called out. " Take 
 a good look. That s a bright young man you ve got, Carru- 
 thers." 
 
 Jimmie Dale looked up a little sheepishly and got a grin 
 from the assembled reporters, and a scowl from Carruthers. 
 
 " Now, then," continued Clayton, " here s the facts as 
 much of em as I can let you boys print at present. You 
 know I m stretching a point to let you in here don t forget 
 that when you come to write up the case honour where s 
 honour s due. you know. Well, me and Metzer there was 
 getting ready to close down on a big niece of game, and I 
 was over here in this room talking to him about it early this 
 afternoon. We had it framed to get our man to-night 
 see? I left Metzer, say, about three o clock, and he was to 
 show up over at headquarters with another little hit of evK 
 dence we wanted at eight o clock to-night."
 
 BY PROXY 41 
 
 jffenmie Dale was listening to every word. But he 
 Stooped now again over the murdered man s head delib 
 erately, though he felt the inspector s rat s eyes upon him 
 stooped, and, with his finger nail, lifted back the right-hand 
 point of the diamond-shaped seal where it bordered a faint 
 thread of blood on the man s forehead. 
 
 There was a bull-like roar from the inspector, and he 
 burst through the ring of reporters, and grabbed Jimmie 
 Dale by the shoulder. 
 
 "Here you, what in hell are you doing!" he spluttered 
 angrily. 
 
 Embarrassed and confused, Jimmie Dale drew back, 
 glanced around, and smiled again a little sheepishly as hia 
 eyes rested on the red-flushed jowl of the inspector. 
 
 " I I wanted to see how it was stuck on," he explained 
 inanely, 
 
 " Stuck on ! " bellowed Clayton. " I ll show you how it s 
 stuck on, if you monkey around here ! Don t you know any 
 better than that! Where were you dragged up anyway? 
 The coroner hasn t been here yet. You re a hoi cub of a 
 reporter, you are ! " He turned to Carruthers. " Y ought 
 to get out printed instructions for em before you turn em 
 loose ! " he snapped. 
 
 Carruthers face was red with mortification. There was a 
 grin, expanded, on the faces of the others. 
 
 " Stand away from that bed ! " roared Clayton at Jimmie 
 Dale. " And if you go near it again, I ll throw you out o( 
 here bodily ! " 
 
 Jimmie Dale edged away, and, eyes lowered, fumbled ner 
 vously with the leaves of his notebook. 
 
 Clayton grunted, glared at Jimmie Dale for an instant 
 viciously and resumed his story. 
 
 " I was saying," he said, " that Metzer was to come tts 
 headquarters at eight o clock this evening. Well, he didn t 
 show up. That looked queer. It was mighty important 
 business. We was after one of the biggest hauls we d eve; 
 pulled off. I waited till nine o clock, an hour ago, and I wa$ 
 jetting nervous* Then I started over here to find out
 
 42 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DAT 
 
 was the matter. When I got here I asked Moriarty if 
 seen Metzer. Moriarty said he hadn t since I was here 
 before. He was a little suspicious that I had something on 
 Metzer see? Well, by pumping Moriarty, he admitted 
 that Metzer had had a visitor about an hour after I left." 
 
 "Who was it? Know what his name is, inspector?* 
 asked one of the reporters quickly. 
 
 Inspector Clayton winked heavily. ** Don t be greedy, 
 boys," he grinned. 
 
 " You mean you ve got him? n burst out another one of the 
 men excitedly. 
 
 "Sure! Sure, I ve got him." Inspector Clayton waved 
 his fat hand airily. " Or I will have before morning but 
 I ain t saying anything more till it s over." He smiled sig 
 nificantly. " Well, that s about all. You ve got the details 
 right around you. I left Moriarty downstairs and came up 
 here, and found just what you see Metzer laying on the bed 
 there, and the gray seal stuck on his forehead and " he 
 ended abruptly " I ll have the Gray Seal himself behind 
 the bars by morning." 
 
 A chorus of ejaculations rose from the reporters, while 
 their pencils worked furiously. 
 
 Then Jimmie Dale appeared to have an inspiration. Jim- 
 mie Dale turned a leaf in his notebook and began to sketch 
 rapidly, cocking his head now on one side now on the other. 
 With a few deft strokes he had outlined the figure of In 
 spector Clayton. The reporter beside Jimmie Dale leaned 
 over to inspect the work, and another did likewise. Jimmie 
 Dale drew in Clayton s face most excellently, if somewhat 
 flatteringly ; and then, with a little flourish of pride, wrote 
 under the drawing: "The Man Who Captured the Gray 
 Seal." 
 
 " That s a cracking good sketch ! " pronounced the re* 
 porter at his side. * Let the inspector see it." 
 
 " What is it ? " demanded Clayton, scowling. 
 
 Jimmie Dale handed him the notebook modestly. 
 
 Inspector Clayton took it, looked at it, looked at
 
 BY PROXY 43 
 
 Dale ; then his scowl relaxed into a self-sufficient and pleased 
 anile, and he grunted approvingly. 
 
 " That s the stuff to put over," he said. " Mabbe you re 
 not much of a reporter, but you can draw. Y re all right, 
 sport y re all right Forget what I said to you a while 
 ago." 
 
 Jimmie Dale smiled too deprecatingly. And put the note 
 book in his pocket. 
 
 An officer entered the room hurriedly, and, drawing Clay* 
 ton aside, spoke in an undertone. A triumphant and mali 
 cious grin settled on Clayton s features, and he started with 
 a rush for the door. 
 
 * Come around to headquarters in two hours, boys," he 
 called as he went out, " and I ll have something more for 
 you." 
 
 The room cleared, the reporters tumbling downstairs to 
 make for the nearest telephones to get their " copy " into 
 their respective offices. 
 
 On the street, a few doors up from the house where they 
 were free from the crowd, Carruthers halted Jimmie Dale. 
 
 " Jimmie," he said reproachfully, " you certainly made a 
 mark of us both. There wasn t any need to play the cub so 
 egregiously. However, I ll forgive you for the sake of the 
 sketch hand it over, Jimmie ; I m going to reproduce it in 
 the first edition." 
 
 " It wasn t drawn for reproduction, Carruthers at least^ 
 not yet," said Jimmie Dale quietly. 
 
 Carruthers stared at him. " Eh ? " he asked blankly. 
 
 " I ve taken a dislike to Clayton," said Jimmie Dale whim- 
 uically. " He s too patently after free advertising, and I m 
 not going to help along his boost. You can t have it, old 
 man, so let s think about something else. What ll they do 
 with that bit of paper that s on the poor devil s forehead up 
 there, for instance." 
 
 * Say," said Carruthers, " does it strike you that you re act 
 ing queer? You haven t been drinking, have you, Jimmie ? ** 
 
 "What ll they do with it?" persisted Jimmie Dale. 
 
 *Well," said Carruthers, smiling a little tolerant^
 
 44 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 * they ll photograph it and enlarge the photograph, and labe 
 it Exhibit A or Exhibit B or something like that and 
 file it away in the archives with the fifty or more just like 
 it that are already in their collection." 
 
 " That s what I thought," observed Jimmie Dale. He 
 took Carruthers by the lapel of the coat. " I d like a photo 
 graph of that. I d like it so much that I ve got to have it. 
 Know the chap that does that work for the police ? " 
 
 " Yes," admitted Carruthers. 
 
 " Very good ! " said Jimmie Dale crisply. " Get an extra 
 print of the enlargement from him then for a considera 
 tion whatever he asks I ll pay for it." 
 
 "But what for?" demanded Carruthers. "I don t un 
 derstand." 
 
 " Because," said Jimmie Dale very seriously, " put it down 
 to imagination or whatever you like, I think I smell some 
 thing fishy here, * 
 
 "You what!" exclaimed Carruthers in amazement 
 ** You re not joking, are you, Jimmie? " 
 
 Jimmie Dale laughed shortly. " It s so far from a joke," 
 he said, in a low tone, " that I want your word you ll get 
 that photograph into my hands by to-morrow afternoon, 
 no matter what transpires in the meantime. And look here, 
 Carruthers, don t think I m playing the silly thickhead, and 
 trying to mystify you. I m no detective or anything like 
 that, I ve just got an idea that apparently hasn t occurred 
 to any one else and, of course, I may be all wrong. If 
 I am, I m not going to say a word even to yow, because it 
 wouldn t be playing fair with some one else ; if I m right the 
 Morning News-Argus gets the biggest scoop of the century. 
 Will you go in on that basis ? " 
 
 Carruthers put out his hand impulsively. "If you re m 
 earnest, Jimmie you bet ! " 
 
 " Good ! " returned Jimmie Dale. " The photograph by 
 to-morrow afternoon then. And now " 
 
 ** And now," said Caruthers, " I ve got to hurry over to 
 the office and get a write-up man at work. Will you com*
 
 BY PROXY 45 
 
 Along, or meet me at headquarters later? Clayton said in 
 two hours he d " 
 
 " Neither," said Jimmie Dale. " I m not interested in 
 headquarters. I m going home." 
 
 " Well, all right then," Carruthers returned. " You can 
 bank on me for to-morrow. Good-night, Jimmie." 
 
 " Good-night, old man," said Jimmie Dale, and, turning, 
 Walked briskly toward the Bowery. 
 
 But Jimmie Dale did not go home. He walked down the 
 Bowery for three blocks, crossed to the east side, and turned 
 down a cross street. Two blocks more he walked in this 
 direction, and halfway down the next. Here he paused an 
 instant the street was dimly lighted, almost dark, de 
 serted. Jimmie Dale edged close to the houses until his 
 shadow blended with the shadows of the walls and slipped 
 suddenly into a pitch-black areaway. 
 
 He opened a door, stepped into an unlighted hallway 
 where the air was close and evil smelling, mounted a stair 
 way, and halted before another door on the first landing. 
 There was the low clicking of a lock, three times repeated 
 and he entered a room, closing and fastening the door be 
 hind him. 
 
 Jimmie Dale called it his " Sanctuary." In one of the 
 worst neighbourhoods of New York, where no questions were 
 asked as long as the rent was paid, it had the further ad 
 vantage of three separate exits one by the areaway where 
 he had entered ; one from the street itself ; and another 
 through a back yard with an entry into a saloon that 
 fronted on the next street. It was not often that Jimmie 
 Dale used his Sancuary, but there had been times when it 
 was no more nor less than exactly what he called it a 
 sanctuary ! 
 
 He stepped to the window, assured himself that the shade 
 was down and lighted the gas, blinking a little as the yellow 
 flame illuminated the room. 
 
 It was a rough place, dirty, uninviting; a bedroom, fur- 
 nished in the most scant) fashion. Neither, apparently, was 
 ihere anything suspicious about it to reward one curious
 
 46 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 enough to break in during the owner s absence some rather 
 disreputable clothes hanging on the wall, and flung untidily 
 across the bed that was all. 
 
 Alone now, Jimmie Dale s face was strained and anxious 
 and, occasionally, as he undressed himself, his hands 
 clenched until his knuckles grew white. The gray seal on 
 the murdered man s forehead was a genuine gray seal one 
 of Jimmie Dale s own. There was no doubt of that he had 
 satisfied himself on that point. 
 
 Where had it come from? How had it been obtained? 
 Jimmie Dale carefully placed the clothes he had taken off 
 under the mattress, pulled a disreputable collarless flannel 
 shirt over his head, and pulled on a disreputable pair of 
 tx?ots. There were only two sources of supply. His own 
 and the collection that the police had made, which Carru- 
 thers had referred to. 
 
 Jimmie Dale lifted a corner of the oilcloth in a corner 
 of the room, lifted a piece of the flooring, lifted out a little 
 box which he placed upon the rickety table, and sat down be 
 fore a cracked mirror. Who was it that would have access 
 to the gray seals in the possession of the police, since, ob 
 viously, it was one of those that was on the dead man s 
 forehead? The answer came quick enough came with the 
 sudden out-thrust of Jimmie Dale s lower jaw. One of the 
 police themselves no one else. Clayton s heavy, cunning 
 face, Clayton s shifty eyes, Clayton s sudden rush when he 
 had touched the dead man s forehead, pictured themselves 
 in a red flash of fury before Jimmie Dale. There was no 
 mask now, no facetiousness, no acted part only a merciless 
 rage, and the muscles of Jimmie Dale s face quivered and 
 twitched. Murder, foisted, shifted upon another, upon the 
 Gray Seal making of that name a calumny ruining for 
 ever the work that she and he might do! 
 
 And then Jimmie Dale smiled mirthlessly, with thinning 
 lips. The box before him was open. His fingers worked 
 quickly a little wax behind the ears, in the nostrils, under 
 the upper lip, deftly placed hands, wrists, neck, throat, and 
 face received their quota of stain, applied with an artist *
 
 BY PROXY 47 
 
 touch and then the spruce, muscular Jimmie Dale, trans 
 formed into a slouching, vicious-featured denizen of the un 
 derworld, replaced the box under the flooring, pulled a slouch 
 hat over his eyes, extinguished the gas, and went out. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s range of acquaintanceship was wide 
 from the upper strata of the St. James Club to the elite 
 of New York s gangland. And, adored by the one, he was 
 trusted implicitly by the other not understood, perhaps, by 
 the latter, for he had never allied himself with any of their 
 i nefarious schemes, but trusted implicitly through long years 
 *of personal contact. It had stood Jimmie Dale in good stead 
 "before, this association, where, in a sort of strange, care 
 fully guarded exchange, the news of the underworld was 
 common property to those without the law. To New York in 
 its millions, the murder of Metzer, the stool pigeon, would be 
 unknown until the city rose in the morning to read the sen 
 sational details over the breakfast table; here, it would 
 already be the topic of whispered conversations, here it had 
 probably been known long before the police had discovered 
 the crime. Especially would it be expected to be known to 
 Pete Lazanis, commonly called the Runt, who was a power 
 below the dead line and, more pertinent still, one in whose 
 confidence Jimmie Dale had rejoiced for years. 
 
 Jimmie Dale, as Larry the Bat a euphonious " monaker " 
 bestowed possibly because this particular world knew him 
 only by night began a search for the Runt. From one re 
 sort to another he hurried, talking in the accepted style 
 through one corner of his mouth to hard-visaged individ 
 uals behind dirty, reeking bars that were reared on equally 
 dirty and foul-smelling sawdust-strewn floors ; visiting dance 
 halls, secretive back rooms, and certain Chinese pipe joints. 
 But the Runt was decidedly elusive. There had been no 
 news of him, no one had seen him and this after fully an 
 hour had passed since Jimmie Dale had left Carruthers in 
 front of Moriarty s. The possibilities however were still 
 legion numbered only by the numberless dives and dens 
 sheltered by that quarter of the city. 
 
 Jimmie Dale turned iwto Chatham Square, heading foi
 
 48 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 che Pagoda Dance Hall. A man loitering at the curb shoi 
 swift, searching glance at him as he slouched by. Jimmic 
 Dale paused in the doorway of the Pagoda and lookec} up 
 and down the street. The man he had passed had drawn a 
 little closer; another man in an apparently aimless fashion 
 lounged a few yards away. 
 
 " Something up," muttered Jimmie Dale to himself. 
 * Lansing, of headquarters, and the other looks like Milrae." 
 
 Jimmie Dale pushed in through the door of the Pagoda. A 
 bedlam of noise surged out at him a tin-pan piano and a 
 mandolin were going furiously from a little raised platform 
 at the rear; in the centre of the room 9 dozen couple? were 
 in the throes of the tango and the bunny-hug ; around the 
 sides, at little tables, men and women laughed and applauded 
 and thumped time on the tabletops with their beer mugs; 
 while waiters, with beer-stained aprons and unshaven faces, 
 juggled marvelous handfuls of glasses and mugs from the 
 bar beside the platform to the patrons at the tables. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s eyes swept the room in a swift, compre 
 hensive glance, fixed on a little fellow, loudly dressed, who 
 snared a table halfway down the room with a woman in a 
 picture hat, and a smile of relief touched his lips. The Runt 
 lit last ! 
 
 He walked down the room, caught the Runt s eyes signifi 
 eantly as he passed the table, kept on to a door between 
 the platform and the bar, opened it, arid went out into a 
 lighted hallway, at one end of which a door opened ontc 
 the street, and at the other a stairway led above. 
 
 The Runt joined him. " Wot s de row, Larry?" in 
 quired the Runt. 
 
 " Nuthin much," said Jimmie Dale. " Only I t ought I d 
 let youse know. I was passin* Moriarty s an got de tip- 
 Say, some guy s croaked Jake Metzer dere." 
 
 " Aw, f erget it ! " observed the Runt airily. " Dat s stale. 
 I was wise to dat hours ago." 
 
 Jimmie Dale s face fell. " But I just come from dere/* te* 
 fcisisted ; " an* de harness bulls only just found it out 1 *
 
 BY PROXY 49 
 
 * Mabbe," grunted the Runt- " But Metzer got his early 
 lot de afternoon see?" 
 
 Jimmie Dale looked quickly around him and then leaned 
 toward the Runt. 
 
 " Wot s de lay, Runt? " he whispered. 
 
 The Runt pulled down one eyelid, and, with his knowing 
 grin, the cigarette, clinging to his upper lip, sagged down in 
 the opposite corner of his mouth. 
 
 Jimmie Dale grinned, too in a flash inspiration had come 
 lo Jimmie Dale. 
 
 " Say, Runt " he jerked his head toward the street door 
 " wot s de fly cops doin out dere ? " 
 
 The grin vanished from the Runt s lips. He stared for a 
 second wildly at Jimmie Dale, and then clutched at Jimmie 
 Dale s arm. 
 
 " De wot f " he said hoarsely. 
 
 * De fly cops," Jimmie Dale repeated in well-simulated 
 surprise. " Dey was dere when I come in Lansing an* 
 Milrae, an " 
 
 The Runt shot a hurried glance at the stairway, and licked 
 his lips as though they had gone suddenly dry. 
 
 " My Gawd, I " He gasped, and shrank hastily back 
 
 against the wall beside Jimmie Dale. 
 
 The door from the street had opened noiselessly, instantly, 
 Black forms bulked there then a rush of feet and at the 
 head of half a dozen men, the face of Inspector Clayton 
 loomed up before Jimmie Dale. There was a second s 
 pause in the rush; and, in the pause, Clayton s voice, in a 
 vicious undertone : 
 
 " You two ginks open your traps, and I ll run you both 
 in!" 
 
 And then the rush passed, and swept on up the stairs. 
 
 Jimmie Dale looked at the Runt. The cigarette dangled 
 limply ; the Runt s eyes were like a hunted beast s. 
 
 " Dey got him ! " he mumbled. " It s Stace Stace Morse, 
 He come to me after croakin Metzer, an he s been hidin 
 ap dere all afternoon." 
 
 Stace Morse known in gangland as a man with every
 
 50 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 crime in the calendar to his credit, and prominent because 
 of it ! Something seemed to go suddenly queer inside of 
 Timmie Dale. Stace Morse! Was he wrong, after all? 
 Jimmie Dale drew closer to the Runt. 
 
 * Yer givin* me a steer, ain t youse?" He spoke again 
 from the corner of his mouth, almost inaudibly. " Are 
 Youse sure it was Stace croaked Metzer f Wot f er ? How d 
 sr know ? " 
 
 The Runt was listening, his eyes strained toward the 
 iwairs. The hall door to the street was closed, but both were 
 quite well aware that there was an officer on guard outside. 
 
 " He told me," whispered the Runt. " Metzer was fixin* 
 ter snitch on him ter-night. Dey ve got de goods on Stace, 
 too. He made a oum job of it." 
 
 " Why didn t he get out of de country den when IK 
 had de chanst, instead of hangin around here all after- 
 noon ? " demanded Jimmie Dale. 
 
 " He was broke," the Runt answered. " We was gettin* 
 de coin fer him ter fade away wid ter-night, an " 
 
 A revolver shot from above cut short his words. Came 
 then the sound of a struggle, oaths, the shuffling tread of 
 feet but in the dance hall the piano still rattled on, the 
 mandolin twanged, voices sang and applauded, and beer 
 mugs thumped time. 
 
 They were on the stairs now, the officers, half carrying, 
 half dragging some one between them and the man they 
 dragged cursed them with utter abandon. As they reached 
 the bottom of the stairs, Jimmie Dale caught sight of the 
 prisoner s face not a prepossessing one villainous, low 
 browed, contorted with a mixture of fear and rage. 
 
 " It s a lie ! A lie ! A lie ! " the man shrieked. " I never 
 seen him in me life blast you! curse you! d ye hear!" 
 
 Inspector Clayton caught Jimmie Dale and the Runt by 
 the collars. 
 
 " There s nothing to interest you around here ! " he 
 snapped maliciously. " Go on, now beat it ! " And he 
 pushed them toward the door. 
 
 They had heard the disturbance in the dance hall now
 
 BY PROXY 51 
 
 and the .icupants were swarming to the sidewalk. A pa 
 trol wagon came around the corner. In the crowd Jimmie 
 Dale slipped away from the Runt. 
 
 Was he wrong, after all ? A fierce passion seized him. It 
 was Stace Morse who had murdered Metzer, the Runt had 
 said. In Jimmie Dale s brain the words began to reiterate 
 themselves in a singsong fashion : " It was Stace Morse. 
 It was Stace Morse." Then his lips drew tight together. 
 Was it Stace Morse ? He would have given a good deal for 
 a chance to talk to the man even for a minute. But there 
 was no possibility of that now. Later, to-morrow perhaps., 
 if he was wrong, after all ! 
 
 Jimmie Dale returned to the Sanctuary, removed from 
 his person all evidences of Larry the Bat and from the 
 Sanctuary went home to Riverside Drive. 
 
 In his den there, in the morning after breakfast, Jason, 
 the butler, brought him the papers. Three-inch headlines 
 in red ink screamed, exulted, and shrieked out the news that 
 the Gray Seal, in the person of Stace Morse, fence, yegg- 
 man and murderer, had been captured. The public, if it had 
 held any private admiration for the one-time mysterious 
 crook could now once and forever disillusion itself. The 
 Gray Seal was Stace Morse and Stace Morse was of the 
 dregs of the city s scum, a pariah, an outcast, with no singl? 
 redeeming trait to lift him from the ruck of mire and slime 
 that had strewn his life from infancy. The face of In 
 spector Clayton, blandly self-complacent, leaped out from 
 the paper to meet Jimmie Dale s eyes and with it a column 
 and a half of perfervid eulogy. 
 
 Something at first like dismay, the dismay of impotency., 
 filled Jimmie Dale and then, cold, leaving him unnaturally 
 calm, the old merciless rage took its place. There was noth 
 ing to do now but wait wait until Carruthers should send 
 that photograph. Then if, after all, he were wrong then 
 he must find some other way. But was he wrong! The 
 notebook that Carruthers had given him, open at the sketch 
 he had made of Clayton, lay upon the desk. Jimmie Dale 
 picked it up he had already spent quite a little tiwe over $
 
 52 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 (before breakfast and examined it again minutely, even re- 
 sorting to his magnifying glass. He put it down as a knock 
 sounded at the door, and Jason entered with a silver card 
 tray. From Carruthers already! Jimmie Dale stepped 
 quickly forward and then Jimmie Dale met the old man s 
 eyes. It wasn t from Carruthers it was from her! 
 
 " The same shuffer brought it, Master Jim," said Jason. 
 
 Ji.mmie Dale snatched the envelope from the tray, and 
 Waved the other from the room. As the door closed, he tore 
 ^pen the letter. There was just a single line : 
 
 Jimmie Jimmie, you haven t failed, have you? 
 
 Jimmie Dale stared at it. Failed! Failed her! The 
 haggard look was in his face again. It was the bond be 
 tween them that was at stake the Gray Seal the bond that 
 had come, he knew for all time in that instant, to mean his 
 fe. 
 
 " God knows ! " he muttered hoarsely, and flung himself 
 into a lounging chair, still staring at the note. 
 
 The hours dragged by. Luncheon time arrived and passed 
 and then by special messenger the little package from Car 
 ruthers came. 
 
 Jimmie Dale started to undo the string, then laid the pack 
 age down, and held out his hands before him for inspection. 
 They were trembling visibly. It was a strange condition 
 for Jimmie Dale either to witness or experience, unlike him, 
 foreign to him. 
 
 * This won t do, Jimmie," he said grimly, shaking his 
 head. 
 
 He picked up the package again, opened it, and from be 
 tween two pieces of cardboard took out a large photographic 
 print. A moment, two, Jimmie Dale examined it, used the 
 magnifying glass again : and then a strange gleam came into 
 the dark eyes, and his lips moved. 
 
 ** I ve won," said Jimmie Dale, with ominous softness. 
 
 was standing beside the rosewood desk, and he reached
 
 BY PROXY 53 
 
 for the phone. Carruthers would be at home now he called 
 Carruthers there.. After a moment or two he got the conneC 
 tion. 
 
 " This is Jimmie, Carruthers," he said. " Yes, I got it 
 Thanks. . , Yes. . . . Listen. I want you to get 
 Inspector Clayton, and bring him up here at once. . , 
 What? No, no no! . . . How? . . . Why er 
 tell him you re going to run a full page of him in the Sunday 
 edition, and you want him to sit for a sketch. He d go 
 anywhere for that. . , . Yes. . i Half an 
 hour. . . . Yes. * . * Good-bye." 
 
 Jimmie Dale hung up the receiver ; and, hastily now, be 
 gan to write upon a pad that lay before him on the desk, 
 The minutes passed. As he wrote, he scored out words and 
 fines here and there, substituting others- At the end he had 
 covered three large pages with, to any one but himslf, an in 
 decipherable scrawl. These he shoved aside now, and, very 
 carefully, very legibly, made a copy on fresh sheets. As he 
 finished, he heard a car draw up in front of the house. Jim 
 mie Dale folded the copied sheets neatly, tucked them in hi* 
 pocket, lighted a cigarette, and was lolling lazily in hi 
 chair as Jason announced : " Mr. Carruthers, sir, and an 
 other gentleman to see you." 
 
 " Show them up, Jason," instructed Jimmie Dale, 
 
 Jimmie Dale rose from his chair as they came in, Jason, 
 well-trained servant, closed the door behind them. 
 
 " Hello, Carruthers ; hello, inspector," said Jimmie Dale 
 pleasantly, and waved them to seats. " Take this chair, 
 Carruthers." He motioned to one at his elbow. " Glad to 
 see you, inspector try that one in front of the desk, you ll 
 find it comfortable." 
 
 Carruthers, trying to catch Jimmie Dale s eye for some 
 sort of a cue, and, failing, sat down. Inspector Clayton 
 ttared at Jimmie Dale. 
 
 " Oh, it s you, eh ? " His eyes roved around the room, 
 fastened for an instant on some of Jimmie Dale s work on an 
 easel, came back finally to Jimmie Dale and he plumped 
 himself down in the chair indicated. " Thought you
 
 4 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 more n a cub reporter," he remarked, with a grin. " You 
 were too slick with your pencil. Pretty fine studio you got 
 here. Carruthers says you re going to draw me." 
 
 Jimmie Dale smiled not pleasantly and leaned sud 
 denly over the desk. 
 
 " Yes," he said slowly, a grim intonation in his voice, " I m 
 going to draw you trite to life." 
 
 With an exclamation, Clayton slued around in his chair, 
 half rose, and his shifty eyes, small and cunning, bored into 
 Jimmie Dale s face. 
 
 " What d ye mean by that ? " he snapped out. 
 
 " Just exactly what I say," replied Jimmie Dale curtly. 
 ** No more, no less. But first, not to be too abrupt, I want to 
 join with the newspapers in congratulating you on the re 
 markable shall I call it celerity, or acumen? with which 
 you solved the mystery of Metzer s death, and placed the 
 murderer behind the bars. It is really remarkable, inspec 
 tor, so remarkable, in fact, that it s almost suspicious, 
 Don t you think so? No? Well, that s what Mr. Carru 
 thers was good enough to bring you up here to talk over 
 in an intimate and confidential way, you know." 
 
 Inspector Clayton surged up from his chair to his feet, 
 his fists clenched, the red sweeping over his face and then 
 he shook one fist at Carruthers. 
 
 " So that s your game, is it ! " he stormed. " Trying to 
 crawl out of that twenty-five thousand reward, eh ? And a3 
 for you " he turned on Jimmie Dale " you ve rigged up a 
 nice little plant between you, eh ? Well, it won t work and 
 I ll make you squirm for this, both of you, damn you, before 
 I m through ! " He glared from one to the other for a mo 
 ment then swung on his heel. " Good-afternoon, gentle 
 men," he sneered, as he started for the door. 
 
 He was halfway across the room before Jimmie Dale 
 spoke. 
 
 "Clayton!" 
 
 Clayton turned. Jimmie Dale was still leaning over the 
 desk, but now one elbow was Drooped upon it, and in the 
 most casual way a revolver covered Inspector Clayton.
 
 BY PROXY 531 
 
 " If you attempt to leave this room," said Jimmie Dale, 
 without raising his voice, " I assure you that I shall fire 
 with as little compunction as though I were aiming at a mad 
 dog and I apologise to all mad dogs for coupling your name 
 with them." His voice rang suddenly cold. " Come back 
 here, and sit down in that chair ! " 
 
 The colour ebbed slowly from Clayton s face. He hesi 
 tated then sullenly retraced his steps ; hesitated again as he 
 reached the chair, and finally sat down. 
 
 " What what d ye mean by this ? " he stammered, trying 
 to bluster. 
 
 " Just this," said Jimmie Dale. " That I accuse you of the 
 murder of Jake Metzer it was you who murdered Metzer? 
 
 " Good God ! " burst suddenly from Carruthers. 
 
 " You lie ! " yelled Clayton and again he surged up from 
 his chair. 
 
 " That is what Stace Morse said," said Jimmie Dale coolly. 
 44 Sit down!" 
 
 Then Clayton tried to laugh. " You re you re having a 
 joke, ain t you ? It was Stace I can prove it. Come down 
 to headquarters, and I can prove it. I got the goods on him 
 all the way. I tell you " his voice rose shrilly " it was 
 Stace Morse." 
 
 " You are a despicable hound," said Jimmie Dale, through 
 set lips. " Here " he handed the revolver over to Car 
 ruthers " keep him covered, Carruthers. You re going to 
 the chair for this, Clayton," he said, in a fierce monotone. 
 " The chair ! You can t send another there in your place 
 this time. Shall I draw you now true to life? You ve been 
 grafting for years on every disreputable den in your dis 
 trict. Metzer was going to show you up; and so, Metzer 
 being in the road, you removed him. And you seized on 
 the fact of Stace Morse having paid a visit to him this after 
 noon to fix the crime on Stace Morse. Proofs ? Oh, yes, 
 I know you ve manufactured proofs enough to convict him 
 if there weren t stronger proofs to convict you." 
 
 "Convict wet" Clayton s lower jaw hung loosely; bag
 
 56 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 still he made an effort at blusten " You haven t a thing on 
 me not a thing not a thing." 
 
 Jimmie Dale smiled again unpleasantly. 
 
 " You are quite wrong, Clayton. See here.* He took 
 a sheet of paper from the drawer of his desk. 
 
 Gay ton reached for it quickly, " What is it ? " he de 
 manded. 
 
 Jimmie Dale drew it back out of reach. 
 
 " Just a minute," he said softly. " You remember, don t 
 you, that in the presence of Carruthers here, of myself, and 
 of half a dozen reporters, you stated that you had been alone 
 with Metzer in his room at three o clock yesterday, and that 
 it was you alone who found the body later on at nine 
 o clock ? Yes ? I mention this simply to show that from 
 your own lips the evidence is complete that you had an 
 opportunity to commit the crime. Now you may look at this, 
 Clayton." He handed over the sheet of paper, 
 
 Clayton took it, stared at it, turning it over from first one 
 aide to the other. Then a sort of relief seemed to come to 
 him and he gulped. 
 
 " Nothing but a damned piece of blank paper ! " he mum- 
 Wed 
 
 Jimmie Dale reached over and took back the sheet. 
 
 " You re wrong again, Clayton," he said calmly. ** It 
 was quite blank before I handed it to you but not now. I 
 noticed yesterday that your hands were generally moist. 1 
 am sure they are more so now excitement, you know. Car 
 ruthers, see that he doesn t interrupt." 
 
 From a drawer, Jinin ie Dale took out a little black bottle, 
 the notebook ne had ased .he day before, and the photograph 
 Carruthers had sent him. On the sheet of paper Clayton had 
 Just handled, Jimmie Dale sprinkled a little powder from the 
 bottle. 
 
 " Lampblack," explained Jimmie Dale. He shook the 
 paper carefully, allowing the loose powder to fall on the desk 
 blotter and held out the sheet toward Clayton. " Rather 
 neat, 5sn it? A very good impression, too. Your thumb 
 ,?rint, iuMytoa. Now don t move. You may look not
 
 BY PROXY 57 
 
 touch." He laid the paper down on the desk in front of 
 Clayton. Beside it he placed the notebook, open at the 
 sketch a black thumb print now upon it. " You recall 
 handling this yesterday, I m sure, Clayton. I tried the same 
 experiment with the lampblack on it this morning, you see. 
 And this " beside the notebook he placed the police photo 
 graph ; that, too, in its enlargement, showed, sharply de 
 fined, a thumb print on a diamond-shaped background. 
 ** You will no doubt recognise it as an official photograph, 
 enlarged, taken of the gray seal on Metzer s forehead and 
 the thumb print of Metzer s murderer. You have only to 
 glance at the little scar at the edge of the centre loop to 
 satisfy yourself that the three are identical. Of course, there 
 are a dozen other points of similarity equally indisputable, 
 but " 
 
 Jimmie Dale stopped. Clayton was on his feet rocking 
 on his feet. His face was deathlike in its pallor. Mois* 
 ture was oozing from his forehead. 
 
 44 1 didn t do it ! I didn t do it ! " he cried out wildly. 
 ** My God, I tell you, I didn t do it and and that would 
 send me to the chair." 
 
 44 Yes," said Jimmie Dale coldly, " and that s precisely 
 where you re going to the chair." 
 
 The man was beside himself now racked to the soul by 
 1 paroxysm of fear. 
 
 " I m innocent innocent ! " he screamed out. " Oh, f ot 
 God s sake, don t send an innocent man to his death. It 
 was Stace Morse. Listen ! Listen ! I ll tell the truth." He 
 was clawing with his hands, piteously, over the desk at Jim 
 mie Dale. " When the big rewards came out last week 1 
 stole one of the gray seals from the bunch at headquarters 
 to to use it the first time any crime was committed when 1 
 was sure I could lay my hands on the man who did it. 
 Don t you see? Of course he d deny he was the Gray Seal, 
 just as he d deny that he was guilty but I d have the proof 
 both ways and and I d collect the rewards, and and- 
 The man collapsed into the chair.
 
 58 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 Carruthers was up from his seat, his hands gripping tigte 
 on the edge of the desk as he leaned over it. 
 
 " Jimmie Jimmie what does this mean ? " he gasped out. 
 
 Jimmie Dale smiled pleasantly now. 
 
 " That he has told the truth," said Jimmie Dale quietly, 
 " It is quite true that Stace Morse committed the murder. 
 Shows up the value of circumstantial evidence though, 
 doesn t it? This would certainly have got him off, and con 
 victed Clayton here before any jury in the land. But the 
 point is, Carruthers, that Stace Morse isn t the Gray Seal 
 and that the Gray Seal is not a murderer." 
 
 Clayton looked up. " You you believe me ? " he stam 
 mered eagerly. 
 
 Jimmie Dale whirled on him in a sadden sweep of pas 
 sion. 
 
 " No, you cur ! " he flashed. " It s not you I believe. I 
 simply wanted your confession before witnesses." He 
 whipped the three written sheets from his pocket. " Here, 
 substantially, is that confession written out." He passed 
 it to Carruthers. " Read it to him, Carruthers." 
 
 Carruthers read it aloud. 
 
 " Now," said Jimmie Dale grimly, " this spells ruin for 
 you, Clayton. You don t deserve a chance to escape prison 
 bars, but I m going 1 to give you one, for you re going to get 
 it pretty stiff, anyhow. If you refuse to sign this, I ll hand 
 you over to the district attorney in half an hour, and Car 
 ruthers and I will swear to your confession; on the other 
 hand, if you sign it, Carruthers will not be able to print it 
 until to-morrow morning, and that gives you something like 
 fourteen hours to put distance between yourself and Nevr 
 York. Here is a pen if you are quick enough to take us by 
 surprise once you have signed, you might succeed in making 
 a dash for that door and effecting your escape without forc 
 ing us to compound a felony understand ? " 
 
 Clayton s hand trembled violently as he seized the pen. 
 He scrawled his name looked from one to the other wet 
 his lips and then, taking Jimmie Dale at his word, rushed 
 tor the door and the door slammed behind him.
 
 BY PROXY 59 
 
 Carruthers face was hard. " What did you let him go 
 ior, Jimmie?" he said uncompromisingly. 
 
 " Selfishness. Pure selfisheness," said Jimmie Dale 
 softly. " They d guy me unmercifully if they ever heard of 
 it at the St. James Club. The honour is all yours, Carru 
 thers. I don t appear on the stage. That s understood? 
 Yes ? Well, then " he handed over the signed confession 
 " is the scoop big enough ? " 
 
 Carruthers fingered the sheets, but his eyes in a bewildered 
 way searched Jimmie Dale s face. 
 
 " Big enough ! " he echoed, as though invoking the un 
 iverse. " It s the biggest thing the newspaper game has ever 
 known. But how did you come to do it ? What started you ? 
 Where did you get your lead ? " 
 
 " Why, from you, I guess, Carruthers," Jimmie Dale an 
 swered thoughtfully, with artfully puckered brow. " I re 
 membered that you had said last week that the Gray Seal 
 never left finger marks on his work and I saw one on the 
 seal on Metzer s forehead. Then, you know, I lifted one 
 corner where the seal overlapped a thread of blood, and, 
 underneath, the thread of blood wasn t in the slightest dis 
 turbed ; so, of course, I knew the seal had been put on quite 
 a long time after the man was dead not until the blood 
 had dried thoroughly, to a crust, you know, so that even 
 the damp surface of the sticky side of the seal hadn t af 
 fected it. And then, I took a dislike to Clayton somehow 
 and put two and two together, and took a flyer in getting 
 him to handle the notebook. I guess that s all no other 
 reason on earth. Jolly lucky, don t you think ? " 
 
 Carruthers didn t say anything for a moment. When he 
 spoke, it was irrelevantly. 
 
 " You saved me twenty-five thousand dollars on that re 
 ward, Jimmie." 
 
 " That s the only thing I regret," said Jimmie Dale 
 brightly. " It wasn t nice of you, Carruthers, to turn on the 
 Gray Seal that way. And it strikes me you owe the chap, 
 whoever he is, a pretty emphatic exoneration after what you 
 said in this morning s edition."
 
 60 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 " Jimmie," said Carruthers earnestly. " You know what i 
 thought of him before. It s like a new lease of life to get 
 back one s faith in him. You leave it to me. I ll put the 
 Gray Seal on a pedestal to-morrow that will be worthy of 
 the immortals you leave it to me." 
 
 And Carruthers kept his word. Also, before the paper had 
 been an hour off the press, Carruthers received a letter. It 
 thanked Carruthers quite genuinely, even if couched in 
 somewhat facetious terms, for his " sweeping vindication," 
 twitted him gently for his " backsliding," begged to remain 
 M his gratefully," and in lieu of signature there was a graf- 
 idoured piece of paper shaped like this : 
 
 Only there were no finger prints oii it
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE MOTHER LODE 
 
 TT was the following evening, and they had dined together 
 again at the St. James Club Jimmie Dale, and Car- 
 ruthers of the Morning News-Argus. From Clayton and a 
 discussion of the Metzer murder, the conversation had 
 turned, not illogically, upon the physiognomy of criminals in 
 general. Jimmie Dale, lazily ensconced now in a lounging 
 chair in one of the club s private library rooms, flicked a 
 minute speck of cigar ash from the sleeve of his dinner 
 jacket, and smiled whimsically across the table at his friend. 
 
 " Oh, I dare say there s a lot in physiognomy, Carruthers," 
 he drawled. " Never studied the thing, you know that is, 
 from the standpoint of crime. Personally, I ve only got 
 one prejudice : I distrust, on principle, the man who wears 
 a perennial and pompous smirk which isn t, of course, 
 strictly speaking, physiognomy at all. You see, a man can t 
 help his eyes being beady or his nose pronounced, but pom 
 posity and a smirk, now " Jimmie Dale shrugged his 
 
 shoulders. 
 
 Carruthers laughed and then glanced ludicrously at Jim 
 mie Dale, as the door, ajar, was pushed open, and a man en 
 tered. 
 
 " Speaking of angels," murmured Jimmie Dale and sat 
 up in his chair. " Hello, Markel ! " he observed casually. 
 " You ve met Carruthers, of the News-Argus, haven t you? " 
 
 Markel was fat and important; he had beady black eyes, 
 fastidiously trimmed whiskers and a pronounced smirk- 
 
 Markel blew his nose vigorously, coughed asthmatically, 
 and held out his hand. 
 
 " Of course, certainly," said he effusively. " I ve met 
 
 61
 
 62 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 Carruthers several times used his sheet more than once t 
 advertise a new bond flotation." 
 
 The dominant note in Market s voice was an ingratiat 
 ing and unpleasant whine, and Carruthers nodded, not very 
 cordially and shook hands. 
 
 Markel went back to the door, closed it carefully, and re 
 turned to the table. 
 
 " Fact is," he smiled confidentially, " I saw you two come 
 in here a few minutes ago, and I ve got something that I 
 thought Carruthers might be glad to have for his society 
 column say, in the Sunday edition." 
 
 He dove into the inside pocket of his coat, produced a 
 large morocco leather jeweller s case, and, holding it out 
 over the table between Carruthers and Jimmie Dale, suddenly 
 snapped the cover open and then, with a complacent little 
 chuckle that terminated in another fit of coughing, spilled 
 the contents on the table under the electric reading lamp. 
 
 Like a thing of living, pulsing fire it rolled before then 
 eyes a magnificent diamond necklace, of wondrous beauty, 
 gleaming and scintillating as the light rays shot back from a 
 thousand facets. 
 
 For a moment, both men gazed at it without a word. 
 
 " Little surprise for my wife," volunteered Markel, with 
 a debonair wave of his pudgy hand, and trying to make his 
 voice sound careless. 
 
 The case lay open patently displaying the name of the 
 most famous jewelry house in America. Jimmie Dale s eyes 
 fixed on Markel s whiskers where they were brushed out 
 ward in an ornate and fastidious gray-black sweep. 
 
 " By Jove ! " he commented. " You don t do things by 
 halves, do you, Markel? " 
 
 " Two hundred and ten thousand dollars I paid for that 
 little bunch of gewgaws," said Markel, waving his hand 
 again. Then he clapped Carruthers heartily on the shoulder. 
 " What do you think of it, Carruthers eh ? Say, a photo 
 graph of it, and one of Mrs. Markel eh t Please her, you 
 know she s crazy on this society stunt all flubdub to me, 
 of cours*. How s it strike you, Carruthers ? "
 
 THE MOTHER LODE 63 
 
 Carruthers, very evidently, liked neither the man nor his 
 manners, but Carruthers, above everything else, was a gentle 
 man. 
 
 " To be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Markel," he said a 
 little frigidly, " 1 don t believe in this sort of thing. It s 
 all right from a newspaper standpoint, and we do it ; but it s 
 just in this way that owners of valuable jewelry lay them 
 selves open to theft. It simply amounts to advising every 
 crook in the country that you have a quarter of a million at 
 his disposal, which he can carry away in his vest pocket, once 
 he can get his hands on it and you invite him to try." 
 
 Jimmie Dale laughed. " What Carruthers means, Mar 
 kel, is that you ll have the Gray Seal down your street. 
 Carruthers talks of crooks generally, but he thinks in terms 
 of only one. He can t help it. He s been trying so long to 
 catch the chap that it s become an obsession. Eh, Carru 
 thers?" 
 
 Carruthers smiled seriously. " Perhaps," he admitted, 
 " I hope, though, for Mr. Market s sake, that the Gray Seal 
 won t take a fancy to it if he does, Mr. Markel can say 
 good-bye to his necklace." 
 
 " Pouf 1 " coughed Markel arrogantly. " Overrated ! His 
 cleverness is all in the newspaper columns. If he knows 
 what s good for him, he ll know enough to leave this 
 alone." 
 
 Jimmie Dale was leaning over the table poking gingerly 
 with the tip of his forefinger at the centre stone in the setting, 
 revolving it gently to and fro in the light a very large stone, 
 whose weight would hardly be less than fifteen carats. 
 Jimmie Dale lowered his head for a closer examination 
 and to hide a curious, mocking little gleam that crept into 
 his dark eyes. 
 
 " Yes, I should say you re right, Markel," he agreed 
 judicially. " He ought to know better than to touch this. 
 It it would be too hard to dispose of." 
 
 " I m not worrying," declared Markel importantly. 
 
 " No," said Jimmie Dale. " Two hundred and ten thott* 
 sand, you said. Any special er significance to the occa-
 
 sion, if the question s not impertinent? Birthday, wedding 
 anniversary or something like that ? " 
 
 " No, nothing like that ! " Markel grinned, winked secre 
 tively, and rubbed his hands together. " I m feeling good, 
 that s all I m going to make the killing of my life to 
 morrow." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Jimmie Dale. 
 
 Markel turned to Carruthers. " I ll let you in on that, too, 
 Carruthers, in a day or two, if you ll send a reporter around 
 financial man, you know. It ll be worth your while. And 
 now, how about this? What do you say to a little article 
 and the photos next Sunday ? " 
 
 There was a slight hint of rising colour in Carruthers 
 face. 
 
 "If you ll send them to the society editor, I ve no doubt 
 he ll be able to use them," he said brusquely. 
 
 " Right ! " said Markel, and coughed, and patted Car 
 ruthers shoulder patronisingly again. " I ll just do that 
 little tK-ng." He picked up the necklace, dangled it till it 
 flashed an flashed again under the light, then restored it 
 very osteniat.oudy to its case, and the case to his pocket, 
 " Thanks awfully, Carruthers," he said, as he rose from his 
 chair. " See you again, Dale. Good-night ! " 
 
 Carruthers glared at the door as it closed behind the 
 man. 
 
 " Say it ! " prodded Jimmie Dale sweetly. " Don t feel 
 restrained because you are a guest I absolve you in ad 
 vance." 
 
 " Rotter! " said Carruthers. 
 
 " Well," said Jimmie Dale softly. " You see Car 
 ruthers ? " 
 
 Carruthers match crackled savagely as he lighted a cigar. 
 
 " Yes, I see," he growled. " But I don t see you ll 
 pardon my saying so how vulgarity like that ever acquired 
 membership in the St. James Club." 
 
 " Carruthers," said Jimmie Dale plaintively, " you ought t6 
 know better than that. You know, to begin with, since it 
 seems he has advertised with you, that he runs some sort
 
 THE MOTHER LODE 65 
 
 of brokerage business in Boston. He s taken a summei 
 home up here on Long Island, and some misguided chap put 
 him on the club s visitor s list. His card will not be renewed. 
 Sleek customer, isn t he ? Trifle familiar I was only intro 
 duced to him last night. * 
 
 Carruthers grunted, broke his burned match into pieces, 
 and began to toss the pieces into an ash tray. 
 
 Jimmie Dale became absorbed in an inspection of his 
 hands those wonderful hands with long, slim, tapering 
 fingers, whose clean, pink flesh masked a strength and power 
 that was like to a steel vise. 
 
 Jimmie Dale looked up. " Going to print a nice little story 
 for him about the * costliest and most beautiful necklace in 
 America ? " he inquired innocently. 
 
 Carruthers scowled. " No," he said bluntly. " I am not. 
 He ll read the Nezvs-Argus a long time before he reads any 
 thing about that, Jimmie." 
 
 But therein Carruthers was wrong the News-Argus 
 carried the " story " of Market s diamond necklace in three- 
 inch " caps " in red ink on the front page in the next morn 
 ing s edition and Carruthers gloated over it because the 
 snorning News-Argus was the only paper in New York that 
 did, Carruthers was to hear more of Markel and Markel s 
 necklace than he thought, though for the time being the sub 
 ject dropped between the two men. 
 
 It was still early, barely ten o clock, when Carruthers left 
 the club, and, preferring to walk to the newspaper offices, 
 refused Jimmie Dale s offer of his limousine. It was but 
 five minutes later when Jimmie Dale, after chatting for a 
 moment or two with tho^-e about in the lobby, in turn sought 
 the coat room, where Markel was being assisted into his 
 coat. 
 
 " Getting home early, aren t you, Markel ? " remarked 
 Jimmie Dale pleasantly. 
 
 " Yes," said Markel, and ran his fingers fussily, comb 
 fashion, through his whiskers. " Quite a little run out to 
 my place, you know and with, you know what v I don t vre 
 3 be out too late."
 
 S6 THE ADVENTURES OF JHIMIE DALE 
 
 " No, of course," concurred Jimmie Dale, getting into hii 
 own coat. 
 
 They walked out of the club together, and Markel climbed 
 importantly into the tonneau of a big gray touring car. 
 
 " Ah home, Peters," he sniffed at his chauffeur ; and then, 
 with a grandiloquent wave of his hand to Jimmie Dale: 
 * Night, Dale." 
 
 Jimmie Dale smiled with his eyes which were hidden 
 by the brim of his hat. 
 
 " Good-night, Markel," he replied, and the smile crept 
 curiously to the corners of his mouth as he watched the 
 gray car disappear down the street. 
 
 A limousine drew up, and Benson, Jimmie Dale s chauf 
 feur, opened the door. 
 
 " Home, Mr. Dale ? " he asked cheerily, touching his cap. 
 
 " Yes, Benson home," said Jimmie Dale absently, and 
 Stepped into the car. 
 
 It was a luxurious car, as everything that belonged to 
 Jimmie Dale was luxurious and he leaned back luxuriously 
 on the cushions, extended his legs luxuriously to their full 
 length, plunged his hands into his overcoat pockets and 
 then a change stole strangely, slowly over Jimmie Dale. 
 
 The sensitive fingers of his right hand in the pocket had 
 touched, and now played delicately over a sealed envelope 
 that they had found there, played over it as though indeed 
 by the sense of touch alone they could read the contents 
 and he drew his body gradually erect. 
 
 It was another of those mysterious missives from her, 
 The texture of the paper was invariably the same like this 
 one. How had it come there? Collusion with the coat boy 
 at the club? That was hardly probable. Perhaps it had 
 been there before he had entered the club for dinner he 
 remembered, now. that there had been several people passing, 
 and that he had been jostled slightly in crossing the side* 
 walk. What, however, did it matter? It was ther* 
 mysteriously, as scores of others had come to him mystc- 
 rously. with never a clew to her identity, to the identity &t 
 *ii, he smiled a little grimly accomplice in crime
 
 THE MOTHER LODE 67 
 
 He took the envelope from his pocket and stared at it. 
 His fingers had not been at fault it was one of hers. The 
 faint, elusive, exquisite fragrance of some rare perfume came 
 to him as he held it. 
 
 " I d give," said Jimmie Dale wistfully to himself " I d 
 give everything I own to know who you are and some 
 day, please God, I will know." 
 
 Jimmie Dale tore the envelope very gently, as though the 
 tearing almost were an act of desecration and extracted the 
 letter from within. He began to read aloud hurriedly and 
 in snatches: 
 
 " DEAR PHILANTHROPIC CROOK : Charleton Park Manor- 
 Markers house is the second one from the gates on the 
 right-hand side library leads off reception hall on left, door 
 opposite staircase telephone in reception hall near vestibule 
 entrance, left-hand side safe is one of your father s make, 
 No. 14,321 clothes closet behind the desk probably will 
 be kept in cash box five servants ; two men, three maids 
 quarters on top story Markel and wife occupy room ovei 
 library French windows to dining room on opposite side of 
 the house opening on the lawn get it to-night, Jimmie 
 to-morrow would be too late dispose of it see fit Henry 
 Wilbur, Marshall Building, Broadway fifth story " 
 
 Through the glass-panelled front of the car, Jimmie Dale 
 could see his chauffeur s back, and the hand that held the 
 letter dropped now to his side, and Jimmie Dale stared 
 at his chauffeur s back. Then, presently, he read the letter 
 again, as though committing it to memory now; and then, 
 tearing the paper into tiny shreds, as he did with every one 
 of her communications, he reached out of the window and 
 allowed the little pieces to filter gradually from his hand. 
 
 The Gray Seal! He smiled in his whimsical way. If it 
 were ever known ! He, Jimmie Dale, with his social stand 
 ing, his wealth, his position the Gray Seal ! Not a police 
 official, not a secret-service bureau probably in the civilised 
 world, but knew the name not a man, woman, or child
 
 68 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 certainly in this great city around him but to whom it was 
 as familiar as their own! Danger? Yes. A battle of wits? 
 Yes. His against everybody s even against Carruthers J , 
 his old college chum ! For, even as a reporter, before he had 
 risen to the editorial desk, and even now that he had, Car- 
 ruthers had been one of the keenest on the scent of the Gray 
 Seal. 
 
 Danger ? Yes. But it was worth it ! Worth it a thousand 
 times for the very lure of the danger itself ; but worth it 
 most of all for his association with her who, by some amaz 
 ing means, verging indeed on the miraculous, came into touch 
 with all these things, and supplied him with the data on 
 which to work that always some wrong might be righted, 
 or gladness come where there had been gloom before, or hope 
 where there had been despair that into some fellow 
 human s heart should come a gleam of sunshine. Yes, in 
 spite of the howls of the police, the virulent diatribes of the 
 press, an angry public screaming for his arrest, conviction, 
 and punishment, there were those perhaps who even on their 
 bended knees at night asked God s blessing on the Gray 
 Seal! 
 
 Was it strange, then, after all, that the police, seeking a 
 clew through motive, should have been driven to frenzy on 
 every occasion in finding themselves forever confronted with 
 what, from every angle they were able to view it, was quite 
 a purposeless crime ! On one point only they were right, 
 the old dogma, the old, old cry, old as the institution oi 
 police, older than that, old since time immemorial cherchez 
 la femme! Quite right but also quite purposeless ! Jimmic 
 Dale s eyes grew wistful. He had been " hunting for the 
 woman in the case " himself, now, for months and years 
 indefatigably, using every resource at his command quite 
 purposelessly. 
 
 Jimmie Dale shrugged his shoulders. Whv go over all 
 this to-night there were other things to do. She had come 
 to him again and this time with a matter that entailed more 
 than ordinary difficulty, more than usual danger, that would 
 tax his wits and his skill to the utmost, not only to succeed^
 
 THE MOTHER LODE 69 
 
 but to get out of it himself with a whole skin. Markel eh ? 
 Jimmie Dale leaned back in his seat, clasped his hands be 
 hind his head and his eyes, half closed now, were study 
 ing Benson s back again through the plate-glass front. 
 
 He was still sitting in that position as the car approached 
 his residence on Riverside Drive but, as it came to a stop, 
 and Benson opened the door, it was a very alert Jimmie 
 Dale that stepped to the sidewalk. 
 
 " Benson," he said crisply, " I am going downtown again 
 later on, but I shall drive myself. Bring the touring car 
 around and leave it in front of the house. I ll run k into the 
 garage when I get back you need not wait up." 
 
 " Very good, sir," said Benson. 
 
 In the hallway, Jason, the butler, who had been butler to 
 Jimmie Dale s father before him, took Jimmie Dale s hat 
 and coat. 
 
 " It s a fine evening, Master Jim," said the privileged old 
 man affectionately. 
 
 Jimmie Dale took out his silver cigarette case, selected a 
 cigarette, tapped it daintily on the cover of the case and 
 accepted the match the old man hastily produced. 
 
 " Yes, Jason." said Jimmie Dale, pleasantly facetious, " it 
 is A fine night, a glorious night, moon and stars and a balmy 
 breeze quite too fine, indeed, to remain indoors. In fact, 
 you might lay out my gray ulster; I think I will go for a 
 spin presently, when I have changed." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Jason. " Anything else, Master Jim ? * 
 
 * No ; that s all, Jason. Don t sit up for me you may go 
 to bed now." 
 
 " Thank you, sir," said the old man. 
 
 Jimmie Dale went upstairs, opened the door of his own 
 particular den on the right of the landing, stepped inside, 
 closed the door, switched on the light and Jimmie Dale s 
 debonair nonchalance dropped from him as a mask instantly 
 - and it was another Jimmie Dale the professional Jimmie 
 Dale. 
 
 Quick now in every action, he swung aside the portiere 
 that curtained off the squat, barrel-shaped safe in the little
 
 70 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 alcove, opened the safe, took out that curious leather girdto 
 with its kit of burglar s tools, added to it a flashlight and an 
 automatic revolver, closed the safe and passed into his 
 dressing room. Here, he proceeded to divest himself rapidly 
 ot his evening clothes, selecting in their stead a suit of dark 
 tweed. He heard Jason come up the stairs, pass along the 
 hall, and mount the second flight to his own quarters ; and 
 presently came the sound of an automobile without. The 
 dressing room fronted on the Drive Jimmie Dale looked 
 out. Benson was just getting out of the touring car. Slipping 
 the leather girdle, then, around his waist, Jimmie Dale put 
 on his vest, then his coat and walked briskly downstairs. 
 
 Jason had laid out a gray ulster on the hall stand. Jimmie 
 Dale put it on, selected a leather cap with motor-goggle at 
 tachment that pulled down almost to the tip of his nose, 
 tucked a slouch hat into the pocket of the ulster, and, leaving 
 **e house, climbed into his car. 
 
 He glanced at his watch as he started it was a quarter of 
 eleven. Jimmie Dale s lips pursed a little. 
 
 " I guess it ll make a night of it, and a tight squeeze, at 
 that, to get back under cover before daylight," he muttered. 
 
 I ll have to do some tall speeding." 
 
 But at first, across the city and through Brooklyn, for all 
 his impatience, it was necessarily slow after that, Jimmie 
 Dale took chances, and, once on the country roads of Long 
 Island, the big, powerful car tore through the night like a 
 greyhound whose leash is slipped. 
 
 A half hour passed Jimmie Dale s eyes shifting occa 
 sionally from the gray thread of road ahead of him onder 
 the glare of the dancing lamps, to the road map spread out 
 at his feet, upon which, from time to time, he focused his 
 pocket flashlight. And then, finally, he slowed the car to a 
 snail s pace he should be very near his destination that 
 very ultra-exclusive subdivision of Charleton Park Manor. 
 
 On either side of the road now was quite a thickly set 
 stretch of wooded land, rising slightly on the right and 
 this Jimmie Dale scrutinised sharply. In fact, he stopped 
 for an instant as he came opposite to a wagon track it
 
 THE MOTHER LODE 71 
 
 *eemed to be little more than that that led in through the 
 trees. 
 
 " If it s not too far from the seat of war," commented 
 Jimmie Dale to himself, as he went on again, " it will do 
 admirably." 
 
 And then, a hundred yards farther on, Jimmie Dale 
 nodded his head in satisfaction he was passing the rather 
 ornate stone pillars that marked the entrance to Charleton 
 Park Manor, and on which the initial promoters of the 
 subdivision, the real-estate people, had evidently deemed it 
 good advertising policy to expend a small fortune. 
 
 Another hundred yards farther on, Jimmie Dale turned 
 his car around and returned past the gates to the wagon 
 track again. The road was deserted not a car nor a vehicle 
 of any description was in sight. Jimmie Dale made sure of 
 that and in another instant Jimmie Dale s own car, every 
 light extinguished, had vanished he had backed it up the 
 wagon track, just far enough in for the trees to screen it 
 thoroughly from the main road. 
 
 Nor did Jimmie Dale himself appear again on the main 
 road until just as he emerged close to the gates of Charleton 
 Park Manor from a short cut through the woods. Also, he 
 was without his ulster now, and the slouch hat had replaced 
 the motor cap. 
 
 Jimmie Dale, in the moonlight, took stock of his surround 
 ings, as he passed in at a businesslike walk through the 
 gates. It was a large park, if that name could properly be 
 applied to it at all, and the houses he caught sight of one 
 set back from the driveway on the right were quite far 
 apart, each in its own rather spacious grounds among the 
 trees. 
 
 " The second house on the right," her letter had saidc 
 Jimmie Dale had already passed the first one the next 
 would be Markel s then and it loomed ahead of him now, 
 black and shadowy and unlighted. 
 
 Jimmie Dale shot a glance around him there was stillness, 
 quiet everywhere no sign of life no sound. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s face became tense, his lips tight and hr
 
 72 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 stepped suddenly from ihe sidewalk in among the trees. 
 They were not thick here, of course, the trees, and the turf 
 beneath his feet was well kept and, therefore, soundless. 
 He moved quickly now, but cautiously, from tree to tree, 
 for the moonlight, flooding the lawn and house, threw all 
 objects into bold relief. 
 
 A minute, two, three went by and a shadow flitted here 
 and there across the light-green sward, like the moving of 
 the trees swaying in the breeze and then Jimmie Dale was 
 standing close up against one side of the house, hidden by 
 the protecting black shadows of the walls. 
 
 But here, for a moment, Jimmie Dale seemed little oc 
 cupied with the house itself he was staring down past its 
 length to where the woods made a heavy, dark background at 
 the rear. Then he turned his head, to face directly to the 
 main road, then back again slowly, as though measuring 
 an angle. Jimmie Dale had no intention of making his 
 escape by the roundabout way in which he had been forced 
 to come in order to make certain of locating the right house, 
 the second one from the gates and he was getting the 
 bearings of his car and the wagon track now. 
 
 " I guess that ll be about right," Jimmie Dale muttered 
 finally. " And now for " 
 
 He slipped along the side of the house and halted where, 
 almost on a level with the ground, the French windows of 
 the dining room opened on the lawn. Jimmie Dale tried 
 them gently. They were locked. 
 
 An indulgent smile crept to Jimmie Dale s lips and his 
 hand crept in under his vest. It came out again not empty 
 and Jimmie Dale leaned close against the window. There 
 was a faint, almost inaudible, scratching sound, then a slight, 
 brittle crack and Jimmie Dale laid a neat little four-inch 
 square of glass on the ground at his feet. Through the 
 aperture he reached in his hand, turned the key that was in 
 the lock, turned the bolt-rod handle, pushed the doors silently 
 open wide open left them open and stepped into the 
 room. 
 
 He could see quite well within, thanks to the moonlight.
 
 THE MOTHER LODE 78 
 
 Jlmmie Dale produced a black silk mask from one of the 
 little leather pockets, adjusted it carefully over his face, and 
 crossed the room to the hall door. He opened this wide 
 open left it open and entered the hall. 
 
 Here it was dark a pitch blackness. He stood for a 
 moment, listening utter silence. And then alert, strained, 
 tense in an instant, Jimmie Dale crouched against the wall 
 and then he smiled a little grimly. It was only some one 
 coughing upstairs Markel in his sleep, perhaps, or, per 
 haps in wakefulness. 
 
 " I m a fool ! " confided Jimmie Dale to himself, as he 
 recognised the cough that he had heard at the club. " And 
 yet I don t know. One s nerves get sort of taut. Pretty 
 stiff business. If I m ever caught, the penitentiary sentence 
 I get will be the smallest part of what s to pay." 
 
 A round button of light played along the wall from the 
 flashlight in his hand just for an instant and all was 
 blackness again. But in that instant Jimmie Dale was across 
 the hall, and his fingers were tracing the telephone connec 
 tion from the instrument to where the wires disappeared in 
 the baseboard of the floor. Another instant, and he had 
 severed the wires with a pair of nippers. 
 
 Again the quick, firefly gleam of light to locate the stair 
 case and the library door opposite to it and, moving with 
 out the slightest noise, Jimmie Dale s hand was on the 
 door itself. Again he paused to listen. All was silence 
 now. 
 
 The door swung under his hand, and, left open behind 
 him, he was in the room. The flashlight winked once 
 suspiciously. Then he snapped its little switch, keeping the 
 current on, and the ray dodged impudently here and there 
 all over the apartment. 
 
 The safe was set in a sort of clothes closet behind the 
 desk, she had said. Yes, there it was the door, at least. 
 Jimmie Dale moved toward it and paused as his light swept 
 the top of the intervening desk. A mass of papers, books, 
 and correspondence littered it untidily. The yellow sheet of 
 & telegram caught Jimmie Dale s eye.
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 He picked it up and glanced at it. It read : 
 
 " Vein uncovered to-day. Undoubtedly mother 
 Enormously rich. Put the screws on at once. 
 
 Under the mask, Jimmie Dale s lips twitched. 
 
 " A think, Markel, you miserable hound," said he softly, 
 *" that God will forgive me for depriving you of a s/iare of 
 "die profits. Two hundred and ten thousand, I think it was, 
 you said the sparklers cost." A curious little sound came 
 from Jimmie Dale s lips like a chuckle. 
 
 Jimmie Dale tossed the telegram bpck on the desk, moved 
 on behind the desk, opened the door of the closet that had 
 been metamorphosed into a vault and the white light 
 travelled slowly, searchingly, critically over the shining black. 
 enamelled steel, the nickelled knobs, and dials of a safe that 
 confronted him. 
 
 Jimmie Dale nodded at it familiarly, grimly, 
 
 " It s number one-four-three-two-one, all right," he mur 
 mured. " And one of the best we ever made. Pretty tough 
 But I ve done it before. Say, half an hour of gentle persua 
 sion, It would be too bad to crack it with soup besides, 
 that s crude Carruthers would never forgive the Gray Seafc 
 for that ! " 
 
 The light went out blackness fell. Jimmie Dale s slim, 
 sensitive fingers closed on the dial s knob, his head touched 
 the steel front of the safe as he pressed his ear against 
 it for the tumblers fall. 
 
 And then silence. It seemed to grow heavier, that silence, 
 with each second to palpitate through the quiet house to 
 grow pregnant, premonitory of dread, of fear it seemed to 
 throb in long undulations, and the stillness grew loud. A 
 moonbeam filtered in between the edge of the drawn shade 
 and the edge of the window. It struggled across the floor 
 in a wavering path, strayed over the desk, and died away, 
 shadowy and formless, against the blackness of the opened 
 recess door, against the blackness of the great steel safe. 
 the blackness of a huddled form crouched against it Only 
 and then, in a strange, projected, wraithlike
 
 THE MOTHER LODE 75 
 
 the moon ray glinted timidly on the tip of a nickel dial, 
 and, ghostlike, disclosed a human hand. 
 
 Upstairs, Markel coughed again. Then from the safe a 
 whisper, heavy-breathed as from great exertion : 
 
 "Missed it!" 
 
 The dial whirled with faint, musical, little metallic clicks ; 
 then began to move slowly again, very, very slowly. The 
 moonbeam, as though petulant at its own abortive attempt 
 to satisfy its curiosity, retreated back across the floor, and 
 faded away. 
 
 Blackness ! 
 
 Time passed. Then from the safe again, but now in a lov 
 gasp, a pant of relief : 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 The ear might barely catch the sound it was as of metal 
 sliding in well-oiled grooves, of metal meeting metal in a 
 padded thud. The massive door swung outward. Jimmic 
 Dale stood up, easing his cramped muscles, and flirted the 
 sweat beads from his forehead. 
 
 After a moment, he knelt again. There was still the inner 
 door but that was a minor matter to Jimmie Dale com 
 pared with what had gone before. 
 
 Stillness once more a long period of it. And then again 
 that cough from above a prolonged paroxysm of it this 
 time that went racketing through the house. 
 
 Jimmie Dale, in the act of swinging back the inner door 
 of the safe, paused to listen, and little furrows under his 
 mask gathered on his forehead. The coughing stopped. 
 Jimmie Dale waited a moment, still listening then his flash 
 light bored into the interior of the safe. 
 
 " The cash box, probably," quoted Jimmie Dale, beneath 
 his breath and picked it up from where it lay in the bottom 
 compartment of the safe. 
 
 The lock snipped under the insistent probe of a delicate 
 little blued-steel instrument, and Jimmie Dale lifted the 
 cover. There was a package of papers and documents on 
 top, held together with elastic bands. Jimmie Dale spent 
 1 moment or two examining these, then his ringers
 
 76 THE ADVENTURES OF JIAIMIE DALE 
 
 down underneath, and the next minute, under the flashlight, 
 the morocco leather case open, the diamond necklace was 
 sparkling and flashing on its white satin bed. 
 
 " A tempting little thing, isn t it ? " said Jimmie Dale 
 gently. " It was really thoughtful of you, Markel, to buy 
 that this afternoon!" 
 
 Jimmie Dale replaced the necklace in the cash box, set the 
 cash box on the floor, closed the inner door of the safe, 
 and swung the outer door a little inward but left it flaunt 
 ingly ajar. Then from a pocket of the leather girdle beneath 
 his vest he produced his small, thin, flat, metal case. From 
 this, from between sheets of oil paper, with the aid of a 
 pair of tweezers, he lifted out a gray, diamond-shaped seal. 
 Jimmie Dale was apparently fastidious. He held the seal 
 with the tweezers as he moistened the adhesive side with his 
 tongue, laid the seal on his handkerchief, and pressed the 
 handkerchief firmly against the safe as usual, Jimmie 
 Dale s insignia bore no finger prints as it lay neatly capping 
 the knob of the dial. 
 
 He reached down, picked up the cash box and then, 
 for the second time that night, held suddenly tense, alert, 
 listening, his every muscle taut. A door opened upstairs. 
 There came a murmur of voices. Then a momentary lull. 
 
 Jimmie Dale listened. Like a statue he stood there in the 
 black, absolutely motionless his head a little forward and 
 to one side. Nothing not a sound. Then a very low, 
 curious, swishing noise, and a faint creak. Somebody was 
 coming down the stairs! 
 
 Jimmie Dale moved stealthily from the recess, and noise 
 lessly to the desk. Very faintly, but distinctly now, came 
 a pad of either slippered or bare feet on the stairway carpet. 
 Like a cat, soundless in his movements, Jimmie Dale crept to 
 ward the door of the room. Down tl.e stairs came that pad 
 of feet ; occasionally came that swishing sound. Nearer the 
 door crept Jimmie Dale, and his lips were thinned now, his 
 jaws clamped. How near were they together, he and this 
 night prowler? At times he could not hear the other at all, 
 and, besides, the heavy carpet made the judgment of
 
 77 
 
 tsmce an impossibility. If he could gain the hall, and, in the 
 darkness, elude the other, the way of escape through the 
 dining room was open. And then, within a few feet of the 
 door, Jimmie Dale halted abruptly, as a woman s voice rose 
 querulously from the hallway above: 
 
 " You are making a perfect fool of yourself, Theodore 
 Markel ! Come back here to bed ! " 
 
 Jimmie Dale s face hardened like stone the answer came 
 almost from the very threshold in front of him : 
 
 " I can t sleep, I tell you " it was Markel s voice, in a 
 disgruntled snarl. " I was a fool to bring the confounded 
 thing home. I m going to take the library couch for the 
 rest of the night." 
 
 It happened quick, then quick as the winking of an eye. 
 Two sharp, almost simultaneous, clicks of the electric-light 
 buttons pressed by Markel, and the hall and library were a 
 flood of light and Jimmie Dale leaped forward to where, 
 in dressing gown and pajamas, blankets and bedding over 
 one arm, a revolver dangling in the other hand, Markel 
 stood full before the door in the hallway without. 
 
 There was a wild yell of terror and surprise from Markel, 
 then a deafening roar and a spit of flame from his revolver 
 a bitter, smothered exclamation from Jimmie Dale as the 
 cash box crashed to the floor from his left hand, and he was 
 upon the other like a tiger. 
 
 With the impact, both men went to the floor, grappled, 
 and rolled over and over. Half mad with fear, shock, and 
 surprise, Markel fought like a maniac, and his voice, in 
 gasping shouts, rang through the house. 
 
 A minute, two passed and the men rolled about the hall 
 floor. Markel, over middle age and unheathily fat, against 
 Jimmie Dale s six feet of muscle only Jimmie Dale s left 
 hand, dripping a red stream now, was almost useless. 
 
 From above came wild confusion women s voices in 
 little shrieks ; men s voices shouting in excitement ; doors 
 opening, running feet. And then Jimmie Dale had snatched 
 the revolver from the floor where Markel had dropped it in 
 tfee scuffle, and was pressing it against Markel s forehead
 
 78 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 and Markel, terror-stricken, had collapsed in a flabby, pliant 
 heap. 
 
 Jimmie Dale, still covering Markel with the weapon, stood 
 up. The frightened faces of women protruded over the 
 banisters above. The two men-servants, at best none too 
 enthusiastically on the way down, stopped as though stunned 
 as Jimmie Dale swung the revolver upon them. 
 
 Then Jimmie Dale spoke to Markel pointing the 
 weapon at Markel again. 
 
 " I don t like you, Markel," he said, with cold impudence. 
 " The only decent thing you ll ever do will be to die and if 
 those men of yours on the stairs move another step it will 
 be your death warrant. Do you understand ? I would sug 
 gest that you request them to stay where they are." 
 
 Cold sweat was on Market s face as he stared into the 
 muzzle of the revolver, and his teeth chattered. 
 
 " Go back ! " he screamed hysterically at the servants. 
 " Go back ! Sit down ! Don t move ! Do what he tells 
 you!" 
 
 " Thank you ! " said Jimmie Dale grimly. " Now, get up 
 yourself ! " 
 
 Markel got up. 
 
 Jimmie Dale backed to the library door, picked up tha 
 cash box, tucked it under his left armpit, and faced those 
 on the stairs. 
 
 " Mr. Markel and I are going out for a little walk," he 
 announced coolly. "If one of you make a move or raise 
 an alarm before your master comes back, I shall be obliged, 
 in self-defence, to shoot Mr. Markel. Mr. Markel quite 
 understands that I am sure. Do you not, Mr. Markel ? " 
 
 "Helen," screamed Markel to his wife, "don t let em 
 move ! For God s sake, do as he says ! " 
 
 Jimmie Dale s lips, just showing beneath the edge of his 
 mask, broadened in a pleasant little smile. 
 
 " Will you lead the way, Mr. Markel ? " he requested, with 
 ironic deference. " Through the dining room, please. Yes, 
 that s right ! " 
 
 Markel walked weakly into the dining room, and Jimmi*
 
 THE MOTHER LODE 7& 
 
 Dale followed. A prod in the back from the revolver 
 muzzle, and Markel stepped through the French windows 
 and out on the lawn. Jimmie Dale faced the other toward the 
 woods at the rear of the house. 
 
 " Go on ! " Jimmie Dale s voice was curt now, uncom 
 promising. " And step lively ! " 
 
 They passed on along the side of the house and in among 
 the trees. Fifty yards or so more, and Jimmie Dale halted 
 He backed Markel up against a large tree not over 
 gently. 
 
 " I I say " Market s teeth were going like castanets, 
 
 ** T .** 
 
 " You ll oblige me by keeping your mouth shut," observed 
 Jimmie Dale politely and he whipped the cord of Market s 
 dressing gown loose and began to tie the man to the tree 
 **You have many unpleasant characteristics, Markel your 
 voice is one of them. Shall I repeat that I do not like you ? " 
 He stepped to the back of the tree. " Pardon me if I draw 
 this uncomfortably tight. I don t think you can reach around 
 to the knot. No ? The trunk is too large ? Quite so 1 " 
 He stepped around to face Markel again the man was 
 thoroughly frightened, his face was livid, his jaw sagged 
 weakly, and his eyes followed every movement of the 
 revolver in Jimmie Dale s hand in a sort of miserable fascina 
 tion. Jimmie Dale smiled unhappily. " I am going to do 
 something, Markel, that I should advise no other man to do 
 - I am going to put you on your honour! For the next 
 fifteen minutes you are not to utter a sound. Do you under 
 stand?" 
 
 " Y-yes, said Markel hoarsely. 
 
 " No," said Jimmie Dale sadly, " I don* think you do c 
 Let me be painfully explicit. If you break your vow of 
 silence by so much as a second, then to-morrow, or the next 
 day, or the day after, at my convenience, Markel, you and T 
 will meet again for the last time. There can be no possible 
 misapprehension on your part now Markel?" 
 
 * N-no " Markel could scarcely chatter out the word 
 
 * Quite so," said Jimmie Dale, in velvet tones. He sto5
 
 30 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 *or an instant looking at tne other with cool insolence ; then? 
 " Good-night, Markel " and five minutes later a great tour 
 ing car was tearing New Yorkward over the Long Island 
 foads at express speed. 
 
 It was one o clock in the morning as Jimmie Dale swung 
 the car into a cross street off lower Broadway, and drew 
 tip at the curb beside a large office building. He got out, 
 cnuggled the cash box under his ulster, went around to the 
 Broadway entrance, glanced up to note that a light burned 
 in a fifth-story window, and entered the building, 
 
 The hallway was practically in darkness, one or two in- 
 candescents only threw a dim light about. Jimmie Dale 
 stopped for a moment at the foot of the stairs, beside the 
 elevator well, to listen if the watchman was making rounds, 
 it was in another part of the building. Jimmie Dale began 
 to climb. 
 
 He reached the fifth floor, turned down the corridor, and 
 halted in front of a door, through the ground-glass panel of 
 which a light glowed faintly as though coming from an in 
 ner office beyond. Jimmie Dale drew the black silk mask 
 from his pocket, adjusted it, tried the door, found it un 
 locked, opened it noiselessly, and stepped inside. Across 
 the room, through another door, haif open, the light streamed 
 into the outer office, where Jimmie Dale stood. 
 
 Jimmie Dale stole across the room, crouched by the door 
 to look into the inner office and his face went suddenly 
 rigid. 
 
 "Good God!" he whispered. "As bad as that! but 
 ft was a nonchalant Jimmie Dale to all outward appearances 
 that, on the instant, stepped unconcernedly over the thresh 
 old. 
 
 An elderly man, white-haired, kindly-faced, kindly-eyed, 
 save now that the face was drawn and haggard, the eyes full 
 of weariness, was standing behind a flat-topped desk, his 
 fingers twitching nervously on a revolver in his hand. He 
 whirled, with a startled cry, at Jimmie Dale s entrance, and 
 ijie revolver clattered from his fingers to the floor, 
 
 * I am afraid," said Jimmie Dale, smiling pleasantly; "
 
 THE MOTHER LODE 81 
 
 you were going to shoot yourself. Your name is Wilbur, 
 Henry Wilbur, isn t it ? " 
 
 Unmanned, trembling, the other stood and nodded me 
 chanically. 
 
 " It s really not a nice thing to do," said Jimmie Dale con 
 fidentially. " Makes a mess, you see, too " he was pulling 
 off his motor gauntlet, his ulster, his jacket, and, having set 
 the cash box on the desk, was rolling back his sieeve as he 
 spoke. " Had a little experience myself this evening." He 
 held out his hand that, with the forearm, was covered with 
 blood. " A little above the wrist fortunately only a flesh 
 wound a little memento from a chap named Markel, 
 and " 
 
 " Markel! " The word burst, quivering, from the other s 
 lips. 
 
 " Yes," said Jimmie Dale imperturbably. " Do you mind 
 if I wash a bit and could you oblige me with a towel, or 
 something that would do for a bandage ? " 
 
 The man seemed dazed. In a subconscious way, he 
 walked from the desk to a little cupboard, and took out two 
 towels. 
 
 Jimmie Dale stooped, while the Other s back was turned, 
 picked up the revolver from the floor, and slipped it into his 
 trousers pocket. 
 
 " Markel ? " said Wilbur again, the same trembling anx 
 iety in his voice, as he handed Jimmie Dale the towels and 
 motioned toward a washstand in the corner of the room. 
 " Did you say Markel Theodore Markel ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Jimmie Dale, examining his wound criti 
 cally. 
 
 " You had trouble a fight with him ? Is he he dead ? " 
 
 " No," said Jimmie Dale, smiling a little grimly. " He s 
 prettly badly hurt, though, I imagine but not in a phys 
 ical way." 
 
 " Strange ! " whispered Wilbur, in a numbed tone to him 
 self ; and he went back and sank down in his desk chair. 
 " Strange that you should speak of Markel strange that 
 you should have come here to-night ! "
 
 82 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 Jimmie Dale did not answer. He glanced now and then 
 at the other, as he deftly dressed his wrist the man seemed 
 on the verge of collapse, on the verge of a nervous break 
 down. Jimmie Dale swore softly to himself. Wilbur was 
 too old a man to be called upon to stand against the trouble 
 and anxiety that was mirrored in the misery in his face, that 
 had brought him to the point of taking his own life. 
 
 Jimmie Dale put on his coat again, walked over to the 
 desk, and picked up the phone. 
 
 "If I may?" he inquired courteously and confided a 
 number to the mouthpiece of the instrument. 
 
 There was a moment s wait, during which Wilbur, in a 
 desperate sort of way, seemed to be trying to rally himself, 
 to piece together a puzzle, as it were ; and for the first time 
 he appeared to take a personal interest in the masked fig 
 ure that leaned against his desk. He kept passing his hands 
 across his eyes, staring at Jimmie Dale. 
 
 Then Jimmie Dale spoke into the phone. 
 
 "Morning Nezvs-Argus office? Mr. Carruthers, please. 
 Thank you." 
 
 Another wait then Jimmie Dale s voice changed its pitch 
 and register to a pleasant and natural, though quite unrecog 
 nisable bass. 
 
 " Mr. Carruthers? Yes. I thought it might interest you 
 to know that Mr. Theodore Markel purchased a very val 
 uable diamond necklace this afternoon. . . . Oh, you 
 knew that, did you ? Well, so much the better ; you ll be all 
 the more keenly interested to know that it is no longer in 
 his possession. ... I beg pardon? Oh, yes, I quite 
 forgot this is the Gray Seal speaking. . . . Yes. . . . 
 The Gray Seal. ... I have just come from Mr. Mar 
 ket s country house, and if you hurry a man out there you 
 ought to be able to give the public an exclusive bit of news, 
 a scoop, I believe you call it you see, Mr. Carruthers, I am 
 not ungratful for, I might say, the eulogistic manner in 
 which the Morning Ncivs-Argus treated me in that last af 
 fair, and I trust I shall be able to do you many more favours 
 I am deeply in your debt. And, oh, yes, tell your reporter
 
 THE MOTHER LODE 83 
 
 not to overlook the detail of Mr. Markel in his pajamas and 
 dressing gown tied to a tree in his park Mr. Markel might 
 be inclined to be reticent on that point, and it would be a 
 pity to deprive the public of any er atmosphere in the 
 story, you know. . . . What? . . . No; I am afraid 
 Mr. Markel s phone is er out of order. . . . Yes. 
 . . . And, by the way, speaking of phones, Mr. Car- 
 ruthers, between gentlemen, I know you will make no effort 
 under the circumstances to discover the number I am calling 
 from. Good-night, Mr. Carruthers." Jimmie Dale hung 
 the receiver abruptly on the hook. 
 
 " You see," said Jimmie Dale, turning to Wilbur and 
 then he stopped. The man was on his feet, swaying there, 
 his face positively gray. 
 
 " My God ! " Wilbur burst out. " What have you done? 
 A thousand times better if I had shot myself, as I would 
 have done in another moment if you had not come in. I 
 was only ruined then I am disgraced now. You have 
 robbed Markel s safe 7 am the one man in the world who 
 would have a reason above all others for doing that and 
 Markel knows it. He will accuse me of it. He can prove I 
 had a motive. I have not been home to-night. Nobody 
 knows I am here. I cannot prove an alibi. What have you 
 done!" 
 
 " Really," said Jimmie Dale, almost plaintively, swinging 
 himself up on the corner of the desk and taking the cash 
 box on his knee, " really, you are alarming yourself un 
 necessarily. I " 
 
 But Wilbur stopped him. " You don t know what you are 
 talking about ! " Wilbur cried out, in a choked way ; then, 
 his voice steadying, he rushed on : " Listen ! I am a ruined 
 man, absolutely ruined. And Markel has ruined me I did 
 not see through his trick until too late. Listen ! For years, 
 as a mining engineer, I made a good salary and I saved it. 
 Two years ago I had nearly seventy thousand dollars it rep 
 resented my life work. I bought an abandoned mine in 
 Alaska for next to nothing I was certain it was rich. A 
 wan by the name of Thurl, Jason T. Thurl, another mining
 
 84. THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIS DALE 
 
 engineer, a steamer acquaintance, was out there at the time 
 he was a partner of Markel s, though I didn t know it 
 then. I started to work the mine. It didn t pan out. I 
 dropped nearly every cent. Then I struck a small vein that 
 temporarily recouped me, and supplied the necessary funds 
 with which to go ahead for a while. Thurl, who had tried 
 to buy the mine out from under my option in the first place, 
 repeatedly then tried to buy it from me at a ridiculous fig 
 ure. I refused. He persisted. I refused I was confident, 
 I knew I had one of the richest properties in Alaska." 
 
 Wilbur paused. A little row of glistening drops had 
 gathered on his forehead. Jimmie Dale, balancing Markel s 
 cash box on one knee, drummed softly with his finger tips 
 on the cover. 
 
 " The vein petered out," Wilbur went on. " But I was 
 still confident. I sank all the proceeds of the first strike 
 and sank them fast, for unaccountable accidents that crip 
 pled me both financially and in the progress of the work be 
 gan to happen." Wilbur flung out his hands impotently. 
 " Oh, it s a long story too long to tell. Thurl was at the 
 bottom of those accidents. He knew as well as I did that 
 the mire was rich better than I did, for that matter, for we 
 discovered before we ran him out of Alaska that he had made 
 secret borings on the property. But what I did not know 
 until a few hours ago was that he had actually uncovered 
 what we uncovered only yesterday the mother lode. He 
 was driving me as fast as he could into the last ditch for 
 Markel. I didn t know until yesterday that Markel had any 
 thing to do with it. I struggled on out there, hoping every 
 day to open a new vein. I raised money on everything I 
 had, except my insurance and the mine and sank it in the 
 mine. No one out there would advance me anything on a 
 property that looked like a failure, that had once already 
 been abandoned. I have always kept an office here, and I 
 came back East with the idea of raising something on my 
 insurance. Markel, quite by haphazard as I then thought, 
 was introduced to me just before we left San Francisco on 
 way to New York. On the run across the continent
 
 THE MOTHER LODE 85 
 
 we became very friendly. Naturally, I told him my story. 
 He played sympathetic good fellow, and offered to lend me 
 fifty thousand dollars on a demand note. I did not want 
 to be involved for a cent more than was necessary, and, as 
 I said, I hoped from day to day to make another strike. I 
 refused to take more than ten thousand. I remember now 
 that he seemed strangely disappointed." 
 
 Again Wilbur stopped. He swept the moisture from his 
 forehead and his fist, clenched, came down upon the desk. 
 
 " You see the game ! " there was bitter anger in his voice 
 now. " You see the game ! He wanted to get me in deep 
 enough so that I couldn t wriggle out, deeper than ten thou 
 sand that I could get at any time on my insurance, he wanted 
 me where I couldn t get away and he got me. The first ten 
 thousand wasn t enough. I went to him for a second, a 
 third, a fourth, a fifth hoping always that each would be 
 the last. Each time a new note, a demand note for the total 
 amount, was made, cancelling the former one. I didn t know 
 his game, didn t suspect it I blessed God for giving me such 
 a friend until this, or, rather, yesterday afternoon, when I 
 received a telegram from my manager at the mine saying that 
 he had struck what looked like a very rich vein the mother 
 lode. And " Wilbur s fist curled until the knuckles were 
 like ivory in their whiteness " he added in the telegram that 
 Thurl had wired the news of the strike to a man in New 
 York by the name of Market. Do you see? I hadn t had 
 the telegram five minutes, when a messenger brought me a 
 letter from Markel curtly informing me that I would have 
 to meet my note to-morrow morning. I can t meet it. He 
 knew I couldn t. With wealth in sight I m wiped out. A 
 demand note, a call loan, do you understand and with a 
 few months in which to develop the new vein I could pay 
 it readily. As it is I default the note Markel attaches all 
 I have left, which is the mine. The mine is sold to satisfy 
 my indebtedness. Markel buys it in legally, upheld by the 
 law and acquires, robs me of it, and " 
 
 " And so, " said Jimmie Dale musingly, " you were goin* 
 fc* shoot yourself ? "
 
 86 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 Wilbur straightened up, and there was something aksn 
 to pathetic grandeur in the set of the old shoulders as they 
 squared back. 
 
 " Yes ! " he said, in a low voice. " And shall I tell you 
 why? Even if, which is not likely, there was something re 
 verting to me over the purchase price, it would be a paltry 
 thing compared with the mine. I have a wife and children. 
 If I have worked for them all my life, could I stand back now 
 at the last and see them robbed of their inheritance by a 
 black-hearted scoundrel when I could still lift a hand to 
 prevent it! I had one way left. What is my life? I am too 
 old a man to cling to it where they are concerned. I have 
 referred to my insurance several times. I have always car 
 ried heavy insurance " he smiled a little curious, mirthless 
 smile " that has no suicide clause." He swept his hand over 
 the desk, indicating the papers scattered there. " I have 
 worked late to-night getting my affairs in order. My total 
 insurance is fifty-two thousand dollars, though I couldn t 
 borroiv anywhere near the full amount on it but at my 
 death, paid in full, it would satisfy the note. My executors, 
 by instruction would pay the note and no dollar from the 
 mine, no single grain of gold, not an ounce of quartz, would 
 Markel ever get his hands on, and my wife and children 
 would be saved. That is " 
 
 His words ended abruptly with a little gasp. Jimtnie 
 Dale had opened the cash box and was dangling the necklace 
 under the light a stream of fiery, flashing, sparkling gems. 
 
 Then Wilbur spoke again, a hard, bitter note in his voice, 
 pointing his hand at the necklace. 
 
 " But now, on top of everything, you have brought me dis 
 grace because you broke into his safe to-night for that! 
 He would and will accuse me. I have heard of you the 
 Gray Seal you have done a pitiful night s work in your 
 greed for that thing there." 
 
 "For this?" Jimmie Dale smiled ironically, holding the 
 necklace up. Then he shook his head. " I didn t break into 
 Market s safe for this it wouldn t have been worth while. 
 It s only pas*-<" "
 
 THE MOTHER LODE 87 
 
 " Paste ! " exclaimed Wilbur, in a slow way. 
 
 " Paste," said Jimmie Dale placidly, dropping the neck 
 lace back into its case. " Quite in keeping with Markel, 
 isn t it to make a sensation on the cheap ? " 
 
 " But that doesn t change matters ! " Wilbur cried out 
 sharply, after a numbed instant s pause. " You still broke 
 into the safe, even if you didn t know then that the necklace 
 was paste." 
 
 " Ah, but, you see I did know then," said Jimmie Dale 
 softly. " I am really you must take my word for it a 
 very good judge of stones, and I had er seen these be 
 fore." 
 
 Wilbur stared bewildered, confused. 
 
 " Then why what was it that " 
 
 " A paper," said Jimmie Dale, with a little chuckle and 
 produced it from the cash box. " It reads like this : On 
 demand, I promise to pay " 
 
 "My note ! " It came in a great, surging cry from Wil 
 bur ; and he strained forward to read it. 
 
 " Of course," said Jimmie Dale. " Of course your note. 
 Did you think that I had just happened to drop in on you? 
 Now, then, see here, you just buck up, and er smile. 
 There isn t even a possibility of you being accused of the 
 theft. In the first place, Markel saw quite enough of me to 
 know that it wasn t you. Secondly, neither Markel nor any 
 one else would ever dream that the break was made for any 
 thing else but the necklace, with which you have no connec 
 tion the papers were in the cash box and were just taken 
 along with it. Don t you see? And, besides, the police, 
 with my very good friend, Carruthers at their elbows, will 
 see very thoroughly to it that the Gray Seal gets full and 
 ample credit for the crime. But " Jimmie Dale pulled out 
 his watch, and yawned under his mask " it s getting to be 
 an unconscionable hour and you ve still a letter to write." 
 
 " A letter ? " Wilbur s voice was broken, his lips quiver 
 ing. 
 
 " To Markel," said Jimmie Dale pleasantly. " Write him 
 in reply to his letter of the afternoon, and post it before you
 
 88 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 leave here just as though you had written it at once, 
 promptly, on receipt of his. He will still get it on the morn 
 ing delivery. State that you will take up the note immedi 
 ately on presentation at whatever bank he chooses to name. 
 That s all. Seeing that he hasn t got it, he can t very well 
 present it can he? Eventually, having er no use for 
 fake diamonds, I shall return the necklace, together with 
 the papers in his cash box here including your note." 
 
 " Eventually ? " Unccmprehendingly, stumblingly, Wil 
 bur repeated the word. 
 
 " In a month or two or three, as the case may be," ex 
 plained Jimmie Dale brightly. " Whenever you insert a 
 personal in the News-Argus to the effect that the mother 
 lode has given you the cash to meet it." He replaced the note 
 in the cash box, slipped down to his feet from the desk - 
 and then he choked a little. Wilbur, the tears streaming 
 down his face, unable to speak, was holding out his hands 
 to Jimmie Dale. " I er good-night ! " said Jimmie Dale 
 hurriedly and stepped quickly from the room. 
 
 Halfway down the first flight of stairs he paused. Steps, 
 running after him, sounded along the corridor above; and 
 then Wilbur s voice. 
 
 " Don t go not yet," cried the old man. " I don t under 
 stand. How did you know who told you about the note ? " 
 
 Jimmie Dale did not answer he went on noiselessly down 
 the stairs. His mask was off now, and his lips curved into a 
 strange little smile. 
 
 44 1 wish 1 knew," said Jimmie Dale wistfully to himself.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE COUNTERFEIT FIVE 
 
 TT was still early in the evening, but a little after nine 
 * o clock. The Fifth Avenue bus wended its way, jounc 
 ing its patrons, particularly those on the top seats, across 
 town, and turned into Riverside Drive. A short distance 
 behind the bus, a limousine rolled down the cross street 
 leisurely, silently. 
 
 As the lights of passing craft on the Hudson and 
 a myriad scintillating, luminous points dotting the west 
 shore came into view, Jimmie Dale rose impulsively from 
 his seat on the top of the bus, descended the little circular 
 iron ladder at the rear, and dropped off into the street. It 
 was only a few blocks farther to his residence on the Drive, 
 and the night was well worth the walk ; besides, restless, dis 
 turbed, and perplexed in mind, the walk appealed to him. 
 
 He stepped across to the sidewalk and proceeded slowly 
 along. A month had gone by and he had not heard a word 
 from her. The break on West Broadway, the murder 
 of Metzer in Moriarty s gambling hell, the theft of Markel s 
 diamond necklace had followed each other in quick suc 
 cession and then this month of utter silence, with no sign 
 of her, as though indeed she had never existed. 
 
 But it was not this temporary silence on her part that 
 troubled Jimmie Dale now. In the years that he had 
 worked with this unknown, mysterious accomplice of his 
 whom he had never seen, there had been longer intervals 
 than a bare month in which he had heard nothing from her 
 it was not that. It was the failure, total, absolute, and com 
 plete, that was the only result for the month of ceaseless, 
 unremitting, doggedly-expended effort, even as it had been 
 
 89
 
 90 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 the result many times before, in in attempt to solve the 
 enigma that was so intimate and vital a factor in his own 
 life. 
 
 If he might lay any claims to cleverness, his resource 
 fulness, at least, he was forced *o admit, was no match for 
 hers. She carne, she went without being seen and behind 
 her remained, instead of clew* to her identity, only an amaz 
 ing, intangible mystery, that left him at times appalled and 
 dismayed. How did she know about those conditions in 
 West Broadway, how did *he know about Metzer s murder, 
 how did she know about Markel and Wilbur how did she 
 know about a hundred other affairs of the same sort that had 
 happened since that night, years ago now, when out of pure 
 adventure he had tampered with Marx s, the jeweller s 
 strong room in Maiden Lane, and she had, mysteriously then, 
 too, solved his identity, discovered him to be the Gray Seal ? 
 Jimmie Dale, wrapped up in his own thoughts, entirely 
 oblivious to his surroundings, traversed another block. 
 There had never been since the world began, and there would 
 never be again, *o singular and bizarre a partnership as this 
 of hers and his. He, Jimmie Dale, with his strange double 
 life, one of New York s young bachelor millionaires, one 
 whose socia) status was unquestioned ; and she, who who 
 what? That was just it! Who what? W T hat was she? 
 W T hat was her name? What one personal, intimate thing 
 did he know about her? And what was to be the end? 
 Not that he would have severed his association with her 
 not for worlds ! though every time, that, by some new and 
 curious method, one of her letters found its way into his 
 hands, outlining some fresh coup for him to execute, his 
 peril and danger of discovery was increased in staggering 
 ratio. To-day, the police hunted the Gray Seal as they 
 hunted a mad dog ; the papers stormed and raved against 
 him ; in every detective bureau of two continents he was 
 catalogued as the most notorious criminal of the age and 
 yet. strange paradox, no single crime had ever been com- 
 rakted! 
 
 Jimmie Dale s strong, fine- featured face lighted up
 
 THE COUNTERFEIT FIVE 91 
 
 Crime! Thanks to her, there were those who blessed the 
 name of the Gray Seal, those into whose lives had come joy, 
 relief from misery, escapj from death even and their bless 
 ings were worth a thousandfold the risk and peril of dis 
 aster that threatened him at every minute of the day. 
 
 " Thank God for her ! " murmured Jimmie Dale softly. 
 " But but if I could only find her, see her, know who she 
 is, talk to her, and hear her voice ! " Then he smiled a little 
 wanly. " It s been a pretty tough month and nothing to 
 show for it ! " 
 
 It had ! It had been one of the hardest months through 
 "vhich Jimmie Dale had ever lived. The St. James, that most 
 exclusive club, his favourite haunt, had seen nothing of him ; 
 the easel in his den, that was his hobby, had been untouched ; 
 there had been days even when he had not crossed the thresh 
 old of his home. Every resource at his command he had 
 called into play in an effort to solve the mystery. For nearly 
 :he entire month, following first this lead and then that, he 
 nad lived in the one disguise that he felt confident she knew 
 nothing of that was, or, rather, had become, almost a dual 
 personality with him. From the Sanctuary, that miserable 
 and disreputable room in a tenement on the East Side, a 
 tenement that had three separate means of entrance and exit, 
 he had emerged day after day as Larry the Bat, a character 
 as well known and as well liked in the exclusive circles of the 
 underworld as was Jimmie Dale in the most exclusive strata 
 of New York s society and fashion. And it had been use 
 less all useless. Through his own endeavours, through the 
 help of his friends of the underworld, the lives of half a 
 dozen men, Bert Hagan s on West Broadway, for instance, 
 Markel s, and others , had been laid bare to the last shred, 
 but nowhere could be found the one vital point that linked 
 their lives with hers, that would account for her intimate 
 knowledge of them, and so furnish him with the clew that 
 would then with certainty lead him to a solution of her iden= 
 tity. 
 
 It was baffling, puzzling, unbelievable, bordering, indeed, 
 ac. the miraculous herself, everything about her, ner act*.
 
 92 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 her methods, her cleverness, intangible in one sense, were 
 terrifically real in another. Jimmie Dale shook his head. 
 The miraculous and this practical, everyday life were wide 
 and far apart. There was nothing miraculous about it it 
 was only that the key to it was, so far, beyond his reach. 
 
 And then suddenly Jimmie Dale shrugged his shoulders in 
 consonance with a whimsical change in both mood anc* 
 thought. 
 
 " Larry the Bat, is a hard taskmaster ! " he muttered face 
 tiously. " I m afraid I m not very presentable this evening 
 no bath this morning, and no shave, and, after nearly a 
 month of make-up, that beastly grease paint gets into the 
 skin creases in a most intimate way." He chuckled as the 
 thought of old Jason, his butler, came to him. " I saw Jason, 
 torn between two conflicting emotions, shaking his head over 
 the black circles under my eyes last night he didn t know 
 whether to worry over the first signs of a galloping de 
 cline, or break his heart at witnessing the young master he 
 had dandled on his knees going to the damnation bowwows 
 and turning into a confirmed roue! I guess I ll have to 
 mind myself, though. Even Carruthers detached his mind 
 far enough from his editorial desk and the hope of ex 
 clusively publishing the news of the Gray Seal s capture in 
 the Morning News-Argus, to tell me I was looking seedy. 
 It s wonderful the way a little paint will metamorphose a 
 man ! Well, anyway, here s for a good hot ub to-night, and 
 a fresh start ! " 
 
 He quickened his pace. There were still three blocks to 
 go, and here was no hurrying, jostling crowd to impede his 
 progress ; indeed, as far as he could see up the Drive, there 
 was not a pedestrian in sight. And then, as he walked, in 
 voluntarily, insistently, his mind harked back into the old 
 groove again. 
 
 " I ve tried to picture her," said Jimmie Pale softly to 
 himself. " I ve tried to picture her a hundred, yes, a thou 
 sand times, and 
 
 A bus, rumbling cityward, went by him, squeaking, creak 
 ing, and rattling in its uneasy joints and out of the noise
 
 THE COUNTERFEIT FIVE & 
 
 Almost at his elbow it seemed, a voice spoke his name and 
 in that instant intuitively he knew, and it thrilled him, 
 stopped the beat of his heart, as, dulcet, soft, clear as the 
 note of a silver bell it fell and only one word : 
 
 " Jimmie ! " 
 
 He whirled around. A limousine, wheels just grazing 
 the curb, was gliding slowly and silently past him, and from 
 the window a woman s arm, white-gloved and dainty, was 
 extended, and from the fingers to the pavement fluttered an 
 envelope and the car leaped forward. 
 
 For the fraction of a second, Jimmie Dale stood dazed, 
 immovable, a gamut of emotions, surprise, fierce exulta 
 tion, amazement, a strange joy, a mighty uplift, swirling 
 upon him and then, snatching up the envelope from the 
 ground, he sprang out into the road after the car. It was 
 the one chance he had ever had, the one chance she had ever 
 given him, and he had seen a white-gloved arm ! He could 
 not reach the car, it was speeding away from him like an 
 arrow now, but there was something else that would do just 
 as well, something that with all her cleverness she had over 
 looked the car s number dangling on the rear axle, the rays 
 of the little lamp playing on the enamelled surface of the 
 plate ! Gasping, panting, he held his own for a yard or more, 
 and there floated back to him a little silvery laugh from the 
 body of the limousine, and then Jimmie Dale laughed, too, 
 and stopped it was No. 15,836. 
 
 He stood and watched the car disappear up the Drive. 
 What delicious irony ! A month of gruelling, ceaseless toil 
 that had been vain, futile, useless and the key, when he 
 was not looking for it, unexpectedly, through no effort of his, 
 was thrust into his hand No. 15,836! 
 
 Jimmie Dale, the gently ironic smile still on his lips, those 
 slim, supersensitive fingers of his subconsciously noting that 
 the texture of the envelope was the same as she always used, 
 retraced his steps to the sidewalk. 
 
 " Number fifteen thousand eight hundred and thirty-six,* 
 said Jimmie Dale aloud and halted at the curb as though 
 rooted to the spot. It sounded strangely familiar, that num~
 
 94 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 ber ! He repeated it over again slowly : " One-five-eight- 
 three-six." And the smile left his lips, and upon his fact 
 came the look of a chastened child. She had used a duplicate 
 plate! Fifteen thousand eight hundred and thirty-six was 
 the number of one of his own cars his own particular 
 runabout ! 
 
 For a moment longer he stood there, undecided whether 
 to laugh or swear, and then his eyes fastened mechanically 
 on the envelope he was twirling in his fingers. Here, at 
 least, was something that was not elusive ; that, on the con 
 trary, as a hundred others in the past had done, outlined 
 probably a grim night s work ahead for the Gray Seal ! And, 
 if it were as those others had been, every minute from the 
 moment of its receipt was precious time. He stepped un 
 der the nearest street light, and tore the envelope open. 
 
 " Dear Philanthropic Crook," it began and then followed 
 two closely written pages. Jimmie Dale read them, his lips 
 growing gradually tighter, a smouldering light creeping into 
 his dark eyes, and once he emitted a short, low whistle of 
 consternation that was at the end, as he read the post 
 script that was heavily underscored : " Work quickly. They 
 will raid to-night. Be careful. Look out for Kline, he is 
 the sharpest man in the United States secret service." 
 
 For a brief instant longer, Jimmie Dale stood under th* 
 street lamp, his mind in a lightning-quick way cataloguing 
 every point in her letter, viewing every point from a myriad 
 angles, constructing, devising, mapping out a plan to dove 
 tail into them and then Jimmie Dale swung on a downtown 
 bus. There was neither time nor occasion to go home now 
 that marvellous little kit of burglar s tools that peeped from 
 their tiny pockets in that curious leather undervest, and that 
 reposed now in the safe in his den, would be useless to him 
 to-night ; besides, in the breast pocket of his coat, neatly 
 folded, was a black silk mask, and, relics of his role of 
 Larry the Bat, an automatic revolver, an electric flashlight, 
 a steel jimmy, and a bunch of skeleton keys, were dis 
 tributed among the other pockets of his smart tweed 
 suit,
 
 THE COUNTERFEIT FIVE 96 
 
 Jimmie Dale changed from the bus to the subway, leav. 
 ig behind him, strewn over many blocks, the tiny and 
 minute fragments into which he had torn her letter; at 
 Astor Place he left the subway, walked to Broadway, turned 
 uptown for a block to Eighth Street, then along Eighth 
 Street almost to Sixth Avenue and stopped. 
 
 A rather shabby shop, a pitiful sort of a place, display 
 ing in its window a heterogeneous conglomeration of cheap 
 odds and ends, ink bottles, candy, pencils, cigarettes, pens, 
 toys, writing pads, marbles, and a multitude of other small 
 wares, confronted him. Within, a little, old, sweet-faced, 
 gray-haired woman stood behind the counter, pottering over 
 the rearrangement of some articles on the shelves. 
 
 " My word ! " said Jimmie Dale softly to himself. " You 
 wouldn t believe it, would you ! And I ve always wondered 
 how these little stores managed to make both ends meet. 
 Think of that old soul making fifteen or twenty thousand 
 dollars from a layout like this even it it has taken he? A 
 lifetime!" 
 
 Jimmie Dale had halted nonchalantly and unconcernedly 
 by the curb, not too near the window, busied apparently in 
 an effort to light a refractory cigarette ; and then, about to 
 enter the store, he gazed aimlessly across the street for a 
 moment instead. A man came briskly around the corner 
 from Sixth Avenue, opened the store door, and went in. 
 
 Jimmie Dale drew back a little, and turned his head again 
 as the door closed and a sudden, quick, alert, and startled 
 look spread over his face. 
 
 The man who had entered bent over the counter and spoke 
 to the old lady. She seemed to listen with a dawning terror 
 creeping over her features, and then her hands went piteously 
 to the thin hair behind her ears. The man motioned toward a 
 door at the rear of the store. She hesitated, then came out 
 from behind the counter, and swayed a little as though her 
 limbs would not support her weight. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s lips thinned. 
 
 " I m afraid," he muttered slowly, " I m afraid that I m 
 too late even now." And then, as she came to the door and
 
 96 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 turned the key on the inside : " Pray Heaven she doesn t 
 turn the light out or somebody might think I was trying 
 to break in ! " 
 
 But in that respect Jimmie Dale s fears were groundless. 
 She did not turn out either of the gas jets that lighted the 
 little shop ; instead, in a faltering, reluctant sort of manner, 
 she led the way directly through the door in the rear, and the 
 man followed her. 
 
 The shop was empty and Jimmie Dale was standing 
 against the door on the outside. His position was perfectly 
 natural a hundred passers-by would have noted nothing but 
 a most commonplace occurrence a man in the act of enter 
 ing a store. And, if he appeared to fumble and have trouble 
 with the latch, what of it ! Jimmie Dale, however, was not 
 fumbling hidden by his back that was turned to the street, 
 those wonderful fingers of his, in whose tips seemed em 
 bodied and concentrated every one of the human senses, were 
 working quickly, surely, accurately, without so much as the 
 wasted movement of a single muscle. 
 
 A faint tinkle and the key within fell from the lock to 
 the floor. A faint click and the bolt of the lock slipped 
 back. Jimmie Dale restored the skeleton keys and a little 
 steel instrument that accompanied them to his pocket and 
 quietly opened the door. He stepped inside, picked up the 
 key from the floor, inserted it in the lock, closed the door 
 behind him, and locked it again. 
 
 " To guard against interruption," observed Jimmie Dale, 
 a little quizzically. 
 
 He was, perhaps, thirty seconds behind the others. He 
 crossed the shop noiselessly, cautiously, and passed through 
 the door at the rear. It opened into a short passage that, 
 after a few feet, gave on a sort of corridor at right angles 
 and down this latter, facing him, at the end, the door of a 
 lighted room was open, and he could see the figure of the 
 man who had entered the shop, back turned, standing on the 
 threshold. Voices, indistinct, came to him. 
 
 The corridor itself was dark ; and Jimmie Dale, satisfied 
 ihat he was fairly safe from observation, stole softly for
 
 THE COUNTERFEIT FIVE 97 
 
 ward. He passed two doors on his left and the curiou* 
 arrangement of the building that had puzzled him tor a 
 moment became clear. The store made the front of an old 
 tenement building, with apartments above, and the rear of 
 the store was a sort of apartment, too the old lady s living 
 quarters. 
 
 Step by step, testing each one against a possible creaking 
 of the floor, Jimmie Dale moved forward, keeping close up 
 against one wall. The man passed on into the room and 
 now Jimmie Dale could distinguish every word that was being 
 spoken ; and, crouched up, in the dark corridor, in the angle 
 of the wall and the door jamb itself, could see plainly enough 
 into the room beyond. Jimmie Dale s jaw crept out a little. 
 
 A young man, gaunt, pale, wrapped in blankets, half sat, 
 half reclined in an invalid s chair ; the old lady, on her knees r 
 the tears streaming down her face, had her arms around the 
 sick man s neck ; while the other man, apparently upset at 
 the scene, tugged vigorously at long, gray mustaches. 
 
 " Sammy ! Sammy ! " sobbed the woman piteously. " Say 
 you didn t do it, Sammy say you didn t do it ! " 
 
 " Look here, Mrs. Matthews," said the man with the gray 
 mustaches gently, " now don t you go to making things 
 any harder. I ve got to do my duty just the same, and take 
 your son." 
 
 The young man, a hectic flush beginning to burn on hia 
 cheeks, gazed wildly from one to the other. 
 
 " What what is it? " he cried out. 
 
 The man threw back his coat and displayed a badge on hia 
 vest. 
 
 " I m Kline of the secret service," he said gravely. " I m 
 sorry, Sammy, but I want you for that little job in Washing 
 ton at the bureau before you left on sick leave ! " 
 
 Sammy Matthews struggled away from his mother s arms, 
 pulled himself forward in his jhair and his tongue licked 
 dry lips. 
 
 " What what job ? " he whispered thickly. 
 
 " You know, don t you ? " the other answered steadily, 
 He took a large, flat pocketbook from his pocket, opened
 
 98 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 it, and took out a five-dollar bill. He held this before the 
 sick man s eyes, but just out of reach, one finger silently in 
 dicating the lower left-hand corner. 
 
 Matthews stared at it for a moment, and the hectic flush 
 faded to a grayish pallor, and a queer, impotent sound gur 
 gled in his throat. 
 
 " I see you recognise it," said the other quietly. " It s 
 open and shut, Sammy. That little imperfection in the 
 plate s got you, my boy." 
 
 " Sammy ! Sammy ! " sobbed the woman again. " Sam 
 my, say you didn t do it ! " 
 
 " It s a lie ! " said Matthews hoarsely. " It s a lie ! That 
 plate was condemned in the bureau for that imperfection^ 
 condemned and destroyed." 
 
 " Condemned to be destroyed," corrected the other, with 
 out raising his voice. " There s a little difference there, 
 Sammy about twenty years difference in the Federal pen. 
 But it wasn t destroyed ; this note was printed from it by one 
 of the slickest gangs of counterfeiters in the United States 
 but I don t need to tell you that, I guess you know who they 
 are. I ve been after them a long time, and I ve got them 
 now, just as tight as I ve got you. Instead of destroying that 
 plate, you stole it, and disposed of it to the gang. How much 
 did they give you ? " 
 
 Matthews face seemed to hold a dumb horror, and his 
 fingers picked at the arms of the chair. His mother had 
 moved from beside him now, and both her hands were pat 
 ting at the man s sleeve in a pitiful way, while again and 
 again she tried to speak, but no words would come. 
 
 " It s a lie ! " said Matthews again, in a colourless, mechani 
 cal way. 
 
 The man glanced at Mrs. Matthews as he put the five- 
 dollar note back into his pocket, seemed to choke a little, 
 shook his head, and all trace of the official sternness that had 
 crept into his voice disappeared. 
 
 " It s no good," he said in a low tone. " Don t do that, 
 Mrs. Matthews, I ve got to do my duty." He leaned a little 
 toward the chair. " It s dead to rights, Sammy. You might
 
 THE COUNTERFEIT FIVE 99 
 
 AS well make a clean breast of it. It was up to you and Al 
 Gregor to see that the plate was destroyed. It wasn t des- 
 troyed ; instead, it shows up in the hands of a gang of coun 
 terfeiters that I ve been watching for months. Furthermore, 
 I ve got the plate itself. And finally, though I haven t 
 placed him under arrest yet for fear you might hear of it 
 before I wanted you to and make a get-away, I ve got Al 
 Gregor where I can put my hands on him, and I ve got his 
 confession that you and he worked the game between you 
 to get that plate out of the bureau and dispose of it to the 
 gang." 
 
 " Oh, my God ! " it came in a wild cry from the sick 
 man, and in a desperate, lurching way he struggled up to 
 tiis feet. " Al Gregor said that ? Then then I m done ! " 
 He clutched at his temples. " But it s not true it s not true! 
 If the plate was stolen, and it must have been stolen, or that 
 note wouldn t have been found, it was Al Gregor who stole 
 it I didn t, I tell you ! I knew nothing of it, except that h^ 
 and I were responsible for it and and I left it to hi-*i 
 that s the only way I m to blame. He s caught, and he s 
 trying to get out of it with a light sentence by pretending 
 to turn State s evidence, but but I ll fight him he can t 
 prove it it s only his word against mine, and " 
 
 The other shook his head again. 
 
 " It s no good, Sammy," he said, a touch of sternness back 
 in his tones again. " I told you it was open and shut. It s 
 not only Al Gregor. One of the gang got weak knees when 
 I got him where I wanted him the other night, and he swears 
 that you are the one who delivered the plate to them. Be- 
 iween him and Gregor and what I know myself, I ve got 
 *vidence enough for any jury against every one of the rest 
 if you." 
 
 Horror, fear, helplessness seemed to mingle in the sick 
 nan s staring eyes, and he swayed unsteadily upon his feet. 
 
 " I m innocent ! " he screamed out. " But I m caught, I m 
 flight in a net, and I can t get out they lied to you but 
 ao one will believe it any more than you do and and it 
 means twenty years for me oh, God! twenty years,
 
 100 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 and " His hands went wriggling to his temples again< 
 
 and he toppled back in a faint into the chair. 
 
 " You ve killed him ! You ve killed my boy ! " the old 
 lady shrieked out piteously, and flung herself toward the 
 senseless figure. 
 
 The man jumped for the table across the room, on which 
 was a row of bottles, snatched one up, drew the cork, 
 smelled it, and ran back with the bottle. He poured a little 
 of the contents into his cupped hand, held it under young 
 Matthews nostrils, and pushed the bottle into Mrs. Mat 
 thews hands. 
 
 " Bathe his forehead with this, Mrs. Matthews," he 
 directed reassuringly. " He ll be all right again in a moment. 
 There, see he s coming around now." 
 
 There was a long, fluttering sigh, and Matthews opened 
 his eyes ; then a moment s silence ; and then he spoke, with 
 an effort, with long pauses between the words : 
 
 " Am I to go now ? " 
 
 The words seemed to ring absolute terror in the old lady s 
 ears. She turned, and dropped to her knees on the floor. 
 
 " Mr. Kline, Mr. Kline," she sobbed out, " oh, for God s 
 ioe, don t take him! Let him off, let him go! He s my 
 boy all I ve got! You ve got a mother, haven t you ? You 
 
 know " The tears were streaming down the sweet, old 
 
 face again. " Oh, won t you, for God s dear name, won t 
 you let him go? Won t " 
 
 " Stop ! " the man cried huskily. He was mopping at his 
 face with his handkerchief. " I thought I was case- 
 hardened, I ought to be but I guess I m not. But I ve got 
 to do my duty. You re only making it worse for Sammy 
 there, as well as me." 
 
 Her arms were around his knees now, clinging there. 
 
 " Why can t you let him off ! " she pleaded hysterically. 
 " Why can t you ! Why can t you ! Nobody would know, 
 and I d do anything I d pay anything anything I ll give 
 you ten fifteen thousand dollars!" 
 
 " My poor woman," he said kindly, placing his hand on her 
 head, "you are talking wildly. Apart altogether from the
 
 THE COUNTERFEIT FIVE 101 
 
 question of duty, even if I succeeded in hushing the matter 
 up, I would probably at least be suspected and certainly dis 
 charged, and I have a family to support and if I were 
 caught I d get ten years in the Federal prison for it. I m 
 sorry for this ; I believe it s your boy s first offence, and if 
 I could let him off I would." 
 
 " But you can you can ! " she burst out, rocking on hei 
 knees, clinging tighter still to him, as though in a paroxysm 
 of fear that he might somehow elude her. " It will kill 
 him it will kill my boy. And you can save him ! And 
 even if they discharged you, what would that mean against 
 my boy s life ! You wouldn t suffer, your family wouldn t 
 suffer, I ll I ll take care of that perhaps I could raise a 
 little more than fifteen thousand but, oh, have pity, have 
 mercy don t take him away ! " 
 
 The man stared at her a moment, stared at the white face 
 on the reclining chair and passed his hand heavily across 
 his eyes. 
 
 " You will ! You will ! " It came in a great surging cry 
 of joy from the old lady. " You will oh, thank God, thank 
 God ! I can see it in your face ! " 
 
 " I I guess I m soft," he said huskily, and stooped and 
 raised Mrs. Matthews to her feet. " Don t cry any more. 
 It ll be all right it ll be all right. I ll I ll fix it up some 
 how. I haven t made any arrests yet, and well, I ll take 
 my chances. I ll get the plate and turn it over to you to 
 morrow, only only it s got to be destroyed in my 
 presence." 
 
 " Yes, yes ! " she cried, trying to smile through her tears 
 and then she flung her arms around her son s neck again. 
 " And when you come to-morrow, I ll be ready with the 
 money to do my share, too, and " 
 
 But Sammy Matthews shook his head. 
 
 " You re wrong, both of you," he said weakly. " You re 
 a white man, Kline. But destroying that plate won t save me. 
 The minute a single note printed from it shows up, they ll 
 know back there in Washington that the plate was stolen, 
 *nd "
 
 102 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 "No; you re safe enough there," the other interposed 
 heavily. " Knowing what was up, you don t think I d give 
 the gang a chance to get them into circulation, do you? I 
 got them all when I got the plate. And " he smiled a little 
 anxiously " I ll bring them here to be destroyed with the 
 plate. It would finish me now, as well as you, if one of them 
 ever showed up. Say," he said suddenly, with a catch in his 
 breath, " I I don t think I know what I m doing." 
 
 Mrs. Matthews reached out her hands to him. 
 
 " What can I say to you ! " she said brokenly. 
 What " 
 
 Jimmie Dale drew back along the wall. A little way 
 from the door he quickened his pace, still moving, however, 
 with extreme caution. They were still talking behind him 
 as he turned from the corridor into the passageway leading 
 to the store, and from there into the store itself. And 
 then suddenly, in spite of caution, his foot slipped on the bare 
 floor. It was not much just enough to cause his other 
 foot, poised tentatively in air, to come heavily down, 
 and a loud and complaining creak echoed from the 
 floor. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s jaws snapped like a steel trap. From down 
 the corridor came a sudden, excited exclamation in the little 
 old lady s voice, and then her steps sounded running toward 
 the store. In the fraction of a second Jimmie Dale was at 
 the front door. 
 
 " Clumsy, blundering fool ! " he whispered fiercely to him 
 self as he turned the key, opened the door noiselessly until 
 it was just ajar, and turned the key in the lock again, leav 
 ing the bolt protruding out. One step backward, and he was 
 rapping on the counter with his knuckles. " Isn t anybody 
 here?" he called out loudly. "Isn t any oh!" as Mrs. 
 Matthews appeared in the back doorway. " A package of 
 cigarettes, please." 
 
 She stared at him, a little frightened, her eyes red and 
 swollen with recent crying. 
 
 "How how did you get in here?" she asked tremth 
 lously.
 
 THE COUNTERFEIT FIVE 103 
 
 ** I beg your pardon ? " inquired Jimmie Dale, in polite 
 surprise. 
 
 " I I locked the door I m sure I did," she said, more 
 to herself than to Jimmie Dale, and hurried across the floor 
 to the door as she spoke. 
 
 Jimmie Dale, still politely curious, turned to watch her. 
 
 For a moment bewilderment and a puzzled look were in 
 her face and then a sort of surprised relief. 
 
 " I must have turned the key in the lock without shutting 
 the door tight," she explained, " for I knew I turned tht> 
 key." 
 
 Jimmie Dale bent forward to examine the lock and nod 
 ded. 
 
 " Yes," he agreed, with a smile. " I should say so.* 
 Then, gravely courteous : " I m sorry to have intruded." 
 
 " It is nothing," she answered ; and, evidently anxious tq 
 be rid of him, moved quickly around behind the counter. 
 "What kind of cigarettes do you want?" 
 
 " Egyptians any kind," said Jimmie Dale, laying a bill 
 on the counter. 
 
 He pocketed the cigarettes and his change, and turnev 
 to the door. 
 
 " Good -evening," he said pleasantly and went out. 
 
 Jimmie Dale smiled a little curiously, a little tolerantly. 
 As he started along the street, he heard the door of the littU 
 shop close with a sort of supercareful bang, the key turned, 
 and the latch rattle to try the door the little old lady was 
 bent on making no mistake a second time ! 
 
 And then the smile left Jimmie Dale s lips, his face grew 
 strained and serious, and he broke into a run down the block 
 to Sixth Avenue. Here he paused for an instant there was 
 the elevated, the surface cars which would be the quicker? 
 He looked up the avenue. There was no train coming ; the 
 nearest surface car was blocks away. He bit his lips in 
 vexation and then with a jump he was across the street 
 and hailing -a passing taxicab that his eyes had just lighted 
 on. 
 
 " Got a fare? " called Jimmie Dale.
 
 104 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 " No, sir/ answered the chauffeur, bumping his car to an 
 abrupt halt. 
 
 " Good ! " Jimmie Dale ran alongside, and yanked the 
 door open. " Do you know where the Palace Saloon on the 
 Bowery is ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir," replied the man. 
 
 Jimmie Dale held a ten-dollar bank note up before the 
 ihauffeur s eyes. 
 
 " Earn that m four minutes, then," he snapped and 
 sprang into the cab. 
 
 The taxicab swerved around on little better than two 
 wheels, started on a mad dash down the Avenue and Jim 
 mie Dale braced himself grimly in his seat. The cab swerved 
 again, tore across Waverly Place, circuited Washington 
 Square, crossed Broadway, and whirled finally into the tip 
 per end of the Bowery. 
 
 Jimmie Dale spoke once to himself plaintively. 
 
 " It s too bad I can t let old Carruthers in on this for a 
 Scoop with his precious Morning News-Argus but if I get 
 out of it alive myself, I ll do well ! Wonder if the day ll ever 
 come when he finds out that his very dear friend and old 
 college pal, Jimmie Dale, is the Gray Seal that he s turned 
 himself inside out for about four years now to catch, and 
 that he d trade his soul with the devil any time to lay hands 
 on ! Good old Carruthers ! The most puzzling, bewilder 
 ing, delightful crook in the annals of crime am I ? " 
 
 The cab drew up at the curb. Jimmie Dale sprang out, 
 shoved the bill into the chauffeur s hand, stepped quickly 
 across the sidewalk, and pushed his way through the swing 
 ing doors of the Palace Saloon. Inside leisurely and 
 nonchalantly, he walked down past the length of the bar to a 
 door at the rear. This opened into a passageway that led to 
 the side entrance of the saloon on the cross street. Jimmie 
 Dale emerged from the side entrance, crossed the street, re 
 traced his steps to the Bowery, crossed over, and walked 
 rapidly down that thoroughfare for two blocks. Here he 
 turned east into the cross street; and here, once more, hi 
 became leisurely and unhurried.
 
 THE COUNTERFEIT FIVE 105 
 
 " It s a strange coincidence, though possibly a very happy 
 cne," said Jimmie Dale, as he walked along, " that it should 
 be on the same street as the Sanctuary ah, this ought to 
 be the place ! " 
 
 An alleyway, corresponding to the one that flanked the 
 tenement where, as Larry the Bat, he had paid room rent 
 as a tenant for several years, in fact, the alleyway next above 
 k, and but a short block away, intersected the street, narrow, 
 Wack, and uninviting. Jimmie Dale, as he passed, peered 
 down its length. 
 
 " No light that s good ! " commented Jimmie Dale to him 
 self. Then : " Window opens on alleyway ten feet from 
 ground shoe store, Russian Jew, in basement go in front 
 door straight hallway room at end Russian Jew prob 
 ably accomplice be careful that he does not hear you mov 
 ing overhead " Jimmie Dale s mind, with that curious fac 
 ulty of his, was subconsciously repeating snatches from her 
 letter word for word, even as he noted the dimly lighted, 
 tintidy, and disorderly interior of what, from strings of 
 leather slippers that decorated the cellarlike entrance, was 
 evidently a cheap and shoddy shoe store in the basement of 
 the building. 
 
 The building itself was rickety and tumble-down, three 
 stories high, and given over undoubtedly to gregarious for* 
 eigners of the poorer class, a rabbit burrow, as it were, 
 having a multitude of roomers and lodgers. There was. 
 nothing ominous or even secretive about it up the short 
 flight of steps to the entrance, even the door hung care 
 lessly half open. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s slouch hat was pulled a little farther down 
 over his eyes as he mounted the steps and entered the hall 
 way. PTe listened a moment. A sort of subdued, querulous 
 hubbub seemed to hum through the place, as voices, men s, 
 women s, and children s, echoing out from their various 
 ;:ooms above, mingled together, and floated down the stair 
 ways in . discordant medley. Jimmie Dale stepped lightly 
 down tht length of the hall and listened again ; this time 
 intently, with his ear to the keyhole of the door that made
 
 106 THri ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 the end of the passage. There was not a sound from withm, 
 He tried the door, smiled a little as he reached for hit 
 keys, worked over the lock and straightened up suddenly 
 as his ear caught a descending step on the stairs. It was 
 two flights up, however and the door was unlocked now. 
 Jimmie Dale opened it, and, like a shadow, slipped inside; 
 and, as he locked the door behind him, smiled once more 
 the door lock was but a paltry makeshift at best, but inside 
 his fingers had touched a massive steel bolt that, when shot 
 home, would yield when the door itself yielded and not be 
 fore. Without moving the bolt, he turned and his flash 
 light for a moment swept the room. 
 
 " Not much like the way they describe this sort of place 
 in storybooks ! " murmured Jimmie Dale capriciously. " But 
 I get the idea. Mr. Russian Jew downstairs makes a bluff 
 at using it for a storeroom." 
 
 Again the flashlight made a circuit. Here, there, and 
 everywhere, seemingly without any attempt at order, were 
 piles of wooden shipping cases. Only the centre of the room 
 was clear and empty ; that, and a vacant space against the 
 Svall by the window. 
 
 Jimmie Dale, moving without sound, went to the window. 
 There was a shade on it, and it was pulled down. He 
 reached up underneath it, felt for the window fastening, and 
 unlocked it ; then cautiously tested the window itself by lift 
 ing it an inch or two it slid easily in its grooves. 
 
 He stood then for a moment, hardfaced, a frown gather 
 ing his forehead into heavy furrows, as the flashlight s ray 
 again and again darted hither and thither. There was noth 
 ing, absolutely nothing in the room but wooden packing 
 cases. He lifted the cover of the one nearest to him and 
 looked inside. It was quite empty, except for some pieces 
 of heavy cord, and a few cardboard shoe boxes that, in turn- 
 were empty, too. 
 
 " It s here, of course," said Jimmie Dale thoughtfully to 
 himself. " Clever work, too ! But I can t move half a 
 hundred packing cases without that chap below hearing me; 
 *&d I can t do it in ten minutes, either, which, I imaging id
 
 THE COUNTERFEIT FIVE 107 
 
 i$ie outside limit of time. Fortunately, though, these cases 
 are not without their compensation a dozen men could hide 
 here." 
 
 He began to move about the room. And now he stooped 
 Defore one pile of boxes and then another, curiously attempt 
 ing to lift up the entire pile from the bottom. Some he could 
 not move ; others, by exerting all his strength, gave a little ; 
 and then, finally, over in one corner, he found a pile that 
 appeared to answer his purpose. 
 
 " These are certainly empty," he muttered. 
 
 There was just room to squeeze through between them and 
 the next stack of cases alongside ; but, once through, by the 
 simple expedient of moving the cases out a little to take ad 
 vantage of the angle made by the corner of the room, he 
 obtained ample space to stand comfortably upright against 
 the wall. But Jimmie Dale was not satisfied yet. Could he 
 see out into the room? He experimented with his flash 
 light and carefully shifted the screen of cases before him 
 a little to one side. And yet still he was not satisfied. With 
 a sort of ironical droop at the corners of his lips, as thougi 
 suddenly there had flashed upon him the inspiration thav 
 fathered one of those whimsical ideas and fancies that were 
 so essentially a characteristic of Jimmie Dale, he came out 
 *rom behind the cases, went across the room to the case he 
 had opened when he first entered, took out the cord and the 
 cover of one of the cardboard shoe boxes, and with these 
 returned to his hiding place once more. 
 
 The sounds from the upper stones of the tenement now 
 reached him hardly at all ; but from below, directly under his 
 feet almost, he could hear some one, the proprietor of the 
 shoe store probably, walking about. 
 
 Tense, every faculty now on the alert, his head turned in 
 a strained, attentive attitude, Jimmie Dale threw on the flash 
 Kght s tiny switch, took that intimate and thin metal case 
 from his pocket, extracted a diamond-shaped, gray papei 
 seal with the little tweezers, moistened the adhesive side, 
 and stuck it in the centre of the white cardboard-box cover 
 tfios tore the edges of the cardboard down until the who*!*
 
 108 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 was just small enough to slip into his pocket. Through the 
 cardboard he looped a piece of cord, placard fashion, and 
 with his pencil printed the four words " with the com 
 pliments of " above the gray seal. He surveyed the re 
 sult with a grim, mirthless chuckle and put the piece of 
 cardboard in his pocket. 
 
 " I m taking the longest chances I ever took in my life, * 
 said Jimmie Dale very seriously to himself, as his fingers 
 twisted, and doubled, and tied the remaining pieces of cord 
 together, and finally fashioned a running noose in one end. 
 
 " I don t " The cord and the fla^ulight went into his 
 
 pocket, the room was in darkness, the black mask was 
 whipped from his breast pocket and adjusted to his face, and 
 his automatic was in his hand. 
 
 Came the creak of a footstep, as though on a ladder ex 
 actly below him, another, and another, receding curiously 
 in its direction, yet at the same time growing louder in 
 sound as if nearer the floor then a crack of light showed 
 in the floor in the centre of the room. This held for an 
 instant, then expanded suddenly into a great luminous 
 square and through a trapdoor, opened wide nor.,, a man s 
 bead appeared. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s eyes, fixed tnrough L^ apace between the 
 piles of cases, narrowed there was, indeed, little doubt but 
 that the shoe-store proprietor below was an accomplice! 
 The store served a most convenient purpose in every re 
 spect as a secret means of entry into the room, as a sort 
 of guarantee of innocence for the room itself. Why not! 
 To the superficial observer, to the man who might by some 
 chance blunder into the room it was but an adjunct of the 
 store itself ! 
 
 The man in the trap-doorway paused with his shoulders 
 above the floor, looked around, listened, then drew himself 
 up, walked across the floor, and shot the heavy bolt on the 
 door that led into the hallway of the house. He returned 
 then to the trapdoor, bent over it, and whistled softly. Two 
 more men, in answer to the summons, came up into the 
 twin
 
 THE COUNTERFEIT FITE 109 
 
 " The Cap ll be along in a minute," one of them said 
 
 * Turn on the light." 
 
 A switch clicked, flooding the room with sudden brilli 
 ancy from half a dozen electric bulbs. 
 
 * Too many ! " grunted the same voice again. " We ain t 
 working to-night turn out half of em." 
 
 The sudden transition from the darkness for a moment 
 dazzled Jimmie Dale s eyes but the next moment he was 
 searching the faces of the three men. There were few 
 crooks, few denizens of the crime world below the now ob 
 solete but still famous dead line that, as Larry the Bat, he 
 did not know at least by sight. 
 
 " Moulton, Whitie Burns, and Marty Dean," confided 
 yimmie Dale softly to himself. " And I don t know of any 
 worse, except the Cap. And gun fighters, every one oi 
 them, too nice odds, to say nothing of " 
 
 " Here s the Cap now ! " announced one of the three. 
 
 * Hello, Cap, where d you raise the mustache ? " 
 
 Jimmie Dale s eyes shifted to the trapdoor, and into thent 
 irept a contemptuous and sardonic smile the man w^o w* 
 i.oming up now and hoisting himself to the flior was the 
 Ijan who, half an hour before, had threatened young Sammy 
 Matthews with arrest. 
 
 The Cap, alias Bert Malone, alias a score of other names, 
 closed the trapdoor after him, pulled off his mustache and 
 gray wig, tucked them in his pocket, and faced his com 
 panions brusquely. 
 
 " Never mind about the mustache," he said curtly. " Get 
 busy, the lot of you. Stir around and get the works out ! " 
 
 " What for ? " inquired Whitie Burns, a sharp, ferret- 
 faced little man. " We got enough of the old stuff on hand 
 now, and that bum break Gregor made when he pinched the 
 cracked plate put the finish on that. Say, Cap " 
 
 " Close your face, Whitie, and get the works out ! " Ma- 
 lone cut in shortly. " We ve only got the whole night ahead 
 of us but we ll need it all. We re going to run the queer 
 off that cracked plate." 
 
 One of the others, Marty Dean this time, a crrtain brutaJ
 
 110 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 aggressiveness in both features and physique, edged for 
 ward. 
 
 "Say, what s the lay?" he demanded. "A joke? We 
 printed one fiver off that plate and then we knew enough 
 to quit. With that crack along the corner, you couldn t pass 
 f em on a blind man ! And Gregor saying he thought we 
 cculd patch the plate up enough to get by with gives me a 
 pain he s got jingles in his dome factory 1 Run them fivers 
 eh say, are you cracked, too ? " 
 
 " Aw, forget it ! " observed Malone caustically. " Who s 
 running this gang?" Then, with a malicious grin: "J 
 got a customer for those fivers fifteen thousand dollars for 
 all we can turn out to-night. See ? " 
 
 The others stared at him for a moment, incredulity and 
 greed mingling in a curious half-hesitant, half -expectant 
 look on thfir faces. 
 
 Then Whitie Burns spoke, circling his lips with the tip 
 of his tongue : 
 
 " D ye mean it, Cap honest ? What s the lay ? How d 
 you work it ? " 
 
 Malone, unbending with the sensation he had created, 
 grinned again. 
 
 " Easy enough," he said offhandedly. " It was like fall 
 ing off a log. Gregor said, didn t he, that the only way he 
 had been able to get his claws on that plate was on account 
 of young Matthews going away sick eh? Well, the old 
 Matthews woman, his mother, has got money about fifteen 
 thousand. I guess she ain t got any more than that, or I d 
 have raised the ante. Aw, it was easy. She threw it at me. 
 I framed one up on them, that s all. I m Kline, of the secret 
 service see ? I don t suppose they d ever seen him, though 
 they d know his name fast enough, but I made up something 
 like him. I showed them where I had a case against Sammy 
 for pinching the plate that was strong enough to put a hun 
 dred innocent men behind the bars. Of course, he knew well 
 enough he was innocent, but he could see the twenty years 
 I showed him with both eyes. Say, he mussed all over the 
 place, and went and fainted like a girl And then the okf
 
 THE COUNTERFEIT FIVfc 111 
 
 woman came across with an offer of fifteen thousand for the 
 plate, and corrupted me." Malone s cunning, vicious face, 
 now that the softening effects of the gray hair and mus 
 tache were gone, seemed accentuated diabolically by the grin 
 broadening into a laugh, as he guffawed. 
 
 Marty Dean s hand swung with a bang to Malone s shoul 
 der. 
 
 " Say, Cap say, you re all right ! " he exclaimed excitedly. 
 " You re the boy ! But what s the good of running anything 
 off the plate before turning it over to em the stuff s no 
 good to us." 
 
 " You got a wooden nut, with sawdust for brains," 
 said Malone sarcastically. " If he d thought the gang of 
 counterfeiters that was supposed to have bought the plate 
 from him had run off only one fiver and then stopped be 
 cause they say it wouldn t get by, and weren t going to run 
 any more, and just destroy the plate like it was supposed to 
 have been destroyed to begin with, and it all end up with no 
 one the wiser, where d ye think we d have banked that fif 
 teen thousand ! I told him I had the whole run confiscated, 
 and that the queer went with the plate, so we ll just make 
 that little run to-night that s why I sent word around to you 
 this morning." 
 
 " By the jumping! " ejaculated Whitie Burns, heavy with 
 admiration. " You got a head on you, Cap ! " 
 
 " It s a good thing for some of you that I have," returned 
 Malone complacently. " But don t stand jawing all night. 
 Go on, now get busy ! " 
 
 There was no surprise in Jimmie Dale s face he had 
 chosen his position behind a pile of cases that he had been ex 
 tremely careful, as a man is careful when his life hangs in 
 the balance, to assure himself were empty. None of the 
 four came near or touched the pile behind which he stood ; 
 but, here and there about the room, they pulled this one and 
 that one out from various stacks. In scarcely more than a 
 moment, the room was completely transformed. It was no 
 longer a storeroom for surplus stock, for the storage of 
 bulky and empty packing cases! From the cases the metr
 
 112 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 had picked out, like a touch of magic, appeared a veritablf 
 printing plant, an elaborate engraver s outfit a highly effi 
 cient foot-power press, rapidly being assembled by Whitie 
 Burns ; an electric dryer, inks, a pile of white, silk-threaded 
 bank-note paper, a cutter, and a score of other appurte 
 nances. 
 
 " Yes," said Jimmie Dale very gently to himself. " Yes, 
 quite so but the plate ? Ah ! " Malone was taking it out 
 from the middle of a bundle of old newspapers, loosely tied 
 together, that he had lifted from one of the cases. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s eyes fastened on it and from that instant 
 never left it. A minute passed, two, three of them the 
 four men were silently busy about the room Malone was 
 carefully cleaning the plate. 
 
 " They will raid to-night. Look out for Kline, he is the 
 sharpest man in the United State secret service " the warn 
 ing in her letter was running through Jimmie Dale s mind. 
 Kline the real Kline was going to raid the place to-night. 
 When? At what time? It must be nearly eleven o clock 
 already, and 
 
 It came sudden, quick as the crack of doom a terrific 
 crash against the bolted door but the door, undoubtedly to 
 the surprise of those without, held fast, thanks to the bolt 
 The four men, white-faced, seemed for an instant turned to 
 statues. Came another crash against the door and a sharp, 
 imperative order to those within to open it and surrender. 
 
 " We re pinched ! Beat it ! " whispered Whitie Burns 
 wildly and dashed for the trapdoor. 
 
 Like a rat for its hole, Marty Dean followed. Malone, 
 farther away, dropped the plate on the floor, and rushed, 
 with Moulton beside him, after the others but he never 
 reached the trapdoor. 
 
 Over the crashing blows, raining now in quick succession 
 on the door of the room, over a startled commotion as 
 lodgers, roomers, and tenants on the floor above awoke into 
 frightened activity with shouts and cries, came the louder 
 crash of a pile of packing boxes hurled to the floor. And 
 ver them, vaulting those scattered in his way, Jimmie Da**
 
 THE COUNTERFEIT FIVE 113 
 
 sprang at Malone. The man reeled back, with a cry. Moul- 
 ton dashed through the trapdoor and disappeared. The 
 short, ugly barrel of Jimmie Dale s automatic was between 
 Malone s eyes. 
 
 " You make a move," said Jimmie Dale, in a low sibilant 
 way, " and I ll drop you where you stand ! Put your hands 
 behind your back palms together ! " 
 
 Malone, dazed, cowed, obeyed. A panel of the door split 
 and rent down its length the hinges were sagging. Jim 
 mie Dale worked like lightning. The cord with the slip 
 noose from his pocket went around Malone s wrists, jerked 
 tight, and knotted ; the placard, his lips grim, with no sign 
 of humour, Jimmie Dale dangled around the man s neck. 
 
 " An introduction for you to Mr. Kline out there that 
 you seem so fond of ! " gritted Jimmie Dale. Then, work 
 ing as he talked : " I ve got no time to tell you what I think 
 of you, you pitiful hound " he snatched up the plate from 
 the floor and put it in his pocket " Twenty years, I think 
 you said, didn t you? " his hand shot into Malone s pocket- 
 book, and extracted the five-dollar note " If you can open, 
 this v/ith your toes maybe you can get away " he wrenched 
 the trapdoor over and slammed it shut " good-night, 
 Malone " and he leaped for the window. 
 
 The door tottered inward from the top, ripping, tearing, 
 smashing hinges, panels, and jamb. Jimmie Dale got a 
 blurred vision of brass buttons, blue coats, and helmets, and, 
 in the forefront, of a stocky, gray-mustached, gray-haired 
 man in plain clothes. 
 
 Jimmie Dale threw up the window, swung out, as with a 
 rush the officers burst through into the room and a re 
 volver bullet hummed viciously past his ear, and dropped to 
 the ground into encircling arms ! 
 
 " Ah, no, you dcn t, my bucko ! " snapped a hoarse voice 
 in his ear. * Keep quiet now, or I ll crack your bean under* 
 stand ! ): 
 
 But the officer, too heavy to be muscular, was no match 
 for Jimmie Dale, who, even as he had dropped from the sill, 
 had caught sight of the lurking form below; and now.
 
 114 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 with a quick, sudden, lithe movement he wriggled loose, his 
 fist from a short-arm jab smashed upon the point of the 
 other s jaw, sending the man staggering backward and Jim- 
 mie Dale ran. 
 
 A crowd was already collecting at the mouth of the alley 
 way, mostly occupants of the house itself, and into these, 
 scattering them in all directions, eluding dexterously another 
 officer who made a grab for him, Jimmie Dale charged at top 
 speed, burst through, and headed down the street, running 
 like a deer. 
 
 Yells went up, a revolver spat venomously behind him, 
 came the shrill cheep-cheep! of the police whistle, and heavy 
 boots pounding the pavement in pursuit. 
 
 Down the block Jimmie Dale raced. The yells augmented 
 in his rear. Another shot and this time he heard the bullet 
 buzz. And then he swerved into the next alleyway that 
 flanked the Sanctuary. 
 
 He had perhaps a ten yards lead, just a little more than 
 the distance from the street to the side door of the Sanctuary 
 that opened on the alleyway. And, as he ran now, his 
 fingers tore at his clothing, loosening his tie, unbuttoning 
 coat, vest, collar, shirt, and undershirt. He leaped at the 
 door, swung it open, flung himself inside and then sacrific 
 ing speed to silence, went up the stairs like a cat, cramming 
 his mask now into his pocket. 
 
 His room was on the first landing. In an instant he had 
 unlocked the door, entered, and locked it again oehind him. 
 From outside, an excited street urchin s voice shrilled up to 
 him: 
 
 " He went in that door ! I seen him ! " 
 
 The police whistle chirped again; and then an authori 
 tative voice : 
 
 " Get around and watch the saloon back of this, Heenej 
 there s a way out through there from this joint." 
 
 Jimmie Dale, divested of every stitch of clothing that h< 
 had worn, pulled a disreputable collarless flannel shirt ovei 
 his head, pulled on a dirty and patched pair of trousers, and 
 slipped into a threadbare and filthy coat. Jimmie Dak
 
 CHE COUNTERFEIT FIVE 115 
 
 WAS working against seconds. They were at the lower doo* 
 now. He lifted the oilcloth in the corner of the room, lifted 
 up the loose piece of the flooring, shoved his discarded gar 
 ments inside, and from a little box that was there smeared 
 the hollow of his hand with some black substance, possessed 
 himself of two little articles, replaced the flooring, replaced 
 the oilcloth, and, in bare feet, stole across the room to the 
 door. Against the door, without a sound, Jimmie Dale 
 placed a chair, and on the chair seat he laid the two little 
 articles he had been carrying in his hand. It was intensely 
 black in the room, but Jimmie Dale needed no light here. 
 From under the bed he pulled out a pair of woolen socks 
 and a pair of congress boots, both as disreputable as the 
 rest of his attire, put them on and very quietly, softly,, 
 cautiously, stretched himself out on the bed. 
 . The officers were at the top of the stairs* A voice barked 
 out: 
 
 " Stand guard on this landing, Peters. Higgins, you take 
 the one above. We ll start from the top of the house and 
 urork down. Allow no one to pass you." 
 
 ** Yes, sir? Very good, Mr. Kline," was the response. 
 
 Kline ! the sharpest man in the United States secret ser- 
 yice, she had said. Jimmie Dale s lips set. 
 
 " I m glad I had no shave this morning," said Jimmk 
 Dale grimly to himself. 
 
 His fingers were working with the black substance in the 
 hollow of his hand and the long, slim, tapering fingers, the 
 shapely, well-cared- for hands grew unkempt and grimy, black 
 beneath the finger nails and a little, too, played its part on 
 the day s growth of beard, a little around the throat and at 
 the nape of the neck, a little across the forehead to meet the 
 locks of straggling and disordered hair. Jimmie Dale wiped 
 the residue from the hollow of his hand on the knee of his 
 trousers and lay still. 
 
 An officer paced outside. Upstairs doors opened and 
 closed. Gruff, harsh tones in commands echoed through the 
 house. The search party descended to the second floor; 
 feifd again the same sounds were repeated. And then, thump*
 
 T:lf THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 Big down the creaking stairs, they stopped before Jhnmie 
 Dale s room. Some one tried the door, and, finding k 
 locked, rattled it violently. 
 
 ** Open the door ! " It was Kline s voice. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s eyes were closed, and he was breathing 
 regularly, though just a little slower than in natural respira 
 tion. 
 
 " Break it down ! " ordered Kline tersely. 
 
 There was a rush at it and it gave. It surged inward, 
 knocked against the chair, upset the latter, something tinkled 
 to the floor and four officers, with Kline at their head, 
 jumped into the room. 
 
 Jimmie Dale never moved. A flashlight played around 
 the room and focused upon him and then he was shaken 
 roughly only to fall inertly back on the bed again. 
 
 " I guess this is all right, Mr. Kline, * said one of the 
 officers. " It s Larry the Bat, and he s doped to the eyes. 
 There s the stuff on the floor we knocked off the chair." 
 
 " Light the gas ! " directed Kline curtly ; and, being obeyed, 
 stooped to the floor and picked up a hypodermic syringe and 
 a small bottle. He held the bottle to the light, and read the 
 label : Liquor Morphine. " Shake him again 1 " he com 
 manded. 
 
 None too gently, a policeman caught Jimmie Dale by the 
 shoulder and shook him vigorously again Jimmie Dale, 
 once the other let go his hold, fell back limply on the bedt 
 breathing in that same, slightly slowed way. 
 
 " Larry the Bat, eh ? " grunted Kline ; then, to the office* 
 who had volunteered the information : " Who s Larry the 
 Bat ? What is he ? And how long have you known him ? " 
 
 " I don t know who he is any more than what you can see 
 there for yourself," replied the officer. " He s a dope fiend, 
 and I guess a pretty tough case, though we ve never had him 
 up for anything. He s lived here ever since I ve been on the 
 beat, and that s three years or " 
 
 " All right ! " interrupted Kline crisply. " He s no good 
 to us! You say there s an exit from this house into that 
 saloon at the back ? "
 
 THE COUNTERFEIT FIVE 117 
 
 * Yes, sir ; but the fellow, whoever he is, couldn t grt 
 iway from there. Heeney s been over on guard from tht 
 start" 
 
 u Then he s still inside there," said Kline, clipping off his 
 words. " We ll search the saloon. Nice night s work this is I 
 One out of the whole gang and that one with the compli 
 ments of the Gray Seal ! " 
 
 The men went out and began to descend the stairs. 
 
 " One," said Jimmie Dale to himself, still motionless, still 
 breathing in that slow way so characteristic of the drug. 
 * Two. Three. Four." 
 
 The minutes went by a quarter of an hour a half hour. 
 Still Jimmie Dale lay there still motionless still breathing 
 with slow regularity. His muscles began to cramp, to give 
 him exquisite torture. Around him all was silence only 
 distant sounds from the street reached him, muffled, and at 
 intervals. Another quarter of an hour passed an eternity 
 of torment. It seemed to Jimmie Dale, for all his will 
 power, that he could not hold himself in check, that he must 
 move, scream out even in the torture that was passing all 
 endurance. It was silent now, utterly silent and then out 
 of the silence, just outside his door, a footstep creaked 
 ind a man walked to the stairs and went down. 
 
 " Five," said Jimmie Dale to himself. " The sharpest man 
 In the United States secret service." 
 
 And then for the first time Jimmie Dale moved to wipe 
 away the beads of sweat that had sprung out upon his fore 
 head.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE AFFAIR OF THE PUSHCART MAK 
 
 TARRY THE BAT shambled out of the side door of the 
 tenement into the back alleyway ; shambled along the 
 black alleyway to the street and smiled a little grimly as a 
 shadow across the roadway suddenly shifted its position. 
 The game was growing acute, critical, desperate even and 
 it was his move. 
 
 Larry the Bat, disreputable denizen of the underworld, 
 alias Jimmie Dale, millionairs clubman, alias the Gray Seal, 
 whom Carruthers of the Morning News-Argus called the 
 master criminal of the age, shuffled along in the direction 
 of the Bowery, his hands plunged deep in the pockets of his 
 frayed and tattered trousers, where his fingers, in a curi 
 ous, wistful way, fondled the keys of his own magnificent 
 residence on Riverside Drive. It was his move and it was 
 an impasse, ironical, sardonic, and it was worse it was full 
 of peril. 
 
 True, he had outwitted Kline of the secret service two 
 nights before, when Kline had raided the counterfeiters 
 den ; true, he had no reason to believe that Kline suspected 
 him specifically, but the man Kline wanted had entered the 
 tenement that night, and since then the house had been 
 shadowed day and night. The result was both simple and 
 disastrous to Jimmie Dale. Larry the Bat, a known in 
 mate of the house, might come and go as he pleased but 
 to emerge from the Sanctuary in the person of Jimmie Dale 
 would be fatal. Kline had been outwitted, but Kline had not 
 acknowledged final defeat. The tenement had been searched 
 from top to bottom unostentatiously. His own room on 
 the first landing had been searched the previous afternoon, 
 when he was out, but they had failed tc find the cunningly 
 
 118
 
 THE AFFAIR OF THE PUSHCART MAN 119 
 
 Contrived opening in the floor under the oilcloth in the cor 
 ner, an impromptu wardrobe, that would proclaim Larry the 
 Bat and Jimmie Dale to be one and the same person that 
 would inevitably lead further to the establishment of his 
 identity as the Gray Seal. In time, of course, the surveil 
 lance would cease but he could not wait. That was the 
 monumental irony of it the factor that, all unknown to 
 Kline, was forcing the issue hard now. It was his move. 
 
 Since, years ago now, as the Gray Seal, he had begun 
 to work with her, that unknown, mysterious accomplice of 
 his, and the police, stung to madness both by the virulent and 
 constant attacks of the press and by the humiliating prod of 
 their own failures, sought daily, high and low, with every re 
 source at their command, for the Gray Seal, he had never 
 been in quite so strange and perilous a plight as he found 
 himself at that moment. To preserve inviolate the identity 
 of Larry the Bat was absolutely vital to his safety. It was 
 the one secret that even she, who so strangely appeared to 
 know all else about him, he was sure, had not discovered 
 and it was just that, in a way, that had brought the present 
 impossible situation to pass. 
 
 In the month previous, in a lull between those letters of 
 hers, he had set himself doggedly and determinedly to the 
 renewed task of what had become so dominantly now a part 
 of his very existence the solving of her identity. And for 
 that month, as the best means to the end means, however, 
 that only resulted as futilely as the attempts that had gone 
 before he had lived mostly as Larry the Bat, returning 
 to his home in his proper person only when occasion and 
 necessity demanded it. He had been going home that even 
 ing, two nights before, walking along Riverside Drive, when 
 from the window of the limousine she had dropped the let 
 ter at his feet that had plunged him into the affair of the 
 Counterfeit Five and he had not gone home! Eventually, 
 to save himself, he had, in the Sanctuary, performing ths 
 transformation in desperate haste, again been forced to as 
 sume the role of Larry the Bat. 
 
 That was really the gist of it And yesterday morning he
 
 120 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 had remembered, to his dismay, that he had had little or no 
 money left the night before. He had intended, of course, 
 to replenish his supply when he got home. Only he hadn t 
 gone home ! And now he needed money needed it badly, 
 desperately. With thousands in the bank, with abundance 
 even in his safe, in his own den at home, a supply kept there 
 always for an emergency, he was facing actual want he 
 rattled two dimes, a nickel, and a few odd pennies thought 
 fully against the keys in his pocket. 
 
 To a certain extent, old Jason, his butler, could be trusted. 
 Jason even knew that mysterious letters of tremendous 
 secretive importance came to the house, and the old man 
 always meant well but he dared not trust even Jason with 
 the secret of his dual personality. What was he to do? 
 He needed money imperatively at once. Thanks to Kline, 
 for the time being, at least, he could not rid himself of the 
 personality of Larry the Bat by the simple expedient of 
 slipping into the clothes of Jimmie Dale he must live, act, 
 and remain Larry the Bat until the secret service officer 
 gave up the hunt. How bridge the gulf between Jimmie 
 Dale and Larry the Bat in old Jason s eyes! 
 
 Nor was that all. There was still another matter, and one 
 that, in order to counteract it, demanded at once a serious 
 inroad to the extent of a telephone call upon his slender 
 capital. A too prolonged and unaccounted-for absence from 
 home, and old Jason, in his anxious, blundering solicitude, 
 would have the fat in the fire at that end and the city, and 
 the social firmament thereof, would be humming with the 
 startling news of the disappearance of a well-known million 
 aire. The complications that would then ensue, with himself 
 powerless to lift a finger, Jimmie Dale did not care to think 
 about such a contretemps must at all hazards be prevented. 
 
 Jimmie Dale reached the corner of the street, where it 
 intersected the Bowery, and paused languidly by the curb. 
 No one appeared to be following. He had not expected 
 that there would be but it was as well to be sure. He 
 walked then a few steps along the Bowery and slipped
 
 THE AFFAIR OF THE PUSHCART MAN 121 
 
 saddenly into a doorway, from where he could command a 
 view of the street corner that he had just left. At the end 
 of ten minutes, satisfied that no one had any concern in hif 
 immediate movements, he shambled on again down the Bow 
 ery. 
 
 There was a saloon two blocks away that boasted a pri 
 vate telephone booth. Jimmie Dale made that his destina 
 tion. 
 
 Larry the Bat was a very well-known character in that 
 resort, and the bullet-headed dispenser of drinks behind the 
 bar nodded unctuously to him over the heads of those clus 
 tered at the rail as he entered ; Larry the Bat, as befitted one 
 of the elite of the underworld, was graciously pleased to 
 acknowledge the proletariat salutation with a curt nod. He 
 walked down to the end of the room, entered the telephone 
 booth and was carelessly careful to close the door tightly 
 behind him. 
 
 He gave the number of his residence on Riverside Drive, 
 auid waited for the connection. After some delay, Jason s 
 Voice answe/ed him. 
 
 " Jason," said Jimmie Dale, in matter-of-fact tones, " I 
 shall be out of the city for another three or four days, pos- 
 eibly a week, and " he stopped abruptly, as a sort of ^asp 
 came to him over the wire. 
 
 * Thank God that s you, sir ! " exclaimed the old butler 
 wildly. " I ve been near mad, sir, all day ! " 
 
 " Don t get excited, Jason ! " said Jimmie Dale a little 
 sharply. " The mere matter of my absence for the last two 
 days is nothing to cause you any concern. And while I am 
 on the subject, Jas^n, let me say now that I shall be glad 
 if you will bear that fa :t in mind in future." 
 
 " Yes, sir," stammered Jason. " But, sir, it ain t that- 
 good Lord, Master Jim, it ain t that, sir! It s it s one of 
 them letters." 
 
 Something like a galvanic shock seemed to jerk the dis 
 reputable, loose-jointed frame of Larry the Bat suddenly 
 erect and a strained whiteness crept over the dirty, un 
 washed face-
 
 122 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALb 
 
 " Go on, Jason," said Jimmie Dale, without a quiver ft 
 his voice. 
 
 " It came this morning, sir that shuffer with his auto 
 mobile left it. I had just time to say you weren t at home, 
 sir, and he was gone. And then, sir, there ain t been an 
 hour gone by all through the day that a woman, sir a 
 lady, begging your pardon, Master Jim hasn t rung up on 
 the telephone, asking if you were back, and if I could get 
 you, and where you were, and half frantic, sir, half sobbing, 
 sometimes, sir, and saying there was a life hanging on it, 
 Master Jim." 
 
 Larry the Bat, staring into the mouthpiece of the instru 
 ment, subconsciously passed his hand across his forehead, 
 and subconsciously noted that his fingers, as he drew them 
 away, were damp. 
 
 " Where is the letter now, Jason ? " inquired Jimmie Dale 
 coolly. 
 
 " Here on your desk, Master Jim. Shall I bring it to 
 you?" 
 
 Bring it to him! How? When? Where? Bring it to 
 him ! The ghastly irony of it ! Jimmie Dale tried to think 
 prodding, spurring desperately that keen, lightning brain 
 of his that had never failed him yet. How bridge the gul* 
 between Larry the Bat and Jimmie Dale in Jason s eyes 
 not just for the replenishing of funds now, but with a life at 
 stake ! 
 
 " No I think not, Jason," said Jimmie Dale calmly. 
 ** Just leave it where it is. And if she telephones again, say 
 that you have told me that will be sufficient to satisfy any 
 further inquiries. And Jason " 
 
 "Yes, sir?" 
 
 "If she telephones again, try and find out where the call 
 comes from." 
 
 " I haven t forgotten what you said once, Master Jim, 
 sir," said the old man eagerly. " And I ve been trying that, 
 sir, all day. They ve all come from different pay stations, 
 sir." 
 
 A mirthless little smile tinged Jimmie Dale s lips. Ot 
 fiourse 1 He rnigh*. have known I It was always that way
 
 THE AFFAIR OF THE PUSHCART MAN 128 
 
 always the same. He was as near to the solution of her iden 
 tity at that moment as he had been years ago, when she, in 
 some mysterious way, alone of all the world, had identified 
 him as the Gray Seal ! 
 
 " Very good, Jason," he said quietly. " Don t bother about 
 it any more. It will be all right. You can expect me when 
 you see me. Good-night." He hung- the receiver on the 
 hook, walked out of the booth, and mechanically reached 
 the street. 
 
 All right ! It was far from " all right " very far from 
 it. It was no trivial thing, that letter; they never had been 
 trivial things, those letters of hers, that involved so often 
 a matter of life and death as this one now, perhaps, as her 
 actions would seem to indicate, involved life and death more 
 urgently than any that had gone before. It was far from 
 all right at a moment when his own position, his own 
 safety, was at best but a desperate chance ; when his every 
 energy, brain, wit, and cunning were taxed to the utmost to 
 save himself ! And yet, somehow, some way, at any cost, 
 he must get that letter and at any cost he must act upon 
 it ! To fail her was to fail utterly in everything that failure 
 in its most miserable, its widest sense, implied failure in 
 that which rose paramount to every other consideration in 
 life! 
 
 Fail her ! Jimmie Dale s lips thinned into a hard, drawn 
 line and then parted slowly in a curiously whimsical smile, 
 It would be a strange burglary that he had decided upon, in 
 order that he might not fail her stranger than any the Gray 
 Seal had ever committed, and, in some respects, even more 
 perilous ! 
 
 He started along the Bowery, walking briskly now, to* 
 ward the nearest subway station, at Astor Place, his mind 
 for the moment electing to face the situa ion in a humour 
 as vhimsical as his smile. Supposing that, as Larry the 
 Bat, he were caught and arrested during the next hour, in 
 Jimmie s Dale s residence on Riverside Drive ! With his ar 
 rest as Larry the Bat, Jimmie s Dale would automatically 
 disappear. Would follow then the suspicion that Jimtni*
 
 Dale, the millionaire, had met with foul play, and as time 
 went on, and Jimmie Dale, being then in prison as Larry 
 the Bat, did not reappear, the assurance of it ; then the 
 certainty that suspicion would focus on Larry the Bat as 
 being connected with the millionaire s death, since Larry the 
 Bat had been caught in Jimmie Dale s home and he would 
 be accused of his own murder ! It was quite humourous, of 
 course, quite grotesquely bizarre but it was equally an ex 
 ceedingly grim possibility ! There were drawbacks to a 
 dual personality ! 
 
 " In a word," confided Jimmie Dale softly to himself, and 
 a serious light crept into the dark, steady eyes, " I m in a 
 bit of a nasty mess ! " 
 
 At Astor Place he entered the subway; at Fourteenth 
 Street he changed to an express, and at Ninety-sixth Street 
 he got out. It was but a short walk west to Riverside 
 Drive, and from there his house was only a few blocks 
 farther on. 
 
 Jimmie Dale did not slouch now. And for all his disrep 
 utable attire, incongruous as it was in that neighbourhood, 
 few people that he passed paid any attention to him, none 
 gave him more than a casual glance Jimmie Dale swung 
 along, upright, with no attempt to make himself inconspicu 
 ous, hurrying a little, as one intent upon a definite errand. 
 As he neared his house he slowed his pace a little until a 
 couple, who were passing in front of it, had gone on ; then 
 he went up the steps, but noiselessly as a shadow now, to 
 the front door, opened it softly, closed it softly behind him, 
 and crouched for a moment in the vestibule. 
 
 Through the monogrammed lace on the plate glass of the 
 inner doors he could see, a little indistinctly, into the recep 
 tion hall beyond. The hall was empty. Jason, for that 
 matter, would be the only one likely to be about ; the other 
 servants would have no business there in any case, and 
 whether in their quarters above or below, they had their 
 own stairs at the rear. 
 
 Jimmie Dale inserted the key in the spring lock, and opened 
 the door a cautious fraction of an inch to listen. Ther*
 
 THE AFFAIR OF THE PUSHCART MAN 12S 
 
 H as no sound yes, a subdued murmured the servants were 
 downstairs in the basement. He slipped inside, slipped, in 
 a flash, across the hall, and, treading like a cat, went up 
 the stairs. He scarcely seemed to breathe until, with a little 
 sigh of relief, he stood inside his den on the first floor, with 
 the door shut behind him. 
 
 " I must speak to Jason about being a little more watch 
 ful," muttered Jimmie Dale facetiously. " Here s all my 
 property at the mercy of Larry the Bat ! " 
 
 An instant he stood by the door, looking about him in 
 the bright moonlight streaming in through the side windows 
 the room s appointments stood out in soft shadows, the huge 
 davenport, the great, luxurious easy-chairs, an easel with a 
 half-finished canvas, as he had left it; the big, flat-topped, 
 rosewood desk, the open fireplace and then, his steps 
 silent on the thick velvet rug under foot, he walked quickly 
 to the desk. 
 
 Yes, there it was the letter. He placed it hurriedly in 
 his pocket the moonlight was not strong enough to read by> 
 and he dared not turn on the lights. 
 
 And now money funds. In the alcove behind the 
 portiere, Jimmie Dale dropped on his knees before the squat, 
 barrel-shaped safe, and opened t. He reached inside, took 
 out a package of banknotes, r .aced the bills in his pocket 
 and hesitated a moment. What else would he require? 
 What act did that letter call upon the Gray Seal to perform 
 in the next few hours? Jimmie Dale stared thoughtfully 
 ino the interior of the safe. Whatever it was, it must be 
 performed in the role of Larry the Bat, for though he could 
 get into his dressing room now, and become Jimmie Dale 
 again, there were still those watchers outside the Sanctuary 
 they must not become suspicious and if Larry the Bat 
 disappeared mysteriously, Larry the Bat would be the man 
 that Kline and the secret service of the United States would 
 never cease hunting for, and that would mean that he could 
 never reassume a character that was as necessary for hi 
 protection as breath was to life, so long as the Gray Seai 
 worked. True, he could change now to Jimmie Dale. btf
 
 126 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 he would have to change back again and return to the 
 Sanctuary before morning, as Larry the Bat and rernaip 
 there until Kline, beaten, called off his human bloodhounds, 
 No, a change was not to be thought of. 
 
 What, then, would he require that compact little kit of 
 burglar tools, rolled in its leather jacket, that, unrolled, 
 slipped about his body like a close-fitting undervest? As 
 well to take it anyway. He removed his coat and vest, took 
 out the leather bundle from the safe, untied the thongs that 
 bound it together, unrolled it, passed it around his body, life 
 belt fashion, secured the thongs over his shoulders, and put 
 on his coat and vest again. A revolver, a flashlight? He 
 had both at the Sanctuary, under the flooring but there 
 were duplicates here! He slipped them into his pockets. 
 Anything else to forestall and provide for any possible 
 contingency? He hesitated again for a moment, thinking, 
 then slowly closed the inner door of the safe, locked it, 
 iwung the outer door shut and, in the act of twirling the 
 fcnobs, sprang suddenly to his feet. Sharp, shrill in the still 
 ness of the room, the telephone bell on the desk rang out 
 clamourously. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s face set hard, as he leaped out from be, 
 hind the curtain had Jason heard it! It rang again before 
 he could reach the desk was ringing as he snatched the 
 receiver from the hook. 
 
 " Yes, yes ! " he called, in a low, guarded, hasty way, 
 into the mouthpiece. "Hello! What is it?" And then 
 one hand, resting on the desk, closed around the edge, and 
 tightened until the skin over the knuckles grew ivory white. 
 It was she! She! It was her voice he had only heard 
 it once in all his life that night, two nights before, in a 
 silvery laugh from the limousine as it had sped away from 
 him down the road but he knew ! It thrilled him now with 
 a mad rhapsody, robbing him for the moment of every 
 thought save that she was living, real, existent that it was 
 her voice. " It s you you!" he said hoarsely. 
 
 " Oh, Timmie you at last ! " it came in a little gasping 
 cry of relief. " The letter "
 
 " Yes, I ve got it it s all right it s all right " the words 
 would not seem to come fast enough in his desperate haste. 
 * But it s you now. Listen ! Listen ! " he pleaded. " Tel? 
 me who you are! My God! how I ve tried to find you, 
 and " 
 
 That rippling, silvery laugh again, but now, too, it seemed 
 to his, eager ear, with just the faintest note of wistfulness 
 in it. 
 
 " Some day, Jimmie. That letter now. It " 
 
 Jimmie Dale straightened up suddenly Jason s steps, 
 running, sounded outside the room along the corridor there 
 was not an instant to lose. 
 
 " Hang up ! Good-bye ! Danger ! Don t ring again ! " 
 lie whispered hurriedly, and, with a miserable smile, re 
 placing the receiver bitterly on the hook, he jumpd for the 
 Curtain. 
 
 He reached it none too soon. The door opened, an eleo 
 iric-light switch clicked, and the room was flooded with light. 
 Jason, still running, headed for the desk. 
 
 " It ll be her again ! " Jimmie Dale heard the old man 
 mutter, as from the edge of the portiere he watched the 
 other s actions. 
 
 Jason picked up the telephone. 
 
 " Hello ! Hello ! " he called then began to click im 
 patiently with the receiver hook. "Hello! . . . Who? 
 . . . Central? ... I don t want any number some^ 
 body was calling here. . . . V/hat? . . . Nobody on 
 the wire ! " 
 
 He set the telephone back on the desk with a bewildered 
 air. 
 
 " That s queer ! " he exclaimed. " I could have sworn I 
 
 heard it ring twice, and " He stopped abruptly, and, 
 
 leaning across the desk, hung there, wide-eyed, staring, 
 while a sickly pallor began to steal into his face. " The 
 letter I " he mumbled wildly. " The letter Master Jim s 
 letter the letter it s gone!" 
 
 Trembling, excited, the old man began to search the desk, 
 ihen down on his knees OH the floor under it; and
 
 128 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 growing more frantic with every instant, rose and began to 
 hunt around the room in an agitated, aimless fashion. 
 
 Jason s distress was very real he was almost beside him 
 self now with fear and anxiety. A whimsical, affectionate 
 smile played over Jimmie Dale s lips at the old man s antics 
 and changed suddenly into one of consternation. Jason 
 was making directly now for the curtain behind which he 
 stood! Perhaps, though, he would pass it by, and Jason s 
 hand reached out and grasped the portiere. 
 
 " Jason ! " said Jimmie Dale sharply. 
 
 The old man staggered back as though he had been struck* 
 tried to speak, choked, and gazed at the curtain with dis 
 tended eyes. 
 
 " Is is that you, sir Master Jim behind the curtain 
 there ? " he finally blurted out. " I sir you gave me a 
 start and the letter, Master Jim 
 
 " Don t lose your head, Jason," said Jimmie Dah coolly 
 " I ve got the letter. Now do as I bid you." 
 
 " Yes Master Jhn," faltered the old man. 
 
 " Pull down the window shades and draw the portiere* 
 together," directed Jimmie Dale. 
 
 Jason, still overwrought and excited, obeyed a little awk 
 wardly. 
 
 " Now the lights, Jason," instructed Jimmie Dale. " Turn 
 them off, and go and sit down in that chair at the desk." 
 
 Again Jason obeyed, stumbling in the darkness as he re-. 
 turned from the electric-light switch at the farther end of 
 the room. He sat down in the chair. 
 
 Larry the Bat stepped out from behind the curtain. 
 
 " I came for that letter, Jason," he explained quietly. " I 
 am going out again now. I may be back to-morrow ; I may 
 not be back for a week. You will say nothing, not a word, 
 of my having been here to-night. Do you understand, 
 Jason?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Jason; then hesitantly: "Would you 
 mind saying, sir, when you came in ? " 
 
 "It s of no consequence, Jason is it?" 
 
 " No. sir/ said Jasoa.
 
 THE AFFAIR OF THE PUSHCART MAN 15M 
 
 Jimmie Dale smiled in the darkness 
 
 "Jason!" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " I wish you to remain where you are, without leaving thaii 
 chair, for the next ten minutes." He moved across the roonc 
 to the door. " Good-night, Jason," he said. 
 
 "Good-night. Master Jtm good-night, sir oh, Lord!* 1 
 
 Jimmie Dale did not require that ten minutes; it was a 
 very wide margin of safety to obviate the possibility of Jason, 
 from a window, detecting the exit of a disreputable character 
 from the house in three minutes he was turnirg the cornet 
 of the first cross street and walking rapidly away from 
 Riverside Drive. 
 
 In the subway station Jimmie Dale read the letter reaa 
 it twice over, as he always read those strange epistles of hers 
 that opened the door to new peril, new danger to the Gray 
 Seal, but too, that seemed somehow to draw tighter, in a 
 glad, big way, the unseen bond between them ; read it, as he 
 always read those letters, almost subconsciously committing 
 the very words to memory with that keen faculty of brain of 
 his. But now as he began to tear the sheet and envelope inter 
 minute particles, a strained, hard look was on his face and 
 in his eyes, an his lips, half parted, moved a little. 
 
 " It s a death warrant," muttered Jimmie Dale. * I I 
 guess to-night will see the end of the Gray Seal. She says I 
 needn t do it, but I guess it s worth the risk a human 
 life!" 
 
 A downtown express roared into the station. 
 
 * What time is it? " Jimmie Dale asked trie guard, as he 
 Stepped aboard. 
 
 " Bout midnight," the man answered tersely. 
 
 The forward car was almost empty, and Jimmie Dale 
 chose a seat by himself . How did she know ? How did she 
 know not only this, but the hundred other affairs that she 
 had outlined in those letters of hers? By what means, 
 
 superhuman, indeed, it seemed, did she Jimmie Dale 
 
 jerked himself erect suddenly. What good did it do to 
 tpeculate on that now, when every minute was priceless
 
 What was he to do, how was he to act, what plan could he 
 formulate and carry out, and win against odds that, at the 
 outset, were desperate enough even to forecast almost certain 
 failure and death ! 
 
 Who would ever have suspected old Tom Ludgate, known 
 for years throughout the squalour of the East Side as old 
 Luddy, the pushcart man, of having a bag of unset diamonds 
 tinder his pillow or under the sack, rather, that he probably 
 used for a pillow ! What a queer thing to do ! But then, 
 old Luddy was a character apparently always in the most 
 poverty-stricken condition, apparently hardly more than 
 keeping body and soul together, trusting no one, and obsessed 
 by the dread that by depositing in a bank some one would 
 discover that he had money, and attempt to force it from 
 him, he had put his savings, year after year, for twenty 
 years, twenty-five years, perhaps, into unset stones 
 diamonds. How had she found that out? 
 
 Jimmie Dale sank into a deeper reverie. He could steal 
 them all right, and they would be well worth the stealing 
 old Luddy had done well, and lived and existed on next to 
 nothing the stones, she said, were worth about fifteen thou 
 sand dollars. Not so bad, even for twenty-five years of 
 vegetable selling from a pushcart ! He could steal them all 
 right ; it would tax the Gray Seal s ingenuity little to do so 
 simple, a thing as that, but that was not all, nor, indeed, 
 hardly a factor in it it was vital that if he were to succeed 
 at ail he must steal them publicly, as it were. 
 
 And after that what? His own chances were pretty 
 siim at best. Jimmie Dale, staring at the grayness of the 
 subway wall through the window, shook his head slowly 
 then, with a queer little philosophi al shrug of his shoulders, 
 he smiled gravely, seriously. It was all a part of the game, 
 all a part of the life of the Gray Seal! 
 
 It was half-past twelve, or a little later, as nearly as he 
 could judge, for Larry the Bat carried no such ornate thing 
 in evidence as a watch, as he halted at the corner of a dark, 
 squalid street in the lower East Side. It was a miserable 
 ocalitv in daylight humming with a cosmopolitan hive ot
 
 THE AFFAIR OF THE PUSHCART MAN 131 
 
 pitiful humans dragging out as best they could an intolerable, 
 existence, a locality peopled with every nationality on earth, 
 their community of interest the struggle to maintain life at 
 the lowest possible expenditure, where necessity even was 
 pared and shaved down to a minimum; but now, at night 
 time, or rather in the early-morning hours, the darkness, in 
 very mercy, it seemed, covered it with a veil, as it were, and 
 in the quiet that hung over it now hid the bald, the hideous, 
 aye, and the piteous, too, from view. 
 
 It was a narrow street, and the row of tenement houses^ 
 each house almost identical with its neighbour, that flanked 
 the pavement on either side, seemed, from where Jimmie 
 Dale stood looking down its length, from the corner, to 
 converge together at a point a little way beyond, giving it an 
 unreal, ominous, cavernlike effect. And, too, there seemed 
 something ominous even in its quiet. It was as though one 
 sensed acutely the crouching of some Thing in its lair 
 waiting silently, viciously, with sullen patience. 
 
 A footstep sounded another. Jimmie Dale drew quickly 
 back around the corner into an areaway. Two men passed. 
 in helmets swinging their nightsticks that beat was al 
 ways policed in pairs ! 
 
 They passed on, turned the corner, and went down the 
 narrow cross street that Jimmie Dale had just been in 
 specting. He started to follow and drew back again 
 abruptly. A form flitted suddenly across the road and dis 
 appeared in the darkness in the officers wake ten yards 
 behind the first another followed at the same interval ot 
 distance still another and yet still one more four in. all. 
 
 The darkness hid all six, the two policemen, the four men 
 behind them the only sounds were the officers footsteps 
 dying away in the distance. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s fingers were mechanically testing the 
 mechanism of the automatic in his pocket. 
 
 " The Skeeter s gang ! " he muttered to himself. " Red 
 Mose, the Midget, Harve Thorns and the Skeeter! The 
 worst apaches in the city of New York ; death contractors 
 *nd the lowest bidders ! Professional assassins, and a man**
 
 132 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 life any time for twenty-five dollars ! I wonder I ve never 
 done it yet but I wonder if it would be a crime in God s 
 sight if one shot to kill!" 
 
 Jimmie Dale was at the corner again again the street 
 before him was black, deserted, empty. He chose the right- 
 hand side, and, well in the shadow of the houses, as an extra 
 precaution, stole along silently. He stopped finally before 
 one where, in the doorway, hung a little sign. Jimmie Dale 
 mounted the porch, and with his eyes close to the sign could 
 just make out the larger words in the big printed type 
 
 ROOM TO RENT 
 TOP FLOOR 
 
 Jimmie Dale nodded. That was right. The first house on 
 die right-hand side, with the room-to-rent sign, her letter 
 had said. His fingers were testing the doorknob. The door 
 was not locked. 
 
 " Naturally, it wouldn t be locked," Jimmie Dale told him 
 self grimly and stepped inside. 
 
 He stood for an instant without movement, every faculty 
 on the alert. Far up above him a step, guarded though his 
 trained ear made it out to be, creaked faintly upon the 
 stairs there was no other sound. The creaking, almost 
 inaudible at its loudest, receded farther up and silence fell. 
 
 In the darkness, noiselessly, Jimmie Dale groped for the 
 stairway, found it, and began to ascend. The minutes 
 passed it seemed a minute even from step to step, and there 
 were three flights to the top! There must be no creaking 
 this time the slightest sound, he knew well enough, would 
 be not only fatal to the work he had to do, but probably fatal 
 to himself as well. He had been near deah many times 
 the consciousness that he was nearer to it now, possibly, than 
 he had ever been before, seemed to stimulate his senses into 
 acute and abnormal energy. And, too, the physical effort, 
 as, step by step, the flexed muscles relaxing so slowly, little 
 yy little, gradually, each time as he found foothold on the 
 higher up, was a terrific strain. At the top his faoe
 
 THE AFFAIR OF THE PUSHCART MAN 133 
 
 was bathed in perspiration, and he wiped it off with his 
 sleeve. 
 
 It was still dark here, intensely dark, and his eyes, though 
 grown accustomed to it, could make out nothing but the 
 deeper shadow of the walls. But thanks to her, always a 
 mistress of accurate and minute detail, he possessed a mental 
 plan of his surroundings. The head of the stairs gave on 
 the middle of the hallway the hallway ran to his right and 
 left. To his right, on the opposite side of the hall, was the 
 door of old Luddy s squalid two-room apartment. 
 
 For a moment Jimmie Dale stood hesitant a sudden 
 perplexity and anxiety growing upon him. It was strange! 
 What did it mean? He had nerved himself to a quick, 
 desperate attempt, trusting to surprise and his own wit and 
 agility for victory there had seemed no other way than 
 that, since he had seen those four men at the corner since 
 they were ahead of him. True, they were not much ahead 
 of him, not enough to have accomplished their purpose 
 and, furthermore, they were not in that room. He knew 
 that absolutely, beyond question of doubt. He had listened 
 for just that all the nerve-racking way up the stairs. But 
 where were they ? There was no sound not a sound just 
 blackness, dark, impenetrable, utter, that began to palpitate 
 now. 
 
 It came in a whisper, wavering, sibilant from his left. 
 A sort of relief, fierce in the breaking of the tense expectancy, 
 premonitory in the possibilities that it held, swept Jimmie 
 Dale. He crept along the hall. The whisper had come 
 from that room, presumably empty that was for rent! 
 
 By the door he crouched his sensitive fingers, eyes to 
 Jimmie Dale so often feeling over jamb and panels with a 
 delicate, soundless touch. The door was just ajar. The 
 fingers crept inside and touched the knob and lock there 
 was no key within. 
 
 The whispering still went on but it seemed like a scream 
 ing of vultures now in Jimmie Dale s ears, as the words came 
 to him. 
 
 " Aw, say. Skeeter, dis high-brow stunt gives me de pip*
 
 13 1 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 Me fer goin in dere an croakin de geezer reg lar, widotri 
 de frills. Who s to know? Say, just about two minutes, 
 an we re beatin it wid de sparklers." 
 
 An inch, a half inch at a time, the knob slowly, very, very 
 slowly turning, the door was being closed by the crouched 
 form on the threshold. 
 
 " Close yer trap, Mose ! " came a fierce response. " We 
 ain t fixed the lay all day for nothin . There ain t a soul on 
 earth knows he s got any sparklers, cept us. If there was, 
 it would be different then they d know that was what who 
 ever did it was after, see ? " 
 
 The door was closed the knob slowly, very, very slowly 
 being released again. From one of the leather pockets 
 under Jimmie Dale s vest came a tiny steel instrument that 
 fie inserted in the key-hole. 
 
 The same voice spoke on: 
 
 " That s what we re croaking him for, cause nobody 
 imows about them diamonds, and so s he can t tell anybody 
 afterward that any were pinched. An that s why it s got to 
 !ook like he just got tired of living and did it himself. I 
 guess that ll hold the police when they find the poor old duck 
 hanging from the ceiling, with a bit of cord around his neck, 
 and a chair kicked out from under his feet on the floor. 
 Ain t you got the brains of a louse to see that? " 
 
 " Sure " the whisper came dully, in grudging intonation 
 through the panels the door was locked. " Sure, but it s de 
 hangin round waitin* to get busy that s gettin me goat, 
 an - " 
 
 Jimmie Dale straightened up and began to retreat along 
 the corridor. A merciless rage was upon him now, every 
 fiber of his being seemed to tingle and quiver with it the 
 damnable, hellish ingenuity of it all seemed to choke and 
 suffocate him. 
 
 " Luck ! " muttered Jimmie Dale between his clenched 
 teeth. " Oh, the blessed luck to get that door locked! I ve 
 got time now to set the stage for my own get-away before 
 tfie showdown ! " 
 
 He stole on along the corridor. Excerpts from her letter
 
 THE AFFAIR OF THE PUSHCART MAN 135 
 
 running through his brain : " It would do no good to 
 warn him, Jimmie the Skeeter and his gang would never 
 let up on him until they got the stones. ... It would 
 do no good for you to steal them first, for they would only 
 take that as a ruse of old Luddy s, and murder the man first 
 and hunt afterward. ... In some way you must let 
 the Skeeter see you steal them, make them think, make them 
 certain that it is a bona-fide theft, so that they will no longer 
 have any interest or any desire to do old Luddy harm. . . . 
 And for it to appear real to them, it must appear real to old 
 Luddy himself do not take any chances there." 
 
 Jimmie Dale s eyes narrowed. Yes, it was simple enough 
 now with that pack of hell s wolves guarded for the moment 
 by a locked door, forced to give him warning by breaking the 
 door before they could get out. It was simple enough now 
 to enter old Luddy s room, steal the stones at the revolver 
 point, then make enough disturbance when he was ready 
 to set the gang in motion, and, as they rushed in open him, 
 to make his escape with the stones to the roof through 
 Luddy s room. That was simple enough there was an 
 opening to the roof in Luddy s room, she had said, and there 
 was a ladder kept there in place. On hot nights, it seemed, 
 the old man used to go up there and sleep on the roof not 
 now, of course. It was too late in the year for that but the 
 opening in the roof was there, and the ladder remained there, 
 too. 
 
 Yes, it was simple enough now. And the next morning 
 the papers would rave with execrations against the Gray 
 Seal for the robbery of the life savings of a poor, defense 
 less old man, for committing as vile and pitiful a crime as 
 had ever stirred New York ! Even Carruthers, of the Morn 
 ing News-Argus, would be moved to bitter attack. Good 
 old Carruthers who little thought that the Gray Seal was 
 his old college pal, his present most intimate friend, Jimmie 
 Dale ! And afterward after the next morning ? Well, that, 
 at least, had never been in doubt. Old Luddy could be made 
 to leave New York, and, once away, with the Skeeter and his 
 gang robbed of incentive to pay any further attention to him,.
 
 136 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 the stones could be secretly returned to the old man. And 
 it would to the public, to the police, be just another of the 
 Gray Seal s crimes that was all ! 
 
 Jimmie Dale had reached old Luddy s door. The Gray 
 Seal? Oh, yes, they would know it was the Gray Seal the 
 insignia was familiar enough; familiar to the crooks of the 
 underworld, who held it in awe ; familiar to the police, to 
 whom it was an added barb of ridicule. He was placing it 
 now, that insignia, a diamond-shaped, gray paper seal, on 
 the panel of the door; and now, a black silk mask adjusted 
 over his face, Jimmie Dale bent to insert the little steel instru 
 ment in the lock a pitiful, paltry thing, a cheap lock, 
 to fingers that could play so intimately with twirling knobs 
 and dials, masters of the intricate mechanism of vaults and 
 safes! 
 
 And then, about to open the door, a sort of sudden dismay 
 fell upon him. He had not thought of that somehow, it 
 had not occurred to him ! What ivas it they ivere waiting 
 for? Why had they not struck at once, as, when he had 
 first entered the house, he had supposed they would do? 
 What was it? Why was it? Was old Luddy out? Were 
 they waiting for his return or what? 
 
 The door, without sound, moved gradually under his 
 hand. A faint odor assailed his nostrils ! It was dark, very 
 dark. Across the room, in a direct line, was the doorway 
 of the inner room she had explained that in her letter. It 
 was slow progress to cross that room without sound, in 
 silence it was a snail s movement for fear that even a 
 muscle might crack. 
 
 And now he stood in the inner doorway. It was dark here, 
 too and yet, how bizarre, a star seemed to twinkle through 
 the very roof of the room itself ! The odour was pungent 
 now. There was a long-drawn sigh then a low. indescrib 
 able sound of movement. Somebody, apart from old Luddy, 
 was in the room! 
 
 It swept, the full consciousness of it, upon Jimmie Dale in 
 an instantaneous flash. Chloroform ; the open scuttle in the 
 foof ; the waiting of those others all fused into a compact.
 
 THE AFFAIR OF THE PUSHCART MAN 13f 
 
 Sbgical whole. They had loosened the scuttle during the day, 
 probably when old Luddy was away one of them had crept 
 down there now to chloroform the old man into insensibility 
 the others would complete the ghastly work presently by 
 stringing their victim up to the ceiling and it would be 
 suicide, for, long before morning came, long before the old 
 man would be discovered, the fumes of the chloroform would 
 be gone. 
 
 It seemed like a cold hand, deathlike, clutching at his heart. 
 Was he too late, after all ! Chloroform alone could kill I 
 To the right, just a little to the right he must make no mis 
 take his ear placed the sound ! He whipped his hands from 
 the side pockets of his coat the ray of his flashlight cut 
 across the room and fell upon an aged face upon a bed, upon 
 a hand clutching a wad of cloth, the cloth pressed horribly 
 against the nose and mouth of the upturned face and then, 
 roaring in the stillness, spitting a vicious lane of fire thaf 
 paralleled the flashlight s ray, came the tongue flame of his 
 automatic. 
 
 There was a yell, a scream, that echoed out, reverberated, 
 and went racketing through the house, and J rnmie Dale 
 leaped forward over a table, sending it crashing to the 
 floor. The man had reeled back against the wall, clutching 
 at a shattered wrist, staring into the flashlight s eye, white* 
 faced, jaw dropped, lips working in mingled pain and fear. 
 
 " Harve Thorns you, eh ? " gritted Jimmie Dale. 
 
 A cunning look swept the distorted face. Here, ap 
 parently, was only one man there were pals, three of them, 
 only a few yards away. 
 
 " You ain t got nothing on me ! " he snarled, sparring for 
 time. " You police are too damned fresh with your guns ! " 
 
 " I ll take yours ! " snapped Jimmie Dale, and snatched it 
 deftly from the other s pocket. " This ain t any police job, 
 my bucko, and you make a move and I ll drop you for keeps, 
 if what you ve got already ain t enough to teach you to keep 
 your hands off jobs that belong to your betters ! " 
 
 He was working with mad haste as he spoke. One 
 tt the outside was, perhaps, all he could count upon.
 
 138 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 ready he had caught the rattle of the locked door down the 
 hall. He lit a match and turned on the gas over the bed it 
 was the most dangerous thing he could do he knew that 
 well enough, none knew it better it was offering himself as 
 a fair mark when the others rushed in, as they would in a 
 moment now but the Skeeter and his gang and this man 
 here must have no misconception of his purpose, his reason 
 for being there, the same as their own, the theft of the 
 stones and no misconception as to his success. 
 
 " Y ain t the police ! it came in a choked gasp from the 
 other, as he blinked in the sudden light. " Say then " 
 
 "Shut up!" ordered Jimmie Dale curtly. "And mind 
 what T told you about moving ! " He leaned over the bed. 
 Old Luddy, though under the influence of the chloroform 
 was moving restlessly. Thorns had evidently only begun to 
 apply the chloroform old Luddy was safe! Jimmie Dale 
 ran his hand in under the pillow. " If you ain t swiped 
 them already they ought to be here ! " he growled ; " and if 
 you have I ll ah ! " A little chamois bag was in his hand. 
 He laughed sneeringly at Thorns, opened the bag, allowed a 
 few stones to trickle into his hand and then, without 
 stopping to replace them, dashed stones and bag into his 
 pocket. The door along the corridor crashed open. 
 
 " What s that ? " he gasped out, in well-simulated fright 
 and sprang for the ladder that led up to the roof. 
 
 It had all taken, perhaps, the minute that he had counted 
 on no more. Noises came from the floors below now, a 
 confusion of them the shot, the scream had been heard by 
 others, save those who had been in the locked room. And 
 the latter were outside now in the corridor, running to their 
 accomplice s aid. 
 
 There was a pause at the outer door then an oath and 
 coupled with the oath an exclamation: 
 
 " The Gray Seal ! " 
 
 They had swept a flashlight over the door panel Jimmie 
 Dale, halfway up the ladder, smiled grimly. 
 
 The door opened there was a rush of feet. The matt 
 lith the shattered wrist yelled, cursing wildly :
 
 THE AFFAIR OF THE PUSHCART MAN 139 
 
 " Here he is on the ladder ! Let him have it ! Fill him 
 full of holes ! " 
 
 Jimmie Dale was in the light they were in the dark oi 
 the outer room. He fired at the threshold, checking then 
 rus h as a hail of bullets chipped and tore at the ladder 
 and spat wickedly against the wall. He swung through to 
 the roof, trying, as he did so, to kick the ladder loose behind 
 him. It was fastened ! 
 
 The three gunmen jumped into the room from the roof 
 Jimmie Dale got a glimpse of them below, as he flung him 
 self clear of the opening. Bullets whistled through the 
 aperture a voice roared up as he gained his feet : 
 
 " Come on ! After him ! The whole place is alive, but 
 this lets us out. We can frame up how we came to be here 
 easy enough. Never mind the old geezer there any more! 
 Get the Gray Seal the reward that s out for him is worth 
 twice the sparklers, and " 
 
 Jimmie Dale hurled the cover over the scuttle. He could 
 have stood them off from above and kept the ladder clear 
 with his revolver, but the alarm seemed general now 
 windows were opening, voices were calling to one another - 
 from the windows across the street he must stand out in 
 sharp outline against the sky. Yes he was seen now. 
 
 A woman s voice, from a top-story window across the 
 street, screamed out, high-pitched in excitement: 
 
 " There he is ! There he is ! On the roof there ! " 
 
 Jimmie Dale started on the run along the roof. The 
 houses, built wall to wall, fiat-roofed, seemed to offer an 
 open course ahead of him until a lane or an intersecting 
 street should bar his way ! But they were not quite all on 
 the same level, though the wall of the next house rose sud 
 denly breast high in front of him. He flung himself up, re 
 gained his feet and ducked instantly behind a chim 
 ney. 
 
 The crack of a revolver echoed through the night a bullet 
 drummed through the air the Skeeter and his gang were on 
 the roof now, dashing forward, firing as they ran. Twc 
 shots from Jimmie Dale s automatic, in quick succession.
 
 *UO THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 cooled the ardour of their rush and they broke, blade 
 flitting forms, for the shelter of chimneys, too. 
 
 And now the whole neighbourhood seemed awakened. A 
 dull-toned roar, as from some great gulf below, rolled up 
 from the street, a medley of slamming windows, the rush 
 cf feet as people poured from the houses, cries, shouts, and 
 yells and high over all the shrill call of the police-patrol 
 whistle and the crack, crack, crack of the Skeeter s revolver 
 shots the Skeeter and his hellhounds for once self-appointed 
 allies of the law! 
 
 Twice again Jimmie Dale fired then crouching, running 
 low, he zigzagged his way across the next roof. The bullets 
 followed him once more his pursuers dashed forward. 
 And again Jimmie Dale, his face set like stone now, his 
 breath coming in hard gasps, dodged behind a chimney, and 
 with his gun checked their rush for the third time. 
 
 He glanced about him and with a growing sense of 
 disaster saw that two houses farther on the stretcu of roof 
 appeared to end. There would be a lane or a street there ! 
 And in another minute or two, if it were not already the 
 case, others would be following the gunmen to the ro f, 
 and then he would be he caught his breath suddenly in a 
 queer little strangled cry of relief. Just back of him, a few 
 yards away, his eyes made out what, in the darkness, seemed 
 to be a glass skylight. 
 
 A dark form sped like a deeper shadow across the black 
 in front of him, making for a chimney nearer by, closing in 
 the range. Jimmie Dale fired wide. Tight as was the 
 corner he was in, little as was the mercy deserved at hi? 
 hands, he could not, after all, bring himself to shoot to 
 kill. 
 
 A voice, the Skeeter s, bawled out raucously : 
 
 " Rush him all together from different sides at 
 once!" 
 
 A backward leap ! Jimmie Dale s boot was crashing glass 
 and frame, stamping at it desperately, making a hole for his 
 body through the skylight. A yell, a chorus of them, an 
 swered this then the crunch of racing feet on the graved
 
 THE AFFAIR OF THE PUSHCART MAN 141 
 
 itK)f. He emptied his revolver, sweeping the darkness with 
 ft semicircle of vicious flashes. 
 
 It seemed an hour it was barely the fraction of a second, 
 as he hung by his hands from the side of the skylight frame, 
 his body swinging back and forth in the unknown blackness 
 below. The skylight might be, probably was, directly over 
 the stair well, and open clear to the basement of the house- 
 but it was his only chance. He swung his body well out, let 
 go and dropped. With the impetus he smashed against 
 a wall, was flung back from it in a sort of rebound, and his 
 hands closed, gripping fiercely, on banisters. It had b^en 
 the stair well beyond any question of doubt, but his swing 
 had sent him clear of it. 
 
 Above, they had not yet reached the skylight. Jimmic 
 Dale snatched a precious moment to listen, as he rose, and 
 found himself, apart from bruises, perhaps unhurt. There 
 was commotion, too, in this h use below, the alarm had ex- 
 ended and spread along the block but the commotion was 
 all in the front of the house the street was the lure. 
 
 Jimmie Dale started down the stairs, and in an instant he 
 had gained the landing. In another he had slipped to the 
 rear of the hall somewhere there, from the hall itself, from 
 one of the rear rooms, there must be an exit to the fire 
 escape. To attempt to leave by the front way was certain 
 capture. 
 
 They were yelling, shouting down now through the sky 
 light above, as Jimmie Dale softly raised the window sash 
 at the rear of the hall. The fire escape was there. Shouts 
 from along the corridor, from the tenement dwellers who 
 had been crowding their neighbours rooms, craning their 
 necks probably from the front windows, answered the shouts 
 now from the roof and the skylight; doors opened; forms 
 rushed out but it was dark in the corridor, only a murky 
 yellow at the upper end from the opened doors. 
 
 Jimmie Dale slipped through the window to the fire escape, 
 and, working cautiously, silently, but with the speed of a 
 trained athlete, made his way down. At the bottom he 
 dropped from the iron platform into the back yard, ran for
 
 U2 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 the fence and climbed over into a lane on the othef 
 side. 
 
 And then, as he ran, Jimmie Dale snatched the mask from 
 his face and put it in his pocket. He was safe now. He 
 swept the sweat drops from his forehead with the back of 
 his hand noticing them for the first time. It had been 
 close almost as close for him as it had been for old Luddy. 
 And to-morrow the papers would execrate the Gray Seal! 
 He smiled a little wanly. His breath was still coming hard. 
 Presently they would scour the lane when they found that 
 their quarry was not in the house. What a racket they were 
 making ! The whole district seemed roused like a swarm of 
 angry bees. 
 
 He kept on along the lane and dodged suddenly into a 
 cross street where the two intersected. The clang of a bell 
 dinned discordantly in his ears a patrol wagon swept by 
 him, racing for the scene of the disturbance the riot call 
 was out ! 
 
 Again Jimmie Dale smiled wearily, passing his hand 
 across his eyes. 
 
 " I guess," said Jimmie Dale, " I m pretty near all in. 
 And I guess it s time that Larry the Bat went home." 
 
 And a little later a figure turned from the Bowery and 
 shambled down the cross street, a disreputable figure, W 7 ith 
 hands plunged deep in his pockets and a shadow across 
 the roadway suddenly shifted its position as the shambling 
 figure slouched into the black alleyway and entered the 
 tenement s side door. 
 
 And Larry the Bat smiled softly to himself Kline s men 
 were still on guard I
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 DEVIL S WORK 
 
 A WHITE-GLOVED arm, a voice, and a silvery laugh;; 
 Just that no more! Jimmie Dale, in his favourite 
 seat, an aisle seat some seven or eight rows back from the 
 orchestra, stared at the stage, to all outward appearances 
 absorbed in the last act of the play ; inwardly, quite oblivious 
 to the fact that even a play was going on. 
 
 A white-gloved arm, a voice, and a silvery laugh! The 
 words had formed themselves into a sort of singsong refrain 
 that, for the last few days, had been running through his 
 head. A strange enough guiding star to mould and dictate 
 every action in his life! And that was all he had ever seen 
 of her, all that he had ever heard of her except those letters, 
 of course, each of which had outlined the details of some 
 affair for the Gray Seal to execute. 
 
 Indeed, it seemed a great length of time now since he had 
 heard from her even in that way, though it was not so many 
 days ago, after all. Perhaps it was the calm, as it were, that, 
 by contrast, had given place to the strenuous months and 
 weeks just past. The storm raised by the newspapers at 
 the theft of Old Luddy s diamonds had subsided into sporadic 
 diatribes aimed at the police ; Kline, of the secret service, 
 had finally admitted defeat, and a shadow no longer skulked 
 day and night at the entrance to the Sanctuary and Larry 
 the Bat bore the government indorsement, so to speak, of 
 being no more suspicious a character than that of a dis 
 reputable, but harmless, dope fiend of the underworld. 
 
 Larry the Bat ! The Gray Seal ! Jimmie Dale the mil 
 lionaire! What if it were ever known that that strange 
 
 143
 
 144 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 three were one! What if Jimmie Dale smiled 
 
 whimsically. A burst of applause echoed through the house, 
 the orchestra was playing, the lights were on, seats banged, 
 there was the bustle of the rising audience, the play was at 
 an end and for the life of him he could not have remem 
 bered a single line of the last act ! 
 
 The aisle at his elbow was already crowded with people 
 on their way out. Jimmie Dale stooped down mechanically 
 to reach for his hat beneath his seat and the next instant 
 he was standing up, staring wildly into the faces arounc* 
 ilim. 
 
 It had fallen at his feet a white envelope. Hers ! It 
 was in his hand now, those slim, tapering, wonderfully sensi 
 tive fingers of Jimmie Dale, that were an " open sesame " 
 to locks and safes, subconsciously telegraphing to his mind 
 the fact that the texture of the paper was hers. Hers! 
 And she must be one of those around him one of those 
 crowding either the row of seats in front or behind, or one 
 of those just passing in the aisle. It had fallen at his feet 
 as he had stooped over for his Vat but from just exactly 
 what direction he could not tell. His eyes, eagerly, hungrily, 
 critically, swept face after face. Which one was hers? 
 What irony! She, whom he would have given his life to 
 know, for whom indeed he risked his life every hour of the 
 twenty-four, was close to him now, within reach and as 
 far removed as t/iough a thousand miles separated them. 
 She was there but he could not recognise a face that he 
 had never seen 
 
 With an effort, he choked back the bitter, impotent laugh 
 that rose to his lips. They were talking, laughing around 
 him. Her voice yes, he had once heard that, and that he 
 would recognise again. He strained to catch, to individualise 
 the tone sounds that floated in a medley about him. It was 
 useless of course every effort that he had ever made 
 to find her had been useless. She was too clover, far too 
 clever for that she, too, would know that he could and 
 would recognise her voice where he could recognise nothing 
 
 toe.
 
 DEVIL S WORK 145 
 
 And then, suddenly, he realised that he was attracting at 
 tention. Level stares from the women returned his gaze, 
 and they edged away a little from his vicinity as they passed, 
 their escorts crowding somewhat belligerently into their 
 places. Others, in the same row of seats as his own, were 
 impatiently waiting to get by him. With a muttered apology, 
 Jimmie Dale raised the seat of his chair, allowing these latter 
 to pass him and then, slipping the letter into his pocket- 
 book, he snatched up his hat from the seat rack. 
 
 There was still a chance. Knowing he was there, she 
 would be on her guard ; but in the lobby, among the crowd 
 and unaware of his presence, there was the possibility that, 
 if he could reach the entrance ahead of her, she, too, might 
 be talking and laughing as she left the theatre. Just a single 
 word, just a tone that was all he asked. 
 
 The row of seats at whose end he stood was empty now, 
 and, instead of stepping into the thronged aisle, he made his 
 way across to the opposite side of the theatre. Here, the 
 far aisle was less crowded, and in a minute he had gained 
 the foyer, confident that he was now in advance of her. The 
 next moment he was lost in a jam of people in the lobby. 
 
 He moved slowly now, very slowly allowing those be 
 hind to press by him on the way to the entrance. A babel 
 of voices rose about him, as, tight-packed, the mass of people 
 jostled, elbowed, and pushed good-naturedly. It was a 
 voice now, her voice, that he was listening for ; but, though 
 it seemed that every faculty was strained and intent upon 
 that one effort, his eyes, too, had in no degree relaxed their 
 vigilance and once, half grimly, half sardonically, he smiled 
 to himself. There would be an unexpected aftermath to this 
 exodus of expensively gowned and bejewelled women with 
 their prosperous, well-groomed escorts ! Th a ^ was the 
 Wowzer over there sleek, dapper, squirming in and out of 
 the throng with the agility and stealth of a cat. As Larry the 
 Bat he had met the Wowzer many times, as indeed he had 
 met and was acquainted with most of the elite of the under 
 world. The Wowzer, beyond a shadow of doubt, in his own 
 profession stood upon a plane entirely by himself amonj?
 
 146 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 those qualified to speak, no one yet had ever questioned trie 
 Wowzer s claim to the distinction of being the most dexterous 
 and finished " poke getter " in the United States ! 
 
 The crowd thinned in the lobby, thinned down to the last 
 few belated stragglers, who passed him as he still loitered 
 in the entrance ; and then Jimmie Dale, with a shrug of his 
 shoulders that was a great deal more philosophical than the 
 maddening sense of chagrin and disappointment that burned 
 within him, stepped out to the pavement and headed down 
 Broadway. After all, he had known it in his heart of hearts 
 all the time it had always been the same it was only one 
 more occasion added to the innumerable ones that had gorv<? 
 before in which she had eluded him ! 
 
 And now there was the letter! Automatically he 
 quickened his steps a little. It was useless, futile, profitless, 
 for the moment, at least, to disturb himself over his failure 
 there was the letter! His lips parted in a strange, half- 
 serious, half-speculative smile. The letter that was para 
 mount now. What new venture did the night hold in store 
 for him ? What sudden emergency was the Gray Seal called 
 upon to face this time what role, unrehearsed, without 
 warning, must he play? What story of grim, desperate 
 rascality would the papers credit him with when daylight 
 came? Or would they carry in screaming headlines the 
 announcement that the Gray Seal was caged and caught at 
 last, and in three-inch type tell the world that the Gray Seal 
 was Jimmie Dale ! 
 
 A block down, he turned from Broadway out of the 
 theatre crowds that streamed in both directions past him. 
 The letter! Almost feverishly now he was seeking an op 
 portunity to open and read it unobserved ; an eagerness 
 upon J-< : tT that mingled exhilaration at the lure of danger 
 with a sense of premonition that, irritably, inevitably was 
 with him at moments such as these. It seemed, it always 
 seemed, that, with an unopened letter of hers in his posses 
 sion, it was as though he were about to open a page in the 
 Book of Fate and read, as it were, a pronouncement upou 
 himself that .might mean life or death.
 
 DEVIL S WORK 
 
 He hurried on. People still passed by him too many. 
 And then a cafe, just ahead, making a corner, gave him 
 the opportunity that he sought. Away from the entrance, 
 on the side street, the brilliant lights from the windows shone 
 out on a comparatively deserted pavement. There was 
 ample light to read by, even as far away from the window 
 as the curb, and Jimmie Dale, with an approving nod, turned 
 the corner and walked along a few steps until opposite the 
 farthest window but, as he halted here at the edge of the 
 street, he glanced quickly behind him at a man whom he had 
 just passed. The other had paused at the corner and was 
 staring down the street. Jimmie Dale instantly and non 
 chalantly produced his cigarette case, selected a cigarette, 
 and fastidiously tapped its end on his thumb nail. 
 
 " Inspector Burton in plain clothes," he observed musingly 
 to himself. " I wonder if it s just a fluke or something 
 else? We ll see." 
 
 Jimmie Dale took a box of matches from his pocket. The 
 first would not light. The second broke, and, with an ex 
 clamation of annoyance, he flung it away. The third was 
 making a fitful effort at life, as another man emerged hastily 
 from the cafe s side door, hurried to the corner, joined the 
 man who was still loitering there, and both together dis 
 appeared at a rapid pace down the street. 
 
 Jimmie Dale whistled softly to himself. The second man 
 was even better known than the first ; there was not a crook 
 in New York but would side-step Lannigan of headquarters, 
 and do it with amazing celerity if he could ! 
 
 " Something up ! But it s not my hunt ! " muttered Jim 
 mie Dale ; then, with a shrug of his shoulders : " Queer the 
 way those headquarters chaps fascinate and give me a thrill 
 every time I see them, even if I haven * a ghost of a reason 
 for imagining that " 
 
 The sentence was never finished. Jimmie Dale s face was 
 gray. The street seemed to rock about him and he stared, 
 like a man stricken, white to the lips, ahead of him. The 
 letter ivas gone! His hand, wriggling from his empty 
 pocket, swept away the sweat beads that were bursting f rora
 
 148 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 his forehead. It had come at last the pitcher had gone on 
 too often to the well ! 
 
 Numbed for an instant, his brain cleared now, working 
 with lightning speed, leaping from premise to conclusion. 
 The crush in the theatre lobby the pushing, the jostling, 
 the close contact the Wowzer, the slickest, cleverest pick 
 pocket in the United States ! For a moment he could have 
 laughed aloud in a sort of ghastly, defiant mockery he him 
 self had predicted an unexpected aftermath, had he not! 
 
 Aftermath! It was the end! An hour, two hours, and 
 New York would be metamorphosed into a seething caldron 
 of humanity bubbHng with the news. It seemed that he 
 could hear the screams of the newsboys now shouting theit 
 extras ; it seemed that he could see the people, roused to 
 frenzy, swarming in excited crowds, snatching at the papers ; 
 he seemed to hear the mob s shouts swell in execration, in 
 exultation it seemed as though all around him had gone 
 mad. The mystery of the Gray Seal was solved! It was 
 Jimmie Dale, Jimmie Dale, Jimmie, Dale, the millionaire, 
 the lion of society and there was ignominy for an honoured 
 name, and shame and disaster and convict stripes and sullen 
 penitentiary walls or death ! A felon s death the chair ! 
 
 He was running now, his hands clenched at his sides ; his 
 mind, working subconsciously, urging him onward in a blind, 
 as yet unrealised, objectless way. And then gradually im 
 pulse gave way to calmer reason, and he slowed his pace to 
 a quick, less noticeable walk. The Wowzer ! That was it I 
 There was yet a chance the Wowzer! A merciless rage, 
 cold, deadly, settled upon him. It was the Wowzer who 
 had stolen his pocketbook, and with it the letter. There 
 could be no doubt of that. Well, there would be a reckoning 
 ut least before the end! 
 
 He was in a downtown subway train now the roar in 
 his ears in consonance, it seemed, with the tut moil in his 
 brain. But now, too, he was Jimmie Dale again ; and, apart 
 from the slightly outthrust jaw, the tight-closed lips, IIP- 
 passive, debonair, composed. 
 
 There was yet a chance. As Larry the Bat he knew
 
 DEVIL S WORK 149 
 
 every den and lair below the dead line, and he knew, too, the 
 Wowzer j favourite haunts. There was yet a chance, only 
 one IK a thousand, it was true, almost too pitiful to be de 
 pended upon but yet a chance. The Wowzer had probably 
 not worked ;.lone, and he and his pa 1 or pals, would cer 
 tainly not remain uptown either to examine or divide their 
 spoils they would wait until they were safe somewhere in 
 one of their hell holes on the East Side. If he could find th* 
 Wowzer, reach the man before the letter was opened-* 
 Jimmie Dale s lips grew tighter. That was the chance ! If 
 he failed in that Jimmie Dale s lips drooped downward in 
 grim curves at the corners. A chance ! Already the Wowzer 
 had at least a half hour s lead, and, worse still, there was no 
 telling which one of a dozen places the man might have 
 chosen to retreat to with his loot. 
 
 Time passed. His mind obsessed, Jimmie Dale s physical 
 lets were almost wholly mechanical. It was perhaps fifteen 
 minutes since he had discovered the loss of the letter, and 
 he was walking now through the heart of the Bowery. Ex 
 actly how he had got there he could not have told ; he had 
 only a vague realisation that, following an intuitive sense of 
 direction, he had lost not a second of time in making his 
 way downtown. 
 
 And now he found himself hesitating at the corner of a 
 cross street. Two blocks east was that dark, narrow alley* 
 way, that side door that made the entrance to the Sanctuary. 
 It would be safer, a hundred times safer, to go there, change 
 his clothes and his personality, and emerge again as Larry 
 the Bat infinitely safer in that role to explore the dens of 
 the underworld, many of them indeed unknown and un 
 dreamed of by the police themselves, than to trust himself 
 there in well-cut, fashionable tweeds but that would take 
 time. Time! When, with every second, the one chance he 
 had, desperate as that already was, was slipping away from 
 him. No ; what was apparently the greater risk at least held 
 out the only hope. 
 
 He went on again his brain incessantly at work. At the 
 worst there was one mitigating factor in it all. He had no
 
 150 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 need to think of her. Whatever the ruin and disaster that 
 faced him in the next few hours, she in any case was safe. 
 There was no clew to her identity in the letter ; and where 
 he, for months on end, with even more to work upon, had 
 failed at every turn to trace her, there was little fear that 
 any one else would have any better success. She was safe. 
 As for himself that was different. The Gray Seal would be 
 referred to in the letter, there would be the outline, the 
 data for the " crime " she had planned for that night ; and 
 the letter, though unaddressed, being found in his pocket- 
 book, where cards and notes and a dozen different things 
 among its contents proclaimed him Jimmie Dale, needed 
 no further evidence as to its ownership nor the identity of 
 the Gray Seal. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s fingers crept inside his vest and fumbled 
 there for a moment and a diamond stud, extracted from 
 his shirt front, glistened sportively in the necktie that was 
 now tucked jauntily in at one side of his shirt bosom. He 
 had reached the Blue Dragon, one of Wowzer s usual hang 
 outs, and, swerving from the sidewalk, entered the place. 
 There was wild tumult within a constant storm of ap 
 plause, derision, and hilarity that was hurled from the tables 
 around the room at the turkey-trotting, tango-writhing 
 couples on the somewhat restricted space of polished hard~ 
 wood flooring in the centre. Jimmie Dale swaggered down 
 the room, a cigar tilted up at an angle between his teeth, his 
 soft felt hat a little rakishly on one side of his head and 
 well over his nose. 
 
 At the end of the room, at the bar, Jimmie Dale leaned 
 toward the barkeeper and talked out of the corner of his 
 mouth. There were private rooms upstairs, and he jerked 
 his head surreptitiously ceilingward. 
 
 " Say, is de Wowzer up dere ? " he inquired in a cautious 
 whisper. 
 
 The man behind the bar, well known to Jimmie Dale as 
 one of the Wowzer s particular pals, favoured him with a 
 blank stare.
 
 DEVIL S WORK 
 
 " Never heard of de guy ! " he announced brusquely. 
 " Wot s yours ? " 
 
 " Gimme a mug of suds," said Jimmie Dale, reaching for 
 a match. He puffed at his cigar, blew out the match, and, 
 after a moment, flung the charred end away but on his 
 hand, as, palm outward, he raised it to take his glass, the 
 match had traced a small black cross. 
 
 The barkeeper put down the beer he had just drawn, wiped 
 his hand hurriedly, and with sudden enthusiasm thrust it 
 across the bar. 
 
 " Glad to know youse, cull ! " he exclaimed. " Wot s de 
 lay?" 
 
 Jimmie Dale smiled. 
 
 " Nix ! " said Jimmie Dale. " I just blew in from Chicago. 
 Used to know de Wowzer dere. He said dis place was on 
 de level, an I could always find him here, dat s all." 
 
 " Sure, youse can ! " returned the barkeeper heartily. 
 " Only he ain t here now. He beat it about fifteen minutes 
 ago, him an Dago Jim, I guess youse ll find him at Chang s, 
 I heard him an Dago say dey was goin* dere. Know de 
 place ? " 
 
 Jimmie Dale shook his head. 
 
 " I ain t much wise to New York," he explained. 
 
 " Aw, dat s easy," whispered the barkeeper. " Go down 
 to Chatham Square, an den any guy ll show youse Chang 
 Foo s." He winked confidentially. " I guess youse won t 
 bump yer head none gettin around inside." 
 
 Jimmie Dale nodded, grinned back, emptied his glass, 
 and dug for a coin. 
 
 " Forget it ! " observed the barkeeper cordially. " Dis is 
 on me. Any friend of de Wowzer s gets de glad hand here 
 any time." 
 
 " T anks ! " said Jimmie Dale gratefully, as he turned 
 away. " So long, then see youse later." 
 
 Chang Foo s ! Jimmie Dale s face set even a little harder 
 than it had before, as he swung on again down the Bowery. 
 Yes ; he knew Chang Foo s too well. Underground China 
 town where a man s life was worth the price of an opium
 
 152 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 pill or less ! Mechanically his hand slipped into his pocket 
 and closed over the automatic that nestled there. Once in 
 where he had to go and the chances were even, just even, 
 that was all, that he would ever get out. Again he was 
 tempted to return to the Sanctuary and make the attempt as 
 Larry the Bat. Larry the Bat was well enough known to 
 enter Chang Foo s unquestioned, and but again he shook 
 his head and went on. There was not time. Tne Wowzer 
 and his pal it was Dago Jim it seemed had evidently been 
 drinking and loitering their way downtown from the theatre, 
 and he had gained that much on them ; but by now they 
 would be smugly tucked away somewhere in that maze of 
 dens below the ground, and at that moment probably were 
 gloating over the biggest night s haul they had ever made in 
 their lives ! 
 
 And if they were ! What then? Once they knew the con 
 tents of that letter what then? Buy them off for a larger 
 amount than the many thousands offered for the capture of 
 the Gray Seal ? Jimmie Dale gritted his teeth. That meant 
 blackmail from them all his life, an intolerable existence, 
 impossible, a hell on earth the slave, at the beck and call 
 of two of the worst criminals in New York ! The moisture 
 oozed again to Jimmie Dale s forehead. God, if he could 
 get that letter before it was opened before they knew! If 
 he could only get the chance to fight for it against any 
 odds! Life! Life was a pitiful consideration against the 
 alternative that faced him now ! 
 
 From the Blue Dragon to Chang Foo s was not far ; and 
 Jimmie Dale covered the distance in well under five minutes. 
 Chang Foo s was just a tea merchant s shop, innocuous and 
 innocent enough in its appearance, blandly so indeed, and 
 that was all outwardly ; but Jimmie Dale, as he reached 
 his destination, experienced the first sensation of uplift he 
 had known that night, and this from what, apparently, did 
 not in the least seem like a contributing cause. 
 
 " Luck ! The blessed luck of it ! " he muttered grimly, 
 as he surveyed the sight-seeing car drawn up at the curb, 
 and watched the passengers crowding out of it to the ground
 
 DEVIL S WORK 153 
 
 * It wouldn t have been as easy to fool old Chang as it was 
 that fellow back at the Dragon and, besides, if I can work 
 it, there s a better chance this way of getting out alive." 
 
 The guide was marshalling his " gapers " some two dozen 
 in all, men and women. Jimmie Dale unostentatiously fell 
 in at the rear ; and, the guide leading, the little crowd passed 
 into the tea merchant s shop. Chang Foo, a wizened, wrin 
 kled-faced little Celestial, oily, suave, greeted them with 
 profuse bows, chattering the while volubly in Chinese. 
 
 The guide made the introduction with an all-embracing 
 sweep of his hand. 
 
 " Chang Foo ladies and gentlemen," he announced ; then 
 held up his hand for silence. " Ladies -ar/d gentlemen," he 
 said impressively, " this is one of the most notorious, if not 
 the most notorious dive in Chinatown, and it is only through 
 special arrangement with the authorities and at great ex 
 pense that the company is able exclusively to gain an entree 
 here for its patrons. You will see here the real life of the 
 Chinese, and in half an hour you will get what few would 
 get in a lifetime spent in China itself. You will see the 
 Chinese children dance and perform; the Chinese women 
 at their household tasks ; the joss, the shrine of his hallowed 
 ancestors, at which Chang Foo here worships ; and you will 
 enter the most famous opium den in the United States. 
 Now, if you will all keep close together, we will make a 
 start." 
 
 In spite of his desperate situation, Jimmie Dale smiled a 
 little whimsically. Yes; they would see it all upstairs! 
 The same old bunk dished out night after night at so much 
 a head and the nervous little schoolma am of uncertain 
 age, who fidgeted now beside him, would go back somewhere 
 down in Maine and shiver while she related her " wider ex 
 periences " in tremulous whispers into the shocked ears of 
 envious other maiden ladies of equally uncertain age. The 
 same old bunk and a profitable one for Chang Foo for 
 more reasons than one. It was dust in the eyes of the police. 
 The police smiled kaowingly at mention of Chang Foo.
 
 154 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 Who should know, if they didn t, that it was all harmless 
 fake, all bunk ! And so it was upstairs! 
 
 They were passing out of the shop now, bowed out through 
 a side door by the obsequious and oily Chang Foo. And 
 now they massed again in a sort of little hallway and Chang 
 Foo, closing the door upon Jimmie Dale, who was the last 
 in the line, shuffled back behind the counter in his shop to 
 resume his guard duty over customers of quite another ilk. 
 With the door closed, it was dark, pitch dark. And this, 
 too, like everything else connected with Chang Foo s estab 
 lishment, for more reasons than one for effect and foi- 
 security. Nervous little twitters began to emanate from tha 
 women the guide s voice rose reassuringly : 
 
 " Keep close together, ladies and gentlemen. We are go< 
 ing upstairs now to " 
 
 Jimmie Dale hugged back against the wall, sidled along it,, 
 and like a shadow slipped down to the end of the hall. Tnt, 
 scuffling of two dozen pairs of feet mounting the creaky 
 staircase drowned the slight sound as he cautiously opened 
 a door ; the darkness lay black, impenetrable, along the hall. 
 And then, as cautiously as he had opened it, he closed th* 
 door behind him, and stood for an instant listening at the 
 head of a ladder-like stairway, his automatic in his hand 
 now. It was familiar ground to Larry the Bat. The steps led 
 down to a cellar ; and diagonally across from the foot of the 
 steps was an opening, ingeniously hidden by a heterogeneous 
 collection of odds and ends, boxes, cases, and rubbish from 
 the pseudo tea shop above ; a low opening in the wall to a pas 
 sage that led on through the cellars of perhaps half a dozen 
 adjoining houses, each of which latter was leased, in one 
 name or another by Chang Foo. 
 
 Jimmie Dale crept down the steps, and in another moment 
 had gained the farther side of the cellar ; then, skirting 
 around the ruck of cases, he stooped suddenly and passed 
 in through the opening in the wall. And now he halted once 
 more. He was straining his eyes down a long, narrow pas 
 sage, whose blackness was accentuated rather than relieved 
 by curious wavering, gossamer threads of yellow light that
 
 DEVIL S WORK 155 
 
 showed here and there from under makeshift thresholds, 
 from doors slightly ajar. Faint noises came to him, a 
 muffled, intermittent clink of coin, a low, continuous, droning 
 hum of voices ; the sickly sweet smell of opium pricked at his 
 nostrils. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s face set rigidly. It was the resort, not only 
 of the most depraved Chinese element, but of the worst 
 " white " thugs that made New York their headquarters 
 here, in the succession of cellars, roughly partitioned off to 
 make a dozen rooms on either side of the passage, dope 
 fiends sucked at the drug, and Chinese gamblers spent the 
 greater part of their lives ; here, murder was hatched and 
 played too often to its hellish end ; here, the scum of the un 
 derworld sought refuge from the police to the profit of 
 Chang Foo; and here, somewhere, in one of these rooms, 
 was the Wowzer. 
 
 The Wowzer ! Jimmie Dale stole forward silently, with 
 out a sound, swiftly pausing only to listen for a second s 
 space at the doors as he passed. From this one came that 
 clink of coin ; from another that jabber of Chinese ; from 
 still another that overpowering stench of opium and once, 
 iron-nerved as he was, a cold thrill passed over him. Let 
 this lair of hell s wolves, so intent now on their own affairs, 
 be once roused, as they certainly must be roused before 
 he could hope to finish the Wowzer, and his chances of es 
 cape were 
 
 He straightened suddenly, alert, tense, strained. Voices, 
 raised in a furious quarrel, came from a door just beyond 
 him on the other side of the passage, where a film of light 
 streamed out through a cracked panel it was the Wowzer 
 and Dago Jim! And drunk, both of them and both in a 
 blind fury ! 
 
 It happened quick then, almost instantaneously it seemed to 
 Jimmie Dale. He was crouched now close against the door, 
 his eye to the crack in the panel. There was only one figure 
 in sight Dago Jim standing beside a table on which 
 bunied a lamp, the table top littered with watches, purses, 
 and small chatelaine bags. The man was lurching un-
 
 steadily on his feet, a vicious sneer of triumph on his 
 waving tauntingly an open letter and Jimmie Dale s pocket- 
 book in his hands waving them presumably in the face of 
 the Wowzer, whom, from the restrictions of the crack, Jim 
 mie Dale could not see. He was conscious of a sickening 
 sense of disaster. His hope against hope had been in vain 
 the letter had been opened and re?d~-the identity of tht 
 Gray Seal was solved. 
 
 Dago Jim s voice roared out, haarse, blasphemous, m 
 drunken rage: 
 
 " De Gray Seal see! Youse betcher life I knows! I 
 been waitin f er somet ? ing like dis, damn youse ! Youse 
 been stallin on me fer a year every time it came to a divvy. 
 Youse ve got a pocketful now youse snitched to-night dat 
 youse are tryin to do me out of. Well, keep em " he 
 shoved his face forward. M I keeps dis see ! Keep em 
 Wowzer, youse cross-eyed " 
 
 " Everyt ing I pinched to-night s on de table dere wid wot 
 youse pinched yerself," cut in the Wowzer, in a sullen, 
 threatening growL 
 
 "Youse lie, an* youse knows it!" retorted Dago Jim. 
 " Youse have given me de short end every time we ve pulled 
 a deal!" 
 
 " Dat letter s mine, youse n bawled the Wowzer furi 
 ously. 
 
 " Why didn t youse open it an read it, den, instead of 
 lettin me do it to keep me busy while youse short-changed 
 me ? " sneered Dago Jim. " Youse t ought it was some sweet 
 billy-doo, eh ? Well, t anks, Wowzer dat s wot it is ! Say," 
 r.e mocked, " dere s a guy ll cash a t ousand century notes 
 fer dis, an if he don t say, dere s some reward out fer the 
 Gray Seal ! Wouldn t youse like to know who it is ? Well, 
 vmen I m ridin in me private buzz wagon, Wowzer, youse 
 stick around an mabbe I ll tell youse an mabbe I won t ! M 
 
 " By God " the Wowzer s voice rose in a scream 
 * /ouse hand over dat letter 1 " 
 
 " Youse go to " 
 
 Red, lurid red, a stream of flame seemed to cut acros?
 
 DEVIL S WORK Iff? 
 
 Jimmie Dale s line of vision, came the roar of a revolver 
 shot and like a madman Jimmie Dale flung his body at the 
 door. Rickety at best, it crashed inward, half wrenched 
 from its hinges, precipitating him inside. He recovered 
 himself and leaped forward. The room was swirling with 
 blue eddies of smoke ; Dago Jim, hands flung up, still grasp 
 ing letter and pocketbook, pawed at the air and plunged 
 with a sagging lurch face downward to the floor. There 
 was a yeli and an oath from the Wowzer the crack of an 
 other revolver shot, the hum of the bullet past Jimmie Dale s 
 ear, the scorch of the tongue flame in his face, and he was 
 upon the other. 
 
 Screeching profanity, the Wowzer grappled ; and, for an 
 instant, the two men rocked, reeled, and swayed in each 
 other s embrace; then, both men losing their balance, they 
 shot suddenly backward, the Wowzer, undermost, striking 
 his head against the table s edge and men, table, and lamp 
 crashed downward in a heap to the floor. 
 
 It had been no more, at most, than a matter of seconds 
 since Jimmie Dale had hurled himself into the room ; and 
 now, with a gurgling sigh, the Wowzer s arms, that had been 
 wound around Jimmie Dale s back and shoulders, relaxed, 
 and, trom the blow on his head the man, lay back inert and 
 stunned. And then it seemed to Jimmie Dale as though 
 pandemonium, unreality, and chaos at the touch of some 
 devil s hand reigned around him. It was dark no, not 
 dark a spurt of flame was leaping along the line of trick 
 ling oil from the broken lamp on the floor. It threw into 
 ghastly relief the sprawled form of Dago Jim. Outside, 
 from along the passageway, came a confused jangle of com 
 motion whispering voices, shuffling feet, the swish of 
 Chinese garments. And the room itself began to spring into 
 weird, flickering shadows, that mounted and crept up the 
 walls with the spreading fire. 
 
 There was not a second to lose before the room would be 
 swarming with that rush from the passageway and there 
 was still the letter, the pocketbook! The table had fallea 
 half over Dago Jim Jimnv e Dale pushed it aside, tore tfcs
 
 158 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 crushed letter and the pocketbook from the man s hands 
 and felt, with a grim, horrible sort of anxiety, for the other s 
 heartbeat, for the verdict that meant life or death to himself. 
 There was no sign of life the man was dead. 
 
 Jimmie Dale was on his feet now. A face, another, and an 
 other showed in the doorway the Wowzer was regaining 
 his senses, stumbling to his knees. There was one chance 
 just one to take those crowding figures by surprise. And 
 with a yell of " Fire! "Jimmie Dale sprang for the doorway. 
 
 They gave way before his rush, Bumbling back in their 
 surprise against the opposite wall ; and, turning, Jimmie Dale 
 raced down the passageway. Doors were opening every 
 where now, forms were pushing out into the semi-darkness 
 only to duck hastily back again, as Jimmie Dale s auto 
 matic barked and spat a running fire of warning ahead of 
 him. And then, behind, the Wowzer s voice shrieked out: 
 
 " Soak him ! Kill de guy ! He s croaked Dago Jim i 
 Put a hole in him, de " 
 
 Yells, a chorus of them, took up the refrain then the 
 rush of following feet and the passageway seemed to racket 
 as though a Catling gun were in play with the fusillade of 
 revolver shots. But Jimmie Dale was at the opening now 
 and, like a base runner plunging for the bag, he flung himself 
 in a low dive through and into the open cellar beyond. He 
 was on his feet, over the boxes, and dashing up the stairs 
 in a second. The door above opened as he reached the top 
 Jimmie Dale s right hand shot out with clubbed revolver 
 and with a grunt Chang Foo went down before the blow 
 and the headlong rush. The next instant Jimmie Dale had 
 sprung through the tea shop and was out on the street. 
 
 A minute, two minutes more, and Chinatown would be in 
 an uproar Chang Foo would see to that and the Wowzer 
 would prod him on. The danger was far from over yet. 
 And then, as he ran, Jimmie Dale gave a little gasp of re 
 lief. Just ahead, drawn up at the curb, stood a taxicab 
 waiting, probably, for a private slumming party. Jimmie 
 Dale put on a spurt, reached it, and wrenched the dooi 
 open,
 
 DEVIL S WORK 159 
 
 " Quick ! " he flung at the startled chauffeur. " The neai* 
 est subway station there s a ten-spot in it for you ! Quick 
 man quick! Here they come!" 
 
 A crowd of Chinese, pouring like angry hornets from 
 Chang Foo s shop, came yelling down the street and the 
 taxi took the corner on two wheels and Jimmie Dale, pant 
 ing, choking for his breath like a man spent, sank back 
 against the cushions. 
 
 But five minutes later it was quite another Jimmie Dale, 
 composed, nonchalant, imperturbable, who entered an up 
 town subway train, and, choosing a seat alone near the cen 
 tre ot the car, which at that hour of night in the downtown 
 district was almost deserted, took the crushed letter from his 
 pocket. For a moment he made no attempt to read it, his 
 dark eyes, now that he was free from observation, full of 
 troubled retrospect, fixed on the window at his side. It 
 was not a pleasant thought that it had cost a man his life, 
 nor yet that that life was also the price of his own freedom. 
 True, if there were two men in the city of New York whose 
 crimes merited neither sympathy nor mercy, those two men 
 were the Wowzer and Dago Jim but yet, after all, it was 
 a human life, and, even if his own had been in the balance, 
 thank God it had been through no act of his that Dago Jim 
 had gone out ! The Wowzer, cute and cunning, had been 
 quick enough to say so to clear himself, but Jimmie Dale 
 smiled a little now neither the Wowzer, nor Chang Foo, 
 nor Chinatown would ever be in a position to recognise their 
 uninvited guest ! 
 
 Jimmie Dale s eyes shifted to the letter speculatively, 
 gravely. It seemed as though the night had already held a 
 year of happenings, and the night was not over yet there 
 was the letter ! It had already cost one life ; was it to cost 
 another or what ? 
 
 It began as it always did. He read it through once, in 
 amazement; a second time, with a flush of bitter anger 
 creeping to his cheeks ; and a third time, curiously memoris 
 ing, as it were, snatches of it here and there.
 
 160 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 " DEAR PHILANTHROPIC CROOK : Robbery of Hudson* 
 Mercantile National Bank trusted employee is ex-convict, 
 bad police record, served term in Sing Sing three years 
 ago known to police as Bookkeeper Bob, real name is Robert 
 
 Moyne, lives at Street, Harlem Inspector Burton and 
 
 Lannigar. of headquaictTs trailing him now robbery not yet 
 made public " 
 
 There was a great deal more -four sheets of closely 
 written data. With an exclamation almost of dismay, Jim- 
 mie Dale pulled out his watch. So that was what Burton 
 and Lannigan were up to! And he had actually run into 
 
 them ! Lord, the irony of it ! The And then Jimmie 
 
 Dale stared at the dial of his watch incredulously. It was 
 still but barely midnight! It seemed impossible that since 
 leaving the theatre at a few minutes before eleven, he had 
 lived through but a single hour ! 
 
 Jimmie Dale s fingers began to pluck at the letter, tearing 
 it into pieces, tearing the pieces over and over again into 
 tiny shreds. The train stopped at station after station, 
 people got on and off Jimmie Dale s hat was over his eyes, 
 and his eyes were glued again to the window. Had Book 
 keeper Bob returned to his flat in Harlem with the detectives 
 at his heels or were Burton and Lannigan still trailing the 
 man downtown somewhere around the cafes? If the for 
 mer, the theft of the letter and its incident loss of time had 
 been an irreparable disaster; if the latter well, who knewl 
 The risk was the Gray Seal s ! 
 
 At One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Street Jimmie Dale 
 left the train; and, at the end ot a sharp four minutes walk, 
 during which he had dodged in and out from street to street, 
 stopped on a corner to survey the block ahead of him. It 
 was a block devoted exclusively to flats and apartment 
 houses, and, apart from a few belated pedestrians, was de 
 serted. Jimmie Dale strolled leisurely down one side, 
 crossed the street at the end of the block, and strolled lei 
 surely back on the other side there was no sign of either 
 Burton or Lannigan. It was a fairly safe presumption then
 
 DEVIL S WORK 161 
 
 that Bookkeeper Bob had not returned yet, or one of th 
 detectives at least would have been shadowing the house. 
 
 Jimmie Dale, smiling a little grimly, retraced his steps 
 again, and turned deliberately into a doorway whose num 
 ber he had noted as he had passed a moment or so before. 
 So, after all, there was time yet! This was the house. 
 " Number eighteen," she had said in her letter. " A flat- 
 three stories Moyne lives on ground floor." 
 
 Jimmie Dale leaned against the vestibule door there wa* 
 a faint click a little steel instrument was withdrawn from 
 the lock and Jimmie Dale stepped into the hall, where a gas 
 Jet, turned down, burned dimly. 
 
 The door of the ground-floor apartment was at his right. 
 Jimmie Dale reached up and turned off the light. Again 
 those slim, tapering, wonderfully sensitive fingers worked 
 with the little steel instrument, this time in the lock of the 
 ipartment door again there was that almost inaudible click 
 and then cautiously, inch by inch, the door opened under 
 lis hand. He peered inside down a hallway lighted, if it 
 could be called lighted at all, by a subdued glow from two 
 open doors that gave upon it peered intently, listening in- 
 tetftly, as he drew a black silk mask from his pocket and 
 slipped it over his face. And then, silent as a shadow in his 
 movements, the door left just ajar behind him, he stole down 
 the carpeted hallway. 
 
 Opposite the first of the open doorways Jimmie Dale 
 paused a curiously hard expression creeping over his face, 
 his lips beginning to droop ominously downward at the cor 
 ners. It was a little sitting room, cheaply but tastefully 
 furnished, and a young woman, Bookkeeper Bob s wife evi 
 dently, and evidently sitting up for her husband, had fallen 
 sound asleep in a chair, her head pillowed on her arms that 
 were outstretched across the table. For a moment Jimmie 
 Dais held there, his eyes on the scene and the next moment, 
 his hand curved into a clenched fist, he had passed on and 
 entered the adjoining room. 
 
 It was a child s bedroom. A night lamp burned on & 
 b beside the bed, and the soft rays seemed to play and
 
 162 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 linger in caress on the tousled golden hair of a little girjj 
 of perhaps two years of age and something seemed to chok 
 suddenly in Jimmie Dale s throat the sweet, innocent lit 
 tle face, upturned to his, was smiling at him as she slept. 
 
 Jimmie Dale turned away his head his eyelashes wet 
 under his mask. "Beneath the mattress of the child s bed," 
 the letter had said. His face like stone, his lips a thin 
 line now, Jimmie Dale s hand reached deftly in without 
 disturbing the child and took out a package and then an 
 other. He straightened up, a bundle of crisp new hundred- 
 dollar notes in each hand and on the top of one, slipped un- 
 der the elastic band that held the bills together, an unsealed 
 envelope. He drew out the latter, and opened it it was a 
 second-class steamship passage to Vera Cruz, made out in a 
 fictitious name, of course, to John Davies, the booking for 
 next day s sailing. From the ticket, from the stolen money, 
 Jimmie Dale s eyes lifted to rest again on the little golden 
 head, the smiling lips and then, dropping the packages into 
 his pockets, his own lips moving queerly, he turned abruptly 
 to the door. 
 
 " My God, the shame of it ! " he whispered to himself. 
 
 He crept down the corridor, past the open door of the 
 room where the young woman still sat fast asleep, and, his 
 mask in his pocket again, stepped softly into the vestibule, 
 and from there to the street. 
 
 Jimmie Dale hurried now, spurred on it seemed by a hot, 
 insensate fury that raged within him there was still one 
 other call to make that night still those remaining and mi 
 nute details in the latter part of her letter, grim and ugly in 
 their portent! 
 
 It was close upon one o clock in the morning when Jim 
 mie Dale stopped again this time before a fashionable 
 dwelling just off Central Park. And here, for perhaps thr* 
 space of a minute, he surveyed the house from the side 
 walk watching, with a sort of speculative satisfaction, a 
 man s shadow that passed constantly to and fro across the 
 drawn blinds of one of the lower windows. The rest of 
 the house was in darkness.
 
 DEVIL S WORK 138 
 
 " Yes," said Jimmie Dale, nodding his head, " I rather 
 thought so. The servants will have retired hours ago. It s 
 safe enough." 
 
 He ran quickly up the steps and rang the bell. A door 
 opened almost instantly, sending a faint glow into the hall 
 from the lighted room ; a hurried step crossed the hall and 
 the outer door was thrown back. 
 
 "Well, what is it?" demanded a voice brusquely. 
 
 It was quite dark, too dark for either to distinguish the 
 other s features and Jimmie Dale s hat was drawn far 
 down over his eyes. 
 
 " I want to see Mr. Thomas H. Carling, cashier of the 
 Hudson-Mercantile National Bank it s very important," 
 said Jimmie Dale earnestly. 
 
 "I am Mr. Carling," replied the other. "What is it?" 
 
 Jimmie Dale leaned forward. 
 
 " From headquarters with a report," he said, in a low 
 tone. 
 
 " Ah ! " exclaimed the bank official sharply. " Well, it s 
 about time ! I ve been waiting up for it though I expected 
 you would telephone rather than this. Come in ! " 
 
 " Thank you," said Jimmie Dale courteously and stepped 
 into the hall. 
 
 The other closed the front door. " The servants are in 
 bed, of course," he explained, as he led the way toward the 
 ighted room. " This way, please." 
 
 Behind the other, across the hall, Jimmie Dale followed 
 and close at Carling s heels entered the room, which was 
 fitted up, quite evidently regardless of cost, as a combina 
 tion library and study. Carling, in a somewhat pompous 
 fashion, walked straight ahead toward the carved-mahogany 
 flat-topped desk, and, as he reached it, waved his hand. 
 
 " Take a chair," he said, over his shoulder and then, 
 turning in the act of dropping into his own chair, grasped 
 suddenly at the edge of the desk instead, and, with a low, 
 itartled cry, stared across the room. 
 
 Jimmie Dale was leaning back against the door that was
 
 12 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 in caress on the tousled golden hair of a little girij 
 >perhaps two years of age and something seemed to choke 
 ddenly in Jimmie Dale s throat the sweet, innocent lit- 
 1 face, upturned to his, was smiling at him as she slept. 
 
 immie Dale turned away his head his eyelashes wet 
 ider his mask. "Beneath the mattress of the child s bed," 
 h letter had said. His face like stone, his lips a thin 
 it now, Jimmie Dale s hand reached deftly in without 
 liurbing the child and took out a package and then an- 
 >t2r. He straightened up, a bundle of crisp new hundred- 
 Icar notes in each hand and on the top of one, slipped un- 
 k the elastic band that held the bills together, an unsealed 
 nelope. He drew out the latter, and opened it it was a 
 eond-class steamship passage to Vera Cruz, made out in a 
 ictious name, of course, to John Davies, the booking for 
 ic: day s sailing. From the ticket, from the stolen money, 
 irnie Dale s eyes lifted to rest again on the little golden 
 ted, the smiling lips and then, dropping the packages into 
 iis)ockets, his own lips moving queerly, he turned abruptly 
 o ic door. 
 
 My God, the shame of it ! " he whispered to himself. 
 
 .e crept down the corridor, past the open door of the 
 oci where the young woman still sat fast asleep, and, his 
 nac in his pocket again, stepped softly into the vestibule, 
 Lmfrom there to the street. 
 
 jnmie Dale hurried now, spurred on it seemed by a hot, 
 nsisate fury that raged within him there was still one 
 >thr call to make that night still those remaining and mi- 
 uit details in the latter part of her letter, grim and ugly in 
 he portent! 
 
 I was close upon one o clock in the morning when Jim- 
 nicDale stopped again this time before a fashionable 
 Iwling just off Central Park. And here, for perhaps thn 
 >pa; of a minute, he surveyed the house from the side- 
 wal watching, with a sort of speculative satisfaction, a 
 mas shadow that passed constantly to and fro across the 
 dran blinds of one of the lower windows. The rest oi 
 fcheiouse was in darkness.
 
 DEVIL S WORK 
 
 " Yes," said Jimmie Dale, nodding his head, " I ra 
 thought so. The servants will have retired hours ago. 
 safe enough." 
 
 He ran quickly up the steps and rang the bell. A c 
 opened almost instantly, sending a faint glow into the 
 from the lighted room ; a hurried step crossed the hall 
 the outer door was thrown back. 
 
 " Well, what is it ? " demanded a voice brusquely. 
 
 It was quite dark, too dark for either to distinguish 
 other s features and Jimmie Dale s hat was drawnf 
 down over his eyes. 
 
 " I want to see Mr. Thomas H. Carling, cashier oft 
 Hudson-Mercantile National Bank it s very importn 
 said Jimmie Dale earnestly. 
 
 "I am Mr. Carling," replied the other. "What isti 
 
 Jimmie Dale leaned forward. 
 
 " From headquarters with a report," he said, in sic 
 tone. 
 
 " Ah ! " exclaimed the bank official sharply. " Wei i 
 about time ! I ve been waiting up for it though I expct 
 you would telephone rather than this. Come in ! " 
 
 " Thank you," said Jimmie Dale courteously and stop 
 into the hall. 
 
 The other closed the front door. " The servants re 
 jed, of course," he explained, as he led the way towai tl 
 ighted room. " This way, please." 
 
 Behind the other, across the hall, Jimmie Dale follo^ed- 
 and close at Carling s heels entered the room, whic w 
 fitted up, quite evidently regardless of cost, as a cooin 
 tion library and study. Carling, in a somewhat poipoi 
 fashion, walked straight ahead toward the carved-mahgar 
 flat-topped desk, and, as he reached it, waved his hanc 
 
 " Take a chair," he said, over his shoulder andthe 
 turning in the act of dropping into his own chair, gisp( 
 suddenly at the edge of the desk instead, and, with lo> 
 *tartled cry, stared across the room. 
 
 Jimmie Dale was leaning back against the door the w;
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 closed now behind him and on Jimmie Dale s face was * 
 black silk mask. 
 
 For an instant neither man spoke nor moved ; then Car 
 ling, spare-built, dapper in evening clothes, edged back from 
 the desk and laughed a little uncertainly. 
 
 " Quite neat ! I compliment you ! From headquarters 
 with a report, I think you said ? " 
 
 " Which I neglected to add," said Jimmie Dale, " was tft 
 be made in private." 
 
 Carling, as though to put as much distance between them 
 as possible, continued to edge back across the room but his 
 small black eyes, black now to the pupils themselves, never 
 left Jimmie Dale s face. 
 
 " In private, eh ? " he seemed to be sparring f^r time, 
 as he smiled. " In private ! You ve a strange method of 
 securing privacy, haven t you? A bit melodramatic, isn t 
 it? Perhaps you ll be good enough to tell me who you 
 are?" 
 
 Jimmie Dale smiled indulgently. 
 
 " My mask is only for effect," he said. " My name is 
 Smith." 
 
 " Yes," said Carling. " I am very stupid. Thank you. 
 
 I " he had reached the other side of the room now - 
 
 and with a quick, sudden movement jerked his hand to the 
 dial of the safe that stood against the wall. 
 
 But Jimmie Dale was quicker without shifting his posi 
 tion, his automatic, whipped from his pocket, held a discon 
 certing bead on Carling s forehead. 
 
 " Please don t do that," said Jimmie Dale softly. " It s 
 rather a good make, that safe. I dare say it would take me 
 half an hour to open it. I was rather curious to know 
 whether it was locked or not." 
 
 Carling s hand dropped to his side. 
 
 " So ! " he sneered. " That s it, is it ! The ordinary 
 variety of sneak thief ! " His voice was rising gradually. 
 " Well, sir. let me tell you that " 
 
 " Mr. Carling," said Jimmie Dale, in a low, even tone, 
 ** 4nless vou moderate your voice some one in the house
 
 DEVIL S WORK 16B 
 
 might hear you I ani quite well aware of that. But if that 
 happens, if any one enters this room, if you make a move to 
 touch a button, or in any other way attempt to attract at 
 tention, I ll drop you where you stand ! " His hand, behind 
 his back, extracted the key from the door lock, held it up 
 for the other to see, then dropped it into his pocket and his 
 voice, cold before, rang peremptorily now. " Come back to 
 the desk and sit down in that chair ! " he ordered. 
 
 For a moment Carling hesitated; then, with a half-mut 
 tered oath, obeyed. 
 
 Jimmie Dale moved over, and stood in front of Carling 
 on the other side of the desk and stared silently at the 
 immaculate, fashionably groomed figure before him. 
 
 Under the prolonged gaze, Carling s composure, in a 
 measure at least, seemed to forsake him. He began to drum 
 nervooaly with his fingers on the desk, and shift uneasily 
 in his chair. 
 
 And then, from first one pocket and then the other, Jim-; 
 mie Dale took the two packages of banknotes, and, still with- 
 out a word, pushed them across the desk until they lay un-. 
 der the other s eyes. 
 
 Carling s fingers stopped their drumming, slid to the desk 
 edge, tightened there, and a whiteness crept into his face. 
 Then, with an effort, he jerked himself erect in his chair. 
 
 " What s this ? " he demanded hoarsely. 
 
 " About ten thousand dollars, I should say," said Jimmie 
 Dale slowly. " I haven t counted it. Your bank was robbed 
 this evening at closing time, I understand ? " 
 
 " Yes ! " Carling s voice was excited now, the coloui 
 back in his face. " But you how do you mean that you 
 are returning the money to the bank ? " 
 
 " Exactly," said Jimmie Dale. 
 
 Carling was once more the pompous bank official. He 
 leaned back and surveyed Jimmie Dale critically with his 
 little black eyes. 
 
 " Ah, quite so ! " he observed. " That accounts for the 
 qiask. But I am still a little in the dark. Under the cir*
 
 168 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 deeper in his chair a dawning look of terror in the eyea 
 that held, fascinated, on Jimmie Dale. 
 
 " Yon cur ! " said Jimmie Dale again. " You cur, with 
 your devil s work ! A year ago you saw this night com 
 ing when you must have money, or face ruin and exposure 
 You saw it then, a year ago, the day that Moyne, conceal 
 ing nothing of his prison record, applied through friends 
 for a position in the bank. Your co-officials were opposed to 
 his appointment, but you, do you remember how you pleaded 
 to give the man his chance and in your hellish ingenuity 
 saw your way then out of the trap! An ex-convict from 
 Sing Sing! It was enough, wasn t it? What chance had 
 he! " Jimmie Dale paused, his left hand clenched until the 
 kin formed whitish knobs over the knuckles. 
 
 Carling s tongue sought his lips, made a circuit of them 
 tnd he tried to speak, but his voice was an incoherent mut 
 iering. 
 
 " I ll not waste words," said Jimmie Dale, in his grim 
 montone. " I m not sure enough myself that I could keep 
 my hands off you much longer. The actual details of ho\v 
 you stole the money to-day do not matter now. A little 
 later perhaps in court but not now. You were the last to 
 leave the bank, but before leaving you pretended to dis 
 cover the theft of a hundred thousand dollars that, done 
 up in a paper parcel, was even then reposing in your desk. 
 You brought the parcel home, put it in that safe there 
 and notified the president of the bank by telephone from 
 here of the robbery, suggesting that police headquarters be 
 advised at once. He told you to go ahead and act as you 
 saw best. You notified the police, speciously directing sus 
 picion to the ex-convict in the bank s employ. You knew 
 Moyne was dining out to-night, you knew where and at a 
 hint from you the police took up the trail. A little later 
 in the evening, you took these two packages of banknotes 
 from the rest, and with this steamship ticket which you 
 obtained yesterday while out at lunch by sending a district 
 messenger boy with the money and instructions in a sealed 
 SBvelope to purchase for you you went up to the Moynes
 
 DEVIL S WORK 169 
 
 flat in Harlem for the purpose of secreting them somewhere 
 there. You pretended to be much disappointed at finding 
 Moyne out you had just come for a little social visit, to 
 get better acquainted with the home life of your employees! 
 Mrs. Moyne was genuinely pleased and grateful. She toon 
 you in t see their little girl, who was already asleep in bed. 
 She left you there for a moment to answer the door and 
 y OU you " Jimmie Dale s voice choked again " you blot 
 on God s earth, you slipped the money and ticket under the 
 child s mattress ! " 
 
 Carling came forward with a lurch in his chair and his 
 hands went out, pawing in a wild, pleading fashion over 
 Jimmie Dale s arm. 
 
 Timmie Dale flung him away. 
 
 " You were safe enough," he rasped on. " The police 
 could only construe your visit to Moyne s flat as zeal on 
 behalf of the bank. And it was safer, much more circum 
 spect on your part, not to order the flat searched at once, 
 but only as a last resort, as it were, after you had led the 
 police to trail him all evening and still remain without a 
 clew and besides, of course, not until you had planted the 
 evidence that was to damn him and wreck his life and home! 
 You were even generous in the amount you deprived your 
 self of out of the hundred thousand dollars for less would 
 have been enough. Caught with ten thousand dollars of 
 the bank s money and a steamship ticket made out in a ficti 
 tious name, it was prima-facie evidence that he had done the 
 job and had the balance somewhere. What would his 
 denials, his protestations of innocence count for? He was 
 an ex-convict, a hardened criminal caught red-handed with 
 a portion of the proceeds of robbery he had succeeded in 
 hiding the remainder of it too cleverly, that was all." 
 
 Carling s face was ghastly. His hands went out again 
 igain his tongue moistened his dry lips. He whispered: 
 
 " Isn t isn t there some some way we can fix this ? " 
 
 And then Jimmie Dale laughed not pleasantly. 
 
 " Yes, there s a way, Carling," he said grimly. " That s 
 I m here." He picked up a sheet of writing paper and
 
 170 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 pushed it across the desk then a pen, which he dipped tnt*. 
 the inkstand, and extended to the other. " The way you ll 
 fix it will be to write out a confession exonerating Moyne." 
 
 Carling shrank back into his chair, his h . ad huddling into 
 his shoulders. 
 
 "No!" he cried. " I won t I can t my God! I I 
 won t!" 
 
 The automatic in Jimmie Dale s hand edged forward the 
 fraction of an inch. 
 
 " I have not used this yet. You understand now why 
 don t you ? " he said under his breath. 
 
 " No, no ! " Carling pushed away the pen. " I m ruined 
 ruined as it is. But this would mean the penitentiary, 
 too 
 
 " Where you tried to send an innocent man in your place, 
 you hound ; where you 
 
 " Some other way some other way ! " Carling was bab 
 bling. " Let me out of this for God s sake, let me out of 
 this ! " 
 
 " Carling," said Jimmie Dale hoarsely, " I stood beside a 
 little bed to-night and looked at a baby girl a little baby 
 girl with golden hair, who smiled as she slept." 
 
 Carling shivered, and passed a shaking hand across hi3 
 face. 
 
 " Take this pen," said Jimmie Dale monotonously ; " or 
 this!" The automatic lifted until the muzzle was on a line 
 with Carling s eyes. 
 
 Carling s hand reached out, still shaking, and took the 
 pen ; and his body, dragged limply forward, hung over the 
 desk. The pen spluttered on the paper a bead of sweat 
 spurting from the man s forehead dropped to the sheet. 
 
 There was silence in the room. A minute passed an* 
 other. Carling s pen travelled haltingly across the paper 
 then, with a queer, low cry as he signed his name, he 
 dropped the pen from his fingers, and, rising unsteadily from 
 his chair, stumbled away from the desk toward a couch 
 across the room. 
 
 An instant Jimmie Dale watched the other, then he picked
 
 DEVIL S WORK 171 
 
 tip the sheet of paper. It was a miserable document, mis 
 erably scrawled : 
 
 " I guess it s all up. I guess I knew it would be some day. 
 Moyne hadn t anything to do with it. I stole the money my 
 self from the bank to-night. I guess it s all up. 
 
 THOMAS H. CARLING." 
 
 From the paper, Jimmie Dale s eyes shifted to the figure 
 by the couch and the paper fluttered suddenly from his 
 fingers to the desk. Carling was reeling, clutching at his 
 throat a small glass vial rolled upon the carpet. And then, 
 even as Jimmie Dale sprang forward, the other pitched head 
 long over the couch and in a moment it was over. 
 
 Presently Jimmie Dale picked up the vial and dropped 
 it back on the floor again. There was no label on it, but 
 it needed none the strong, penetrating odor of bitter al- 
 tnonds was telltale evidence enough. It was prussic, or hy- 
 rlrocyanic acid, probably the most deadly poison and the 
 swiftest in its action that was known to science Carling had 
 orovided against that " some day " in his confession ! 
 
 For a little space, motionless, Jimmie Dale stood looking 
 down at the silent, outstretched form then he walked slowly 
 back to the desk, and slowly, deliberately picked up the 
 signed confession and the steamship ticket. He held them 
 an instant, staring at them, then methodically began to tear 
 them into little pieces, a strange, tired smile hovering on his 
 lips. The man was dead now there would be disgrace 
 enough for some one to bear, a mother perhaps who knew 1 
 And there was another way now since the man was dead. 
 
 Jimmie Dale put the pieces in his pocket, went to the 
 safe, opened it, and took out a parcel, locked the safe care 
 fully, and carried the parcel to the desk. He opened it there. 
 Inside were nearly two dozen little packages of hundred- 
 dollar bills. The other two packages that he had brought 
 with him he added to the rest. From his pocket he took 
 out the thin metal insignia case, and with the tiny 
 freezers lifted up one of the gray-coloured, diamond-shaped
 
 1Y2 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 paper seals. He moistened the adhesive side, and, still hold 
 ing it by the tweezers, dropped it on his handkerchief and 
 pressed the seal down on the face of the topmost package 
 of banknotes. He tied the parcel up then, and, picking up 
 the pen, addressed it in printed characters : 
 
 HUDSON-MERCANTILE NATIONAL BANK, 
 NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 " District messenger some way in the morning," be 
 murmured. 
 
 Jimmie Dale slipped his mask into his pocket, and, with 
 the parcel under his arm, stepped to the door and unlocked 
 *t. He paused for an instant. on the threshold for a single, 
 quick, comprehensive glance around the room then passed 
 on out into the street. 
 
 At the corner he stopped to light a cigarette and the 
 flame of the match spurting up disclosed a face that was 
 worn and haggard. He threw the match away, smiiea A 
 little wearily and went on. 
 
 The Gray Seal had committed another " crime. 1 "
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 THE THIEF 
 
 /"CHOOSING between the snowy napery, the sparkling 
 ^* / glass and silver, the cozy, shaded table-lamps, the 
 famous French chef of the ultra-exclusive St. James Club, 
 his own home on Riverside Drive where a dinner fit for an 
 epicure and served by Jason, that most perfect of butlers, 
 awaited him, and Marlianne s, Jimmie Dale, driving in alone 
 in his touring car from an afternoon s golf, had chosen 
 Marlianne s. 
 
 Marlianne s, if such a thing as Bohemianism, or, rather, 
 a concrete expression of it exists, was Bohemian. A two- 
 piece string orchestra played valiant!} tx> the accompaniment 
 of a hoarse-throated piano ; and between courses tlw diners 
 took up the refrain and, as it was always between courses 
 with some one, the place was a bedlam of noisy riot. Never 
 theless, it was Marlianne s and Jimmie Dale liked Marli 
 anne s. He had dined there many times before, as he had 
 just dined in the person of Jimmie Dale, the millionaire, his 
 high-priced imported car at the curb of the shabby street 
 outside and he had dined there, disreputable in attire, stedy 
 in appearance, with the police yelping at his heels, as Larry 
 the Bat. In either character Marlianne s had welcomed him 
 with equal courtesy to its spotted linen and most excellent 
 table-d hote with vin ordinaire for fifty cents. 
 
 And now, in the act of reaching into his pocket for the 
 change to pay his bill, Jimmie Dale seemed suddenly to ex 
 perience some difficulty in finding what he sought, and his 
 fingers went fumbling from one pocket to another. Two 
 men at the table in front of him were talking their voices, 
 over a momentary lull in violin squeaks, talk, laughter, sing 
 tog, and the clatter of dishes, reached him : 
 
 173
 
 174 THE ADVENTURES OF ,/IMMIE DALE 
 
 " Carling commit suicide ! Not on your life ! No ; of 
 course he didn t ! It was that cursed Gray Seal croaked him, 
 just as sure as you sit in that chair ! " 
 
 The other grunted. " Yes ; but what d the Gray Seal 
 want to pinch a hundred thousand out of the bank for, and 
 then give it back again the next morning? " 
 
 " What s he done a hundred other things for to cover 
 up the real object of what he s after?" retorted the first 
 speaker, with a short, vicious laugh ; then, with a thump of 
 his fist on the table : " The man s a devil, a fiend, and any 
 where else but New York he d have been caught and sent to 
 the chair where he belongs long ago, and " 
 
 A burst of ragtime drowned out the man s words. Jim- 
 mie Dale placed a fifty-cent piece and a tip beside it on his 
 dinner check, pushed back his chair, and rose from the table. 
 There was a half-tolerantly satirical, half-angry glint in his 
 dark, steady eyes. It was not only the police who yelped at 
 his heels, but every man, woman, and child in the city. The 
 man had not voiced his own sentiments he had voiced the 
 sentiments of New York ! And it was quite on the cards that 
 if he, Jimmie Dale, were ever caught his destination would 
 not even be the death cell and the chair at Sing Sing his fel 
 low citizens had reached a pitch where they would be quite 
 capable of literally Bearing him to pieces if they ever got their 
 hands on him ! 
 
 And yet there were a few, a very few, a handful out of 
 five millions, who sometimes remembered perhaps to thank 
 God that the Gray Seal lived that was his reward. That 
 and she, whose mysterious letters prompted and impelled 
 his, the Gray Seal s, acts ! She nameless, fascinating in her 
 brilliant resourcefulness, amazing in her power, a woman 
 whose life was bound up with his and yet held apart from 
 him in the most inexplicable, absorbing way ; a woman he 
 had never seen, save for her gloved arm in the limousine 
 that night, who at one unexpected moment projected a daz 
 zling, impersonal existence across his path, and the next, leav 
 ing him battling for his life where greed and passion and 
 crime swirled about him, was gone!
 
 THE THIEF 175 
 
 Jimmie Dale threaded the small, crowded rooms the in 
 terior of Marlianne s had never been altered from the days 
 when the place had been a family residence of some pre 
 tension and, reaching the hall, received his hat from the 
 frowsy-looking boy in attendance. He passed outside, and, 
 at the top of the steps, paused as he took his cigarette case 
 from his pocket. It was nearly a week since Carling, the 
 cashier of the Hudson-Mercantile National Bank, had been 
 found dead in his home, a bottle that had contained hy 
 drocyanic acid on the floor beside him ; nearly a week since 
 Bookkeeper Bob, unaware that he had ever been under 
 temporary suspicion for the robbery of the bank, had, 
 equally unknown to himself, been cleared of any com 
 plicity in that affair and yet, as witness the conversation of 
 a moment ago, it was still the topic of New York, still the 
 vital issue that filled the maw of the newspapers with rav 
 ings, threats, and execrations against the Gray Seal, snarling 
 virulently the while at the police for the latter s ineptitude, 
 inefficiency, and impotence! 
 
 Jimmie Dale closed his cigarette case with a snap that was 
 almost human in its irony, dropped it back into his pocket, 
 and lighted a match but the flame was arrested halfway to 
 the tip of his cigarette, as his eyes fixed suddenly and curi 
 ously on a woman s form hurrying down the street. She 
 had turned the corner before he took his eyes from her, 
 and the match between his fingers had gone out. Not that 
 there was anything very strange in a woman walking, or 
 even half running, along the street ; nor that there was any 
 thing particularly attractive or unusual about her, and if 
 there had been the street was too dark for him to have dis 
 tinguished it. It was not that it was the fact that she had 
 neither passed by the house on whose steps he stood, nor 
 come out of any of the adjoining houses. It was as though 
 she had suddenly and miraculously appeared out of thin 
 air, and taken form on a sidewalk a little way down from 
 Marlianne s. 
 
 " That s queer ! " commented Jimmie Dale to himself. 
 " However " He took out another match, lighted his cig-
 
 176 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 arette, jerked the match stub away from him, and, with & 
 lift of his shoulders, went down the steps. 
 
 He crossed the pavement, walked around the front of his 
 machine, since the steering wheel was on the side next to 
 the curb, and, with his hand out to open he car door 
 stopped. Some one had been tampering with it it was not 
 quite closed. There was no mistake. Jimmie Dale mad 
 no mistakes of that kind, a m^n whose life hung a dozei? 
 times a day on little things could not afford to make them. 
 He had closed it firmly f even with a bang, when he had gof 
 out. 
 
 Instantly suspicious, he wrenched the door wide open 
 switched on the light under the hood, and, with a sharp ex* 
 clamation, bent quickly forward. A glove, a woman s glove, 
 a white glove lay on the floor of the car. Jimmie Dale s 
 pulse leaped suddenly into fierce, pounding beats. It was 
 hers! He knezv that intuitively knew it as he knew that he 
 breathed. And that woman he had so leisurely watched 
 as she had disappeared from sight was, must have been 
 she! 
 
 He sprang from the car with a jump, his first impulse to 
 dash after her and checked himself, laughing a little bit 
 terly. It was too late for that now he had already let hi* 
 chance slip through his fingers. Around the corner was 
 Sixth Avenue, surface cars, the elevated, taxicabs, a multi 
 tude of people, any one of a hundred ways in which she 
 could, and would, already have discounted pursuit from him 
 and, besides, he would not even have been able to recog 
 nise her if he saw her! 
 
 Jimmie Dale s smile was mirthless as he turned back to 
 the car, and picked up the glove. Why had she dropped 
 it there? It could not have been intentional. Why had 
 he began to tear suddenly at the glove s little finger, and 
 in another second, kneeling on the car s step, his shoulders 
 inside, he was holding a ring close under the little electric 
 bulb. 
 
 It was a gold seal ring, a small, dainty thing that bore a 
 west : a bell, surmounted by a bishop s mitre the bell, quaraH
 
 THE THIEF 177 
 
 fci design, harking the imagination back to some old-time 
 belfry tower. And underneath, in the scroll a motto. It 
 was a full minute before Jimmie Dale could decipher it, for 
 the lettering was minute and the words, of course, reversed. 
 It was in French : Sonnez le Tocsin. 
 
 He straightened up, the glove and ring in his hand, a puz 
 zled expression on his face. It was strange ! Had she, after 
 all, dropped the glove there intentionally ; had she at last let 
 down the barriers just a little between them, and given him 
 this little intimate sign that she 
 
 And then Jimmie Dale laughed abruptly, self-mockingly. 
 He was only trying to deceive himself, to argue himself into 
 believing what, with heart and soul, he wanted to believe. 
 It was not like her and neither was it so! His eyes had 
 fixed on the seat beside the wheel. He had not used the lap 
 rug all that day, he couldn t use a rug and drive, he had left 
 it folded and hanging on the rack in the tonneau it was 
 now neatly folded and reposing on the front seat! 
 
 " Yes," said Jimmie Dale, a sort of self-pity in his tones, 
 * I might have known." 
 
 He lifted the rug. Beneath it on the leather seat lay a 
 white envelope. Her letter! The letter that never came 
 gave with the plan of some grim, desperate work outlined 
 ahead the call to arms for the Gray Seal. Sonnez le 
 Tocsin ! Ring the Tocsin ! Sound the alarm ! The Tocsin ! 
 The words were running through his brain. A strange 
 motto on that crest that seemed so strangely apt! The 
 Tocsin ! Never once in all the times that he had heard from 
 her, never once in the years that had gone since that initial 
 letter of hers had struck its first warning note, had any 
 communication from her been but to sound again a new 
 alarm the Toscin! The Tocsin the word seemed to vis 
 ualise her, to give her a concrete form and being, to breathe 
 her very personality. 
 
 " The Tocsin ! " Jimmie Dale whispered the word sot tly e 
 a little wistfully. "Yes; I shall call you that the Toc 
 sin!" 
 
 .He folded the glove very carefully, placed it with the I ing
 
 178 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 in his pocketbook, picked up the letter and, with a sharp 
 exclamation, turned it quickly over in his fingers, then bent 
 hurriedly with it to the light. 
 
 Strange things were happening that night ! For the first 
 time, the letter was not even sealed! That was not like her, 
 either ! What did it mean ? Quick, alert now, anxious even, 
 he pulled the double, folded sheets from the envelope, 
 glanced rapidly through them and, after a moment, a smile, 
 whimsical, came slowly to his lips. 
 
 It was quite plain now all of it. The glove, the ring, 
 and the unsealed letter and the postscript held the secret ; 
 or, rather, what had been intended for a postscript did, for it 
 comprised only a few words, ending abruptly, unfinished: 
 " Look in the cupboard at the rear of the room. The man 
 with the red wig is That was all, and the words, 
 
 written in ink, were badly blurred, as though the paper had 
 been hastily folded before the ink was dry. 
 
 It was quite plain; and, in view of the real explanation 
 of it all, eminently characteristic of her. With the letter 
 already written, she had come there, meaning to place it on 
 the seat and cover it with the rug, as, indeed, she had done ; 
 then, deciding to add the postscript, and because she would 
 attract less attention that way than in any other, she had 
 climbed into the car as though it belonged to her, and had 
 seated herself there to write it. She would have been hurried 
 in her movements, of course, and in pulling off her glove to 
 use the fountain pen the ring had come with it. The rest was 
 obvious. She had but just begun to write when he had ap 
 peared on the steps. She had slipped instantly down to the 
 floor of the car, probably dropping the glove from her lap, 
 hastily inclosed the letter in the envelope which she had no 
 time to seal, thrust the envelope under the rug, and, for 
 getting her glove and fearful of risking his attention by at 
 tempting to close the door firmly, had stolen along the body 
 of the car, only to be noticed by him too late when she was 
 well down the street ! 
 
 And at that latter thought, once more chagrin seized Jim- 
 mie Dale then he turned imoulsively to the letter. All thif
 
 THE THIEF 179 
 
 was extraneous, apart for another time, when every mo 
 ment was not a priceless asset as it very probably was now. 
 
 " Dear Philanthropic Crook " it always began that way, 
 never any other way. He read on more and more intently, 
 crouched there close to the light on the floor of his car, lips 
 thinning as he proceeded read it to the end, absorbing, 
 memorising it and then the abortive postscript: 
 
 " Look in the cupboard at the rear of the room. The 
 man with the red wig is " 
 
 For an instant, as mechanically he tore the letter into little 
 shreds, he held there hesitant and the next, slamming the 
 door tight, he flung himself into the seat behind the wheel, 
 and the big, sixty-horse-power, self-starting machine was 
 roaring down the street. 
 
 The Tocsin! There was a grim smile on Jimmie Dale s 
 lips now. The alarm 1 Yes, it was always an alarm, quick, 
 sudden, an emergency to face on the instant plans, deci 
 sions to be made with no time to ponder them, with only 
 that one fact to consider, staggering enough in itself, that 
 a mistake meant disaster and ruin to some one else, and 
 to himself, if the courts were merciful where he had little 
 hope for mercy, the penitentiary for life ! 
 
 And now to-night again, as it almost always was when 
 these mysterious letters came, every moment of inaction was 
 piling up the odds against him. And, too, the same problem 
 confronted him. How, in what way, in what role, must he 
 play the night s game to its end? As Larry the Bat? 
 
 The car was speeding forward. He was heading down 
 Broadway now, lower Broadway, that stretched before him, 
 deserted like some dark, narrow canon where, far below, like 
 towering walls, the buildings closed together and seemed tq 
 converge into some black, impassable barrier. The street 
 lights flashed by him ; a patrolman stopped the swinging of 
 his nightstick, and turned to gaze at the car that rushed by at 
 a rate perilously near to contempt of speed laws ; street cars 
 passed at indifferent intervals ; pedestrians were few and far 
 between it was the lower Broadway of night. 
 
 Larry the Bat? Jimmie Dale shook his head impatiently
 
 180 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 over the steering wheel. No ; that would not do. It would 
 be well enough for this young Burton, perhaps, but not for 
 old Isaac, the East Side fence for Isaac knew him in the 
 character of Larry the Bat. His quick, keen brain, weav 
 ing, eliminating, devising, scheming, discarded that idea. 
 The final coup of the night, as yet but sensed in an indefi 
 nite, unshaped way, if enacted in the person of Larry the 
 Bat would therefore stamp Larry the Bat and the Gray Seal 
 as one a contretemps but little less fatal, in view of old 
 Issac, than to bracket the Gray Seal and Jimmie Dale! 
 Larry the Bat was not a character to be assumed with im 
 punity, nor one to jeopardize it was a bulwark of safety, 
 at it were, to which more than once he owed escape from 
 capture and discovery. 
 
 He lifted his shoulders with a sudden jerk of decision as 
 the car swerved to the left and headed for the East Side. 
 There was only one alternative then the black silk mask 
 that folded into such tiny compass, and that, together with 
 an automatic and the curious, thin metal case that looked 
 so like a cigarette case, was always in his pocket for an 
 
 emergency 
 
 The car turned again, and, approaching its destination, 
 Jimmie Dale slowed down the speed perceptibly. It was a 
 strange case, not a pleasant one and the raw edges where 
 they showed were ugly in their nakedness. Old Isaac Pelina, 
 young Burton, and Maddon K. Wilmington Maddon, the 
 wall-paper magnate! Curious, that of the three he should 
 already know two old Isaac and Maddon! Everybody in 
 the East Side, every denizen of the underworld, and many 
 who posed on a far higher plane knew old Isaac fence to 
 the most select clientele of thieves in New York, unscrupu 
 lous, hand in glove with any rascality or crime that promised 
 profit, a money lender, a Shylock without even a Shylock s 
 humanity as a saving grace ! Yes ; as Larry the Bat he knew 
 old Isaac, and he knew him not only personally but by first 
 hand reputation he had heard the man cursed in blasphe 
 mous, whole-souled abandon by more than one crook who 
 was in the old fence s toils. They dealt with him. the
 
 THE THIEF 181 
 
 crooks, while they swore to " get " him because he was 
 " safe," but Jimmie Dale s lips parted in a mirthless smile 
 some day old Isaac would be found in that spiders den 
 of his back of the dingy loan office with a knife in his heart 
 or a bullet through his head ! And K. Wilmington Maddon 
 Jimmie Dale s smile grew whimsical he had known Mad 
 don quite intimately for years, had even dined with him at 
 the St. James Club only a few nights before. Maddon was 
 a man in his own " set " and Maddon, interfered with, was 
 likely to prove none too tractable a customer to handle. And 
 young Burton, the letter had said, was Maddon s private 
 and confidential secretary. Jimmie Dale s lips thinned 
 again. Well, Burton s acquaintance was still to be made! 
 It was a curious trio and it was dirty work, more raw 
 than cunning, more devilish than ingenious ; blackmail in 
 its most hellish form ; the stake, at the least calculation, a 
 cool half million. A heavy price for a single slip in a man s 
 life! 
 
 He brought the car abruptly to a halt at the edge of the 
 curb, and sprang out to the ground. He was in front of 
 * The Budapest " restaurant, a garish establishment, most 
 popular of all resorts for the moment on the East Side, 
 where Fifth Avenue, in the fond belief that it was seeing 
 the real thing in " seamy " life, engaged its table a week 
 in advance. Jimmie Dale pushed a bill into the door at 
 tendant s hand, accompanied by an injunction to keep an 
 eye on the machine, and entered the cafe. 
 
 But for a sort of tinselled ostentation the place might 
 well have been the Marlianne s that he had just left it was 
 crowded and riot was at its height; a stringed orchestra in 
 Hungarian costume played what purported to be Hungarian 
 airs ; shouts, laughter, clatter of dishes, and thump of steins 
 added to the din. He made his way between the close- 
 packed tables to the stairs, and descended to the lower 
 floor. Here, if anything, the confusion was greater than 
 above ; but here, too, was an exit through to the rear street 
 and a moment later he was sauntering past the front of 
 an unkempt little pawnshop, closed for the night, ovei *rhost
 
 132 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 door, in the murk of a distant street lamp, three balls hung 
 in sagging disarray, tawny with age, and across whose dirty, 
 unwashed windows, letters missing, ran the legend : 
 
 IS AC PELINA 
 Paw r n brok r 
 
 The pawnshop made the corner of a very dark and nar 
 row lane and, with a quick glance around him to assure 
 himself that he was unobserved, Jimmie Dale stepped into 
 the alleyway, and, lost instantly in the blacker shadows, 
 stole along by the wall of the pawnshop. Old Isaac s busi 
 ness was not all done through the front door. 
 
 And then suddenly Jimmie Dale shrank still closer against 
 the wall. Was it intuition, premonition or reality ? There 
 seemed an uncanny feeling of presence around him, a> 
 though perhaps he were watched, as though others beside 
 himself were in the lane. Yes ; ahead of him a shado\ 
 moved he could just barely distinguish it now that hii 
 eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness. It, like him 
 self, was close against the wall, and now it slunk noiselessly 
 down the length of the lane until he lost sight of it. Andf 
 what was that? He strained his ears to listen. It seemed 
 like a window being opened or closed, cautiously, stealthily, 
 the fraction of an inch at a time. And then he located 
 the sound it came from the other side of the lane and verj 
 nearly opposite to where, on the second floor, a dull, yellow 
 glow shone out from old Isaac s private den in the rear of 
 the pawnshop s office. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s brows were gathered in sharp furrows 
 There was evidently something afoot to-night of which tin 
 Tocsin had not sounded the alarm. And then the frow 
 relaxed, and he sr<iled a little. Miraculous as was the 
 means through which she obtained the knowledge that wa* 
 the basis of their strange partnership, it was no mor* 
 miraculous than her unerring accuracy in the minutest dc 
 tails. The Tocsin had never tailed him yet. It was possible 
 jhat something was afoot around him, quite probable, indeed, 
 since he was in the most vicious part of the city r in the hcss-3
 
 THE THIEF 183 
 
 of gangland; but whatever it might be, it was certainly 
 extraneous to his mission 01 she would have mentioned it. 
 
 The lane was empty now, he was quite sure of that and 
 there was no further sound from the window opposite. He 
 started forward once more only to halt again for the 
 second time as abruptly as before, squeezing if possible even 
 more closely against the wall. Some one had turned into the 
 lane from the sidewalk, and, walking hurriedly, choosing 
 with evident precaution the exact centre of the alleyway, 
 came toward him. 
 
 The man passed, his hurried stride a half run ; and, a few 
 feet beyond, halted at old Isaac s side door. From some 
 where inside the old building Jimmie Dale s ears caught the 
 faint ringing of an electric bell ; a long ring, followed in 
 quick succession by three short ones then the repeated 
 clicking of a latch, as though pulled by a cord from above, 
 and the man passed in through the door, closing it behind 
 him. 
 
 Jimmie Dale nodded to himself in the darkness. It was 
 a spring lock ; the signal was one long ring and three short 
 ones the Tocsin had not missed even those small details, 
 Also, Burton was late for his appointment, for that must 
 have been Burton business such as old Isaac had in hand 
 that night would have permitted the entrance of no other 
 visitor but K. Wilmington Maddon s private secretary. 
 
 He moved down the lane to the door, and tried it softly. 
 It was locked, of course. The slim, tapering, sensitive 
 fingers, whose tips were eyes and ears to Jimmie Dale, felt 
 over the lock and a slender little steel instrument slipped 
 into the keyhole. A moment more and the catch was re 
 leased, and the door, under his hand, began to open. With 
 it ajar, he paused, his eyes searching intently up and down 
 the lane. There was nothing, no sign of any one, no moving 
 shadows now. His gaze shifted to the window opposite. 
 Directly facing it now, with the dull reflection upon it from 
 the lighted window of old Isaac s den above his head, he 
 eould make out that it was open but that was all. 
 
 Once more he smiled a little tolerantly at himself this
 
 184 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 time. Some one had been in the lane ; some one had opened 
 the window of his or her room in that tenement house 
 across from him surely there was nothing surprising, un 
 natural, or even out of the commonplace in that. He had 
 been a little bit on edge himself, perhaps, and the sudden 
 movement of that shadow, unexpected, had startled him fot 
 the moment, as, in all probability, the opening of the window 
 had startled the skulking figure itself into action. 
 
 The door was open now. He stepped noiselessly inside, 
 and closed it noiselessly behind him. He was in a narrow 
 hall, where a few yards away, a light shone down a stairway 
 at right angles to the hall itself. 
 
 " Rear door of pawnshop opens into hall, and exactly 
 opposite very short flight of stairs leading directly to door 
 way of Isaac s den above. Ramshackle old place, low ceil 
 ings. Isaac, when sitting in his den, can look down, and, 
 by means of a transom over the rear door of the shop, see 
 the customers as they enter from the street, while he als$ 
 keeps an eye on his assistant. Latter always locks up and 
 leaves promptly at six o clock " Jimmie Dale was sub 
 consciously repealing to himself snatches from the Tocsin s 
 letter, which, as subconsciously in reading, he had memorised 
 almost word for word. 
 
 And now voices reached him one, excited, nervous, as 
 though the speaker were labouring und : mental strain 
 that bordered closely on the hysterical ; the other, curiously 
 mingling a querulousness with an attempt to pacify, but 
 dominantly contemptuous, sneering, cold. 
 
 Jimrnie Dale moved along the hall very slowly without 
 a sound testing each step before he threw his body weight 
 from one leg to the other. He reached the foot of the stairs. 
 The Tocsin had been right ; it was a very short flight. He 
 counted the steps there were eight. Above, facing him, 
 a door was open. The voices were louder now. It was 
 a sordid-looking room, what he could see of it, poverty- 
 stricken in its appearance, intentionally so probably for 
 effect, with no attempt whatever at furnishing. He could 
 cec through the doorway to the window that opened on the
 
 THE THIEF 185 
 
 alleyway, or, rather, just glimpse the top of the window at 
 an angle across the room that and a bare stretch of floor. 
 The two men were not in the line of vision. 
 
 Burton s voice it was unquestionably Burton speaking 
 came to Jimmie Dale now distinctly. 
 
 " No, I didn t ! I tell you, I didn t ! I I hadn t the 
 nerve." 
 
 Jimmie Dale slipped his black silk mask over his face; 
 and with extreme caution, on hands and knees, began to 
 climb the stairs. 
 
 " So ! " It was old Isaac now, in a half purr, half sneer. 
 "And I was so sure, my young friend, that you had. 
 I was so sure that you were not such a fool. Yes ; I could 
 even have sworn that they were in your pocket now 
 what ? It is too bad too bad ! It is not a pleasant thing 
 to think of, that little chair up the river in its horrible little 
 room where " 
 
 " For God s sake, Isaac not that ! Do you hear not 
 that! My God, I didn t mean to I didn t know what I 
 was doing ! " 
 
 Jimmie Dale crept up another step, another, and another. 
 There was silence for a moment in the room; then Burton 
 again, hoarse-voiced: 
 
 " Isaac, I ll make good to you some other way. I swear 
 I will I swear it ! If I m caught at this I ll I ll get 
 fifteen years for it." 
 
 " And which would you rather have ? " Jimmie Dale 
 could picture the oily smirk, the shrug of his shoulders, 
 the outthrust hands, palms upward, elbows in at the hips, 
 the fingers curved and wide apart "fifteen years, or what 
 you get for murder ? Eh, my friend, you have thought of 
 that eh ? It is a very little price I ask yes ? " 
 
 " Damn you ! " Burton s voice was shrill, then dropped 
 to a half sob. " No, no, Isaac, I didn t mean that. Only, 
 for God s sake be merciful! It is not only the risk of the 
 penitentiary; it s more than that. I I tried to play white 
 all my life, and until that cursed night there s no man living 
 could say I haven t. You know that you know that,
 
 186 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 Isaac. I tell you I couldn t do it this afternoon I tell you 
 I couldn t. I tried to and and I couldn t." 
 
 Jimmie Dale was lying flat on the little landing now v 
 peering into the room. Back a short distance from the 
 doorway, a repulsive-looking little man in unkempt clothes 
 and soiled linen, with yellowish-skinned, parchment face, 
 out of which small black eyes shone cunningly and shrewdly, 
 sat at a bare deal table in a rickety chair ; facing him across 
 the table stood a young man of not more than twenty-five, 
 clean cut, well dressed, but whose face was unnaturally 
 white now, and whose hand, as he extended it in a pleading 
 gesture toward the other, trembled visibly. Jimmie Dale s 
 hand made its way quietly to his side pocket and extracted 
 his automatic. 
 
 Old Isaac humped his shoulders, and leered at his visitor. 
 
 " We talk a great deal, my young friend. What is the 
 use ? A bargain is a bargain. A few rubies in exchange for 
 your life. A few rubies and my mouth is shut. Other 
 wise " he humped his shoulders again. " Well ? " 
 
 Burton drew back, swept his hand in a dszed way across 
 his eyes and laughed out suddenly in bitter mirth. 
 
 " A few rubies ! " he cried. " The most magnificent stones 
 on this side of the water a few rubies ! It s been Maddon s 
 life hobby. Every child in New York knows that ! A few 
 yes, there s only a few but those few are worth a fortune. 
 He trusts me, the man has been like a father to me, and " 
 
 " So you are the very last to be suspected," observed old 
 Isaac suavely. " Have I not told you that? There is noth 
 ing to fear. Did we not arrange everything so nicely eh, 
 my young friend? See, it was to-night that Maddon gives 
 a little reception to his friends, and did you not say that the 
 rubies would be taken from the safe-deposit vault this ^5ter- 
 noon since his friends always clamoured to see them as a 
 very fitting conclusion to an evening s entertainment? And 
 did you not say that you very naturally had access to the 
 safe in the library where you worked, and that he would not 
 notice they were gone until he came to look for them some 
 $irne this evening? I think you said all that. And what
 
 THE THIEF 187 
 
 suspicion, let alone proof, would attach itself to you? You 
 were out of the room once when he, too, was absent for 
 perhaps half an hour. It is very simple. In that half hour,, 
 some one, somehow, abstracted them. Certainly it was not 
 you. You see how little I ask and I pay well, do I not? 
 And so I gave you until to-night. Three days have gone, 
 and I have said nothing, and the body has not been found 
 eh? But to-night eh ?t was understood! The rubies 
 or the chair." 
 
 Burton s lips moved, but it was a moment before he 
 could speak. 
 
 " You wouldn t dare ! " he whispered thickly. " You 
 wouldn t dare ! I d tell the story of of what you tried to 
 make me do, and they d send you up for it." 
 
 Old Isaac shrugged with pitying contempt. 
 
 " Is it, after all, a fool I am dealing with ! " he sneered. 
 " And I what should I say ? That you had stolen the 
 stones from your employer and offered them as a bribe 
 to silence me, and that I had refused. The very act of 
 handing you over to the police would prove the truth of 
 what I said and rob you of even a chance of leniency for 
 that other thing. Is it not so eh? And why did I not 
 hand you over at once three nights ago? Believe me, my 
 young friend, I should have a very good reason ready, a 
 dozen, if necessary, if it came to that. But we are borrow 
 ing trouble, are we not ? We shall not come to that eh ? " 
 
 For a moment it seemed to Jimmie Dale, as he watched, 
 that Burton would hurl himself upon the other. White to 
 the lips, the muscles of his face twitching, Burton clenched 
 his fists and leaned over the table and then, with sudden 
 revulsion of emotion, he drew back once more, and once 
 more came that choked sob: 
 
 " You ll pay for this, Isaac your turn will come for this ! 
 
 " I have been threatened very often," snapped the other 
 contemptuously. " Bah, what are threats ! I laugh at them 
 as I always will." Then, with a quick change of front, 
 his voice * sudden snarl : " Well, we have talked enough.
 
 188 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 You have your choice. The stones or eh? And it is to 
 night now! " 
 
 The old pawnbroker sprawled back in his chair, a cunning 
 leer on his vicious face, a gleam of triumph, greed, in the 
 beady, ratlike eyes that never wavered from the other. 
 Burton, moisture oozing from his forehead, stood therCv 
 hesitant, staring back at old Isaac, half in a fascinated gaze, 
 half as though trying to read some sign of weakness in the 
 bestial countenance that confronted him. And then, very 
 slowly, in an automatic, machine-like way, his hand groped 
 into the inside pocket of his vest and old Isaac cackled out 
 in derision. 
 
 " So ! You thought you could bluff me, eh you thought 
 you could fool old Isaac ! Bah ! I read you like a book 1 
 Did I not tell you a while back that you had them in your 
 pocket ? I know your kind, my young friend ; I know your 
 kind very well indeed it is my business. You would not 
 have dared to come here to-night without the price. Sol 
 You took them this afternoon as we agreed. Yes, yes ; you 
 did well. You will not regret it. And now let me see 
 them " his voice rose eagerly " let me see them now, my 
 young friend." 
 
 " Yes, I took them." Burton spoke listlessly. " God help 
 me!" 
 
 Old Isaac, quivering, excited, like a different creature 
 now, sprang from his chair, and, as Burton drew a long^ 
 fiat, leather case from his pocket, snatched it from the 
 other s hand. His fingers in their rapacious haste could not 
 at first manipulate the catch, and then finally, with the case 
 open, he bent over the table feverishly. The light reflected 
 back as from some living mass of crimson fire, now shading 
 darkly, now glowing into wondrous, colourful transparency 
 as he moved the case to and fro with jerky motions of his 
 hands and he was babbling, crooning to himself like one 
 possessed. 
 
 "Ah, the little beauties! Ah, the pretty little things! 
 Yes, yes; these are the ones! This is the great Aracon 
 see. see, the six-sided prism terminated by the six-sided
 
 THE THIEF 188 
 
 Pyramid. But it must be cut it must be cut to sell it, eh? 
 Ah, it is too bad too bad ! And this, this one here, I know 
 them all, this is " 
 
 But his sentence was never finished it was Jimmie Dale, 
 on his feet now, leaning against the jamb of the door, his 
 automatic covering the two men at the table, who spoke. 
 
 " Quite so, Isaac," he said coolly ; " you know them all ! 
 Quite so, Isaac but be good enough to drop them ! " 
 
 The case fell from Isaac s hand, the flush on his cheeks 
 died to a sickly pallor, and, his mouth half opfin, he stood 
 like a man turned to stone, his hands with curved fingers 
 still outstretched over the table, over the crimson gems that, 
 spilled from the case, lay scattered now on the tabletop. 
 Burton neither spoke nor moved a little whiter, the misery 
 in his face almost apathetic, he moistened his lips with the 
 tip of his tongue. 
 
 Jimmie Dale walked across the room, halted at the errtl 
 of the table, and surveyed the two men grimly. And then, 
 while one hand with revolver extended rested easily on the 
 table, the other gathered up the stones, placed them in the 
 case, and, the case in his pocket, Jimmie Dale s lips parted 
 in an uninviting smile. 
 
 " I guess I m in luck to-night, eh, Isaac ? " he drawled. 
 * Between you and your young friend, as I believe you call 
 him, it woald appear as though I had fallen on my feet. 
 That Aracon s worth what would you say? a hundred, 
 two hundred thousand alone, eh? A very famous stone, 
 that had your eye on it for quite a time, Isaac, you miser 
 able blood leech, eh ? " 
 
 Isaac did not answer; but, while he still held back from 
 he table, he seemed to be regaining a little of his compos 
 ure burglars of whatever sort were no novelty to him 
 and was staring fixedly at Jimmie Dale. 
 
 " Can t place me though there s not many in the profes 
 sion you don t know? Is that it?" inquired Jimmie Dale 
 softly. " Well, don t try, Isaac ; it s hardly worth your 
 while. I ve got the stones now, and * 
 
 " Wait ! Wait ! Listen 3 " It was Burton, speaking im
 
 190 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 the first time, his words coming in a quick, nervous* ,-asn. 
 " Listen ! You don t 
 
 " Hold your tongue ! " cried old Isaac, with sudden rierce- 
 ness. " You are a fool ! " He leaned toward Jimmie Dale, 
 a crafty smile on his face, quite in control of himself once 
 more. " Don t listen to him listen to me. You re right. 
 I can t place you, and it doesn t make any difference " he 
 took a step forward " but 
 
 " Not too close, Isaac ! " snapped Jimmie DaU sharply. 
 " I know you! 
 
 " So ! " ejaculated old Isaac, rubbing his handw together. 
 " So ! That is good ! That is what I want. Listen, we will 
 make a bargain. We are birds of a feather, eh ? All thieves, 
 eh? You ve got the drop on us who did all the work, but 
 you ll give us our share eh ? Listen ! You coulcm t get rid 
 of those stones alone. You know that ; you re not so green 
 at the game, eh? You d have to go to somt one. You 
 know me ; you know old Isaac, you say. Wei., then, you 
 know there isn t another man in New York coula dispose ol 
 those rubies and play safe doing it except me. I ll make a 
 good bargain with you." 
 
 " Isaac," said Jimmie Dale pensively, " you vr- niade a good 
 many good bargains. I wonder when you ! make your 
 last ! There s more than one looking for interest on those 
 bargains in a pretty grim sort of way." 
 
 " Bah ! " ejaculated old Isaac. " It is an ol<T story. They 
 are all alike. I am afraid of none of them. I hold them all 
 like- -that! " His hand opened and closed Ike a taloned 
 claw. 
 
 " And you d add me to the lot, eh ? " said Jimmie Dale. 
 He lifted the revolver, its muzzle on old Isaac, examined 
 the mechanism though fully, and lowered it again. " Very 
 well, I ll make a bargain with you providing it is agreeable 
 to your young friend here." 
 
 " Ah ! " exclaimed old Isaac shrilly. " So ! That is good ! 
 It is done then." He chuckled hoarsely. " Any bargain I 
 make he will agree to. Is it not so?" He fixed his eyed 
 on Burton. "Well, is it not so? Speak up! Say "
 
 THE THIEF 19 J 
 
 He stopped the words cut short off on his lips. It came 
 without warning a crash, a pound on the door below an 
 other. 
 
 Burton shrank back against the wall. 
 
 " My God ! The police ! " he gasped. " Maddon s found 
 out ! We re we re caught ! " 
 
 Jimmie Dale s eyes, on old Isaac, narrowed. The pound= 
 ing in the alleyway grew louder, more insistent. And then 
 his first suspicion passed it was no " game " of Isaac s. 
 Crafty though the old fox was, the other s surprise and 
 agitation was too genuine to be questioned. 
 
 Still the pounding continued some one was kicking vici 
 ously at the door, and banging a tattoo on the panels with 
 his fists. 
 
 Old Isaac s clawlike hands doubled suddenly. 
 
 " It is some drunken sot," he snarled out, " that knows 
 no better than to come here and rouse the whole neighbour 
 hood ! It is true, in a moment we will have the police run 
 ning in from the street. But wait wait I ll teach the fool 
 a lesson ! " He dashed around the table, ran for the win 
 dow, wrenched the catch up, flung the window open, and, 
 snarling again, leaned out and instantly the knocking 
 ceased. 
 
 And instantly then, with a sharp cry, as the whole ghastly 
 meaning of it swept upon him, Jimmie sprang after the other 
 too late! Came the roar of a revolver shot, a stream of 
 flame cutting the darkness of the alleyway from the window 
 in the house opposite and, without a sound, old Isaac 
 crumpled up, hung limply for a moment over the sill, and slid 
 in a heap to the floor. 
 
 On his hands and knees, protected from the possibility 
 of another bullet by the height of the sill, Jimmie Dale, 
 quick in every movement now, dragged the inert form toward 
 the table away from the window, and bent hurriedly over 
 the other. A minute perhaps he stayed there and then rose 
 slowly. 
 
 Burton, horror-stricken, unmanned, beside himself, wa? 
 hanging, clutching with both hands at the table edge.
 
 192 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 " He s dead," said Jimmie Dale laconically. 
 
 Burton flung out his hands. 
 
 " Dead ! " he whispered hoarsely. " I I think I m go 
 ing mad. Three days of hell and now this. We d we d 
 better get out of here quick they ll get us if 
 
 Jimmie Dale s hand fell with a tight grip on Burton s 
 shoulder. 
 
 " There won t be any more shots fired pull yourself to 
 gether ! " 
 
 Burton stared at him in a demented way. 
 
 " What s what s it mean ? " he stammered. 
 
 " It means that I didn t put two and two togeher," said 
 Jimmie Dale a little bitterly. " It means that there s a dozen 
 crooks been dancing old Isaac s tune for a long time and 
 that some of them have got him at last." 
 
 Burton reached out suddenly and clutched Jimmie Dale s 
 arm. 
 
 " Then I m safe ! " He mumbled the words, but there 
 was dawning hope, relief in his white face. "Safe! I m 
 safe if you ll only give me back those stones. Give them 
 back to me, for God s sake give them back to me ! You 
 don t know you don t understand. I stole them because" 
 because he made me because I it was the only chance I 
 had. Oh, my God, you don t know what the last three days 
 have been! Give them back to me, won t you won t you? 
 You you don t know ! " 
 
 " Don t lose your nerve ! " said Jimmie Dale sharply. " Sit 
 down ! " He pushed the other into the chair. " There s no 
 one will disturb us here for some time at least. What is it 
 that I don t know? That three nights ago you were in a 
 gambling hell, Sago<=to s, to be exact, one of the most dis 
 reputable in New York and you went there on the invi 
 tation of a stray acquaintance, a man named Perley shall 
 I describe him for you ? A short, slim-built man, black eyes, 
 red hair, beard, and " 
 
 " You know that ! " The misery, the hopelessness was 
 back in Burton s face again and suddenly he bent over the 
 table and buried his head in his outflung arms.
 
 THE THIEF 193 
 
 There was silence for a moment. Tight-lipped, Jir;uii 
 Dale s eyes travelled from Burton s shaking shoulders to 
 the motionless form on the floor. Then he spoke again: 
 
 " You re a bit of a rounder, Burton, but I think you ve 
 had a lesson that will last you all your life. You were half- 
 drunk when you and Perley began to hobnob over a down- 
 town bar. He said he d show you some real life, ind you 
 went with him to Sagosto s. He gave you a revolver before 
 you went in, and told you the place wasn t safe for an un 
 armed man. He introduced you to Sagosto, the proprietor, 
 and you were shown to a back room. You drank quite a 
 little there. You and Perley were alone, throwing dice. 
 You got into a quarrel. Perley tried to draw his revolver. 
 Vou were quicker. You drew the one he had given you 
 and fired. He fell to the floor you saw the blood gush 
 .from his breast just above the heart he was dead. In a 
 panic you rushed from the place and out into the street. I 
 don t think you went home that night." 
 
 Burton raised his head, showing his haggard face. 
 
 " I guess it s no use," he said dully. " If you know, 
 others must. I thought only Isaac and Sagosto knew. Why 
 haven t I been arrested? I wish to God I had I wouldn t 
 have had to-day to answer for." 
 
 " I am not through yet," said Jimmie Dale gravely. " The 
 next day old Isaac here sent for you. He said Sagosto had 
 told him of the murder, and had offered to dispose of the 
 corpse and keep his mouth shut for fifty thousand dollars 
 that no one in his place knew of it except himself. Isaac, 
 for his share, wanted considerably more. You told him 
 you had no such sums, that you had no money. He told you 
 how you could get it you had access to Maddon s safe, you 
 were Maddon s confidential secretary, fully in your em 
 ployer s trust, the last man on earth to be suspected and 
 there were Maddon s famous, priceless rubies." 
 
 Jimmie Dale paused. Burton made no answer. 
 
 " And so," said Jimmie Dale presently, " to save your* 
 elf from the death penalty you took them." 
 
 " Yes," said Burton, scarcely above his breath. " Are yfc
 
 194 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 an officer? If you are, take me, have done with it! Onltj 
 for Heaven s sake end it! If you re not " 
 
 Jimmie Dale was not listening. " The cupboard at the 
 rear of the room," she had said. He walked across to it 
 now, opened it, and, after a little search, found a small 
 bundle. He returned with it in his hand, and, kneeling be 
 side the dead man on the floor, his back to Burton, 
 untied it, took out a red wig and beard, and slipped them on 
 to old Isaac s head and face. 
 
 " I wonder," he said grimly, as he stood up, " if you ever 
 saw this man before?" 
 
 " My God Perley! " With a wild cry, Burton was on his 
 feet, straining forward like a man crazed. 
 
 "Yes," said Jimmie Dale, "Perley! Sort of an ironic 
 justice in his end as far as you are concerned, isn t there? 
 I think we ll leave him like that as Perley. It will provide 
 the police with an interesting little problem which they 
 will never solve, and steady ! " 
 
 Burton was rocking on his feet, the tears were streaming 
 down his face. He lurched Aeavily and Jimmie Dale 
 caught him, and pushed him back into the chair again. 
 
 " I thought I thought there was blood on my hands," 
 said Burton brokenly ; " that that I had taken a man s life. 
 It was horrible, horrible ! I ve lived through three days that 
 I thought would drive me mad, while I I tried to do my 
 work, and and talk to people, Just as if nothing had hap 
 pened. And every one that spoke to me seemed so carefree 
 and happy, and I would have sold my soul to have changed 
 places with them." He stared at the form on the floor, and 
 shivered suddenly. " It it was like that I saw him last ! " 
 he whispered. " But but I do not understand." 
 
 Jimmie Dale smiled a little wearily. 
 
 " It was simple enough," he said. " Old Isaac had had 
 his eyes on those rubies for a long time. The easiest way of 
 getting them was through you. The revolver he gave you 
 before you entered Sagosto s was loaded with blank car 
 tridges, the blood you saw was the old, old trick a punc 
 tured bladder of red pigment concealed under the vest."
 
 THE THIEF 195 
 
 " Let us get out of here ! " Burton shuddered again. 
 " Let us get out of here at once now. If we re found 
 here, we ll be accused of that!" 
 
 " There is no hurry," Jimmie Dale answered quietly. " I 
 have told you that no one is liable to come here to-night 
 and whoever did this certainly will not raise an alarm. And 
 besides, there is still the matter of the rubies Burton." 
 
 " Yes," said Burton, with a quick intake of his breath. 
 " Yes the rubies what are you going to do with them ? I 
 
 I had forgotten them. You ll " He stopped, stared 
 
 at Jimmie Dale, and burst into a miserable laugh. " I m a 
 fool, a blind fool ! " he moaned. " It does not matter what 
 you do with them. I forgot Sagosto. When they find Isaac 
 here, Sagosto will either tell his story, which will be enough 
 to convict me of this night s work, the real murder, even 
 though I m innocent ; or else he ll blackmail me just as 
 Isaac did." 
 
 Jimmie Dale shook his head. 
 
 " You are doing Isaac s cunning an injustice," he said 
 grimly. " Sagosto was only a tool, one of many that old 
 Isaac had in his power and, for that matter, as likely as any 
 one else to have had a hand in Isaac s murder to-night. 
 Sagosto saw you once when Isaac brought you into his 
 place not because Isaac wanted Sagosto to see you, but 
 because he wanted you to see Sagosto. Do you understand ? 
 It would make the story that Sagosto came to him with the 
 tale of the murder the next day ring true. Sagosto, however, 
 did not go to old Isaac the next day to tell about any fake 
 murder naturally. Sagosto would not know you again 
 from Adam neither does he know anything about the 
 rubies, nor what old Isaac s ulterior motives were. He was 
 paid for his ?hare in the game in old Isaac s usual manner 
 of payment probably by a threat of exposure for some old- 
 time offence, that Isaac held over him, if he didn t keep his 
 mouth shut." 
 
 Burton s hand brushed his eyes. 
 
 " Yes," he muttered. " Yes I see it now." 
 
 Jimmie Dale stooped down, picked up the paper from the
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 floor in which the wig and beard had been wrapped, walked 
 back with it, and replaced it in the cupboard. And then, 
 with his back to Burton again, he took the case of gems 
 from his pocket, opened it, and laid it on the cupboard shelf. 
 Also from his pocket came that thin metal case, and from the 
 case, with a pair of tweezers that obviated the possibility of 
 telltale finger prints, a gray, diamond-shaped piece of paper, 
 adhesive on one side that, cursed by the distracted authori 
 ties in every police headquarters on both sides of the At. 
 lantic, and raved at by a virulent press whose printed re 
 productions had made it familiar in every household in the 
 land was the insignia of the Gray Seal. He moistened 
 the adhesive side, dropped it from the tweezers to his hand 
 kerchief, and pressed it down firmly on the inside of the 
 cover of the jewel case. He put both cases back in his pock 
 ets, and returned to Burton. 
 
 " Burton," he said a little sharply, " while I was outside 
 that doorway there, I heard you beg old Isaac to let you 
 keep the rubies, and three times already you have asked the 
 same of me. What would you do with them if I gave them 
 back to you? " 
 
 Burton did not reply for a moment he was gazing at the 
 masked face in a half-eager, half-doubtful way. 
 
 " You you mean you will give them back ! " he burst out 
 finally. 
 
 " Answer my question," prompted Jimmie Dale. 
 
 " Do with them ? " Burton repeated slowly. " Why, I ve 
 told you. They d go back to Mr. Maddon I d take them 
 back." 
 
 " Would you ? " Jimmie Dale s voice was quizzical. 
 
 A puzzled expression came to Burton s face. 
 
 " I don t know what you mean by that," he said. " Of 
 course, I would ! " 
 
 " How ? " asked Jimmie Dale. " Do you know the com* 
 bination of Mr. Maddon s safe?" 
 
 " No," said Burton. 
 
 " And the safe would be locked, wouldn t it ? " 
 
 "Yes,"
 
 THE THIEF 197 
 
 " Quite so," said Jimmie Dale musingly. " Then, granted 
 that Mr. Maddon has not already discovered the theft, how 
 would you replace the stones before he does discover it? 
 And if he already knows that they are gone, how would you 
 get them back into his hands ? " 
 
 " Yes, I know," Burton answered a little listlessly. " I ve 
 thought of that. There s only one way to take them back 
 
 to him myself, and make a clean breast of it, and " He 
 
 hesitated. 
 
 " And tell him you stole them," supplied Jimmie Dale. 
 
 Burton nodded his head. " Yes," he said. 
 
 " And then ? " prodded Jimmie Dale. " What will Mad 
 don do ? From what I ve heard of him, he s not a man to 
 trifle with, nor a man to take an overly complacent view of 
 things not the man whose philosophy is all s well that 
 ends well. " 
 
 " What does it matter ? " Burton s voice was low. " It 
 isn t that so much. I m ready for that. It s the fact that 
 he trusted me implicitly, and I well, I played the fool, or 
 J d never have got into a mess like this." 
 
 For an instant Jimmie Dale looked at the other search- 
 ingly, and then, smiling strangely, he shook his head. 
 
 " There s a better way than that, Burton," he said quietly. 
 " I think, as I said before, you ve had a lesson to-night that 
 will last you all your life. I m going to give you another 
 chance with Maddon. Here are the stones." He reached 
 hito his pocket and laid the case on the table. 
 
 But now Burton made no effort to take the case his eyes, 
 in that puzzled way again, were on Jimmie Dale. 
 
 " A better way ? " he repeated tensely. " What do you 
 mean ? What way ? " 
 
 " Well, say at the expense of another man s reputation 
 of mine," suggested Jimmie Dale, with his whimsical smile. 
 "You need only say that a man came to you this evening, 
 told you that he stole these rubies from Mr. Maddon during 
 the afternoon, and asked you, as Mr. Maddon s private 
 Secretary, to restore them with his compliments to theif 
 f)wner."
 
 198 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 A slow flush of disappointment, deepening to one of angef 
 dyed Burton s cheeks. 
 
 " Are you trying to make a fool of me ? " he cried out 
 " Go to Maddon with a childish tale like that ! There s nc 
 man living would believe such a cock-and-bull story ! " 
 
 " No? " inquired Jimmie Dale softly. " And yet I am irt 
 clined to think there are a good many that even Maddon 
 would, hard-headed as he is. You might say that when the 
 man handed you the case you thought it was some practical 
 joke being foisted on you, until you opened the case "-Jim 
 mie Dale pushed it a little farther across the table, and Bur 
 ton, mechanically, his eyes still on Jimme Dale, loosened the 
 catch with his thumb nail " until you opened the case, saw 
 the rubies, and " 
 
 " The Gray Seal ! " Burton had snatched the case toward 
 him, and was straining his eyes at the inside cover. " You* 
 the Gray Seal ! " 
 
 " Well ? " said Jimmie Dale whimsically. 
 
 Motionless, the case held open in his hands. Burton stood 
 there. 
 
 " The Gray Seal ! " he whispered. Then, with a catch in 
 his voice : " You mean this ? You mean to let me have these 
 back you mean you mean all you ve said? For God s 
 sake, don t play with me the Gray Seal, the most notori 
 ous criminal in the country, to give back a fortune like this ! 
 You you " 
 
 " Dog with a bad name," said Jimmie Dale, with a wry 
 smile ; then, a little gruffly : " Put it in your pocket ! " 
 
 Slowly, almost as though he expected the case to be 
 snatched back from him the next instant, Burton obeyed. 
 
 " I don t understand I can t understand ! " he murmured. 
 " They say that you and yet I believe you now you ve 
 saved me from a ruined life to-night. The Gray Seal ! If 
 if every one knew what you had done, they " 
 
 " But every one won t," Jimmie Dale broke in bluntly 
 " Who is to tell them ? You ? You couldn t very well, 
 when you come to think of it could you? Well, who 
 knows, perhaps there have been others like you ! "
 
 THE THIEF 199 
 
 " You mean," said Burton excitedly, " you mean that all 
 these crimes of yours that have seemed without motive, that 
 
 have been so inexplicable, have really been like to-night 
 . 
 
 " I don t mean anything at all," interposed Jimmie Dale 
 a little hurriedly. " Nothing, Burton except that there is 
 still one little thing more to do to bolster up that childish * 
 story of mine and then get out of here." He glanced 
 sharply, critically around the room, his eyes resting for a 
 moment at the last on the form on the floor. Then tersely : 
 " I am going to turn out the light we will have to pass the 
 window to get to the door, and we will invite no chances. 
 Are you ready ? " 
 
 " No ; not yet," said Burton eagerly. " I haven t said what 
 I d like to say to you, what I " 
 
 " Walk straight to the door," said Jimmie Dale curtly. 
 There was the click of an electric-light switch, and the room 
 was in darkness. " Now, no noise ! " he instructed. 
 
 And Burton, perforce, made his way across the roonv~ 
 and at the door Jimmie Dale joined him and led him down 
 the short flight of stairs. At the bottom, he opened the door 
 leading into the rear of the pawnshop itself, and, bidding 
 Burton follow, entered. 
 
 " We can t risk even a match ; it could be seen from the 
 street," he said brusquely, as he fumbled around for a mo 
 ment in the darkness. " Ah here it is ! " He lifted a 
 telephone receiver from its hook, and gave a number. 
 
 Burton caught him quickly by the arm. 
 
 "Good Lord, man, what are you doing?" he protested 
 anxiously. " That s Mr. Maddon s house ! " 
 
 " So I believe," said Jimmie Dale complacently. " Hello ! 
 Is Mr. Maddon there? . . . I beg pardon? . . . Per 
 sonally, yes, if you please." 
 
 There was a moment s wait. Burton s hand was still 
 nervously clutching at Jimmie Dale s sleeve. Then : 
 
 " Mr. Maddon ? " asked Jimmie Dale pleasantly. " Yes ? 
 . . I am very sorry to trouble you, but I called you up 
 to inquire if you were aware that your rubies, and among
 
 200 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 them your Aracon, had been stolen ? . . . I beg pardon $ 
 . . . Rubies yes. . . . You weren t. . . . Oh, no, 
 I am quite in my right mind ; if you will take the trouble to 
 open your safe you will find they are gone shall I hold the 
 line while you investigate? . . . What? . . . Don t 
 shout, please and stand a little farther away from the 
 mouthpiece." Jimmie Dale s tone was one of insolent com 
 posure now. " There is really no use in getting excited. 
 ... I beg pardon ? . . . Certainly, this is the Gray Seal 
 speaking. . . . What ? " Jimmie Dale s voice grew plain 
 tive- " I really can t make out a wo r d when you yell lik* 
 that. . . . Yes. ... I had occasion to use them this 
 afternoon, and I took the liberty of borrowing them tempo 
 rarily are you still there, Mr. Maddon? . . . Oh, quite 
 so ! Yes, I hear you now. . . . No, that is all, only I an* 
 returning them through your private secretary, a very esti 
 mable young man, though I fear somewhat excitable and 
 shaky, who is on his way to you with them now. . . 
 What s that you say? You repeat that/ snapped Jimmie 
 Dale suddenly, icily, " and I ll take them from under your 
 nose again before morning ! . . . Ah ! That is better t 
 Good-nightMr. Maddon." 
 
 Jimmie Dale hung up the receiver and shoved Burton 
 toward the door. 
 
 " Now then, Burton, we ll get out of here and the sooner 
 you reach Fifth Avenue and Mr. Maddon s house the better. 
 No ; not that way ! " They had reached the hall, and Bur 
 ton had turned toward the side door that opened on the 
 alleyway. " Whoever they were who settled their last ac 
 count with Isaac may still be watching. They ve nothing 
 against any one else, but they know some one was in here 
 at the time, and, if the police are clever enough ever to get 
 on their track, they might find it very convenient to be able to 
 say who was in the room when Isaac was murdered there s 
 nothing to show, since Isaac so obligingly opened the win 
 dow for them, that the shot was fired through the window 
 and not from the inside of the room. And even if they 
 hive already taken to their heels " Jimmie Dale wa
 
 THE THIEF 201 
 
 leading Burton up the stairs again as he talked " it might 
 prove exceedingly inconvenient for us if some passer-by 
 should happen to recollect that he saw two men of our gen 
 eral appearance leaving the premises. Now keep close and 
 follow me." 
 
 They passed the door of Isaac s den, turned down a nar 
 row corridor that led to the rear of the house Jimrriie 
 Dale guiding unerringly, working from the mental map of 
 the house that the Tocsin had drawn for him descended an 
 other short flight of stairs that gave on the kitchen, crossed 
 the kitchen, and Jimmie Dale opened a back door. He 
 paused here for a moment to listen ; then, cautioning Burton 
 to be silent, moved on again across a small back yard and 
 through a gate into a lane that ran at right angles to the 
 alleyway by which both had entered the house and, a min 
 ute later, they were crouched against a building, a hall 
 Mock away, where the lane intersected the cross street. 
 
 Here Jimmie Dale peered out cautiously. There was no 
 one in sight. He touched Burton s shoulder, and pointed 
 down the street. 
 
 " That s your way, Burton mine s the other. Hurr/ 
 while you ve got the chance. Good-night." 
 
 Burton s hand reached out, caught Jimmie Dale s, and 
 wrung it. 
 
 " God bless you ! " he said huskily. " I " 
 
 And Jimmie Dale pushed him out on to the street. 
 
 Burton s steps receded down the sidewalk. Jimmie Dale 
 still crouched against the wall. The steps grew fainter ip 
 the distance and die 1 finally away. Jimmie Dale straight 
 ened up, slipped the mask from his face to his pocket, 
 stepped out on the street and five minutes later was pass 
 ing through the noisy bedlam of the Hungarian restau 
 rant on his way to the front door and his car. 
 
 " Sonnez le Tocsin," Jimmie Dale was saying softly to 
 himself. " I wonder what she ll do when she finds I ve got 
 the ring?"
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THF MAN HIGHER UP 
 
 HE Tocsin ! By neither act, sign, nor word had sr*. 
 evidenced the slightest interest in that ring and yw 
 she must know, she certainly must know that it was now w 
 his possession. Jimmie Dale was disappointed. Somehow f 
 he had counted more than he had cared to admit on develop 
 ments from that ring. 
 
 He pulled a little viciously at his cigarette, as he stared 
 out of the St. James Club window. That was how long ago? 
 Ten days ? Yes ; this would be the eleventh. Eleven days 
 now and no word from her eleven days since that night at 
 old Isaac s, since she had last called him, the Gray Seal, to 
 arms. It was a long while so long a while even that what 
 had come to be his prerogative in the newspapers, the front 
 page with three-inch type recounting some new exploit ot 
 that mysterious criminal the Gray Seal, was being usurped. 
 The papers were howling now about what they, for the lack 
 of a better term, were pleased to call a wave of crime that 
 had inundated New York, and of which, for once, the Gray 
 Seal was not the storm centre, but rather, for the moment, 
 forgotten. 
 
 He drew back from the window, and, settling himself 
 again in the big leather lounging chair, resumed the perusal 
 of the evening paper. His eye fell on what was common to 
 every edition now, a crime editorial and the paper crackled 
 suddenly under the long, slim, tapering ringers, so care 
 fully nurtured, whose sensitive tips a hundred times had 
 made mockery of the human ingenuity squandered on the 
 intricate mechanism of safes and vaults. No; he was 
 wrong the Gray Seal had not been forgotten. 
 
 * We should not be surprised," wrote the editor viry* 
 
 202
 
 THE MAN HIGHER UP 203 
 
 lently, " to discover at the bottom of these abominable at- 
 trocities that the guiding spirit, in fact, was the Gray Seal 
 they are quite worthy even of his diabolical disregard for the 
 laws of God and man." 
 
 Jimmie Dale s lips straightened ominously, and an angry 
 glint crept into his dark, steady eyes. There was nothing 
 then, nothing too vile that, in the public s eyes, could not 
 logically be associated with the Gray Seal even this! A 
 series of the most cold-blooded, callous murders and rob 
 beries, the work, on the face of it, of a well-organized band 
 of thugs, brutal, insensate, little better than fiends, though 
 clever enough so far to have evaded capture, clever enough, 
 indeed, to have kept the police still staggering and gasping 
 after a clew for one murder while another was in the very 
 act of being committed ! The Gray Seal ! What exquisite 
 irony! And yet, after all, the papers were not wholly to 
 blame for what they said ; he had invited much of it. Seem 
 ing crimes of the Gray Seal had apparently been genuine 
 beyond any question of doubt, as he had intended them to 
 appear, as in the very essence of their purpose they had to 
 be. 
 
 " Yes ; he had invited much he and she together the 
 Tocsin and himself. He, Jimmie Dale, millionaire, club 
 man, whose name for generations in New York had been 
 the family pride, was " wanted " as the Gray Seal for so 
 many " crimes " that he had lost track of them himself 
 but from any one of which, let the identity of the Gray Seal 
 be once solved, there was and could be no escape! What 
 exquisite irony yet full, too, of the most deadly con 
 sequences ! 
 
 Once more Jimmie Dale s eyes sought the paper, and this 
 time scanned the headlines of the first page : 
 
 BRUTAL MURDER OF MILL PAYMASTER 
 
 THE CRIME WAVE STILL AT ITS HEIGHT. 
 
 HERMAN ROESSLE FOUND DEAD NEAR His CAB* 
 
 ASSASSINS ESCAPE WITH $20,000.
 
 204 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 Jimmie Dale read on and as he read there came again 
 that angry set to his lips. The details were not pleasant. 
 Herman Roessle, the paymaster of the Martindale-Kensing- 
 ton Mills, whose plant was on the Hudson, had gone that 
 morning in his runabout to the nearest town, three miles 
 away, for the monthly pay roll ; had secured the money 
 from the bank, a sum of twenty-odd thousand dollars; and 
 had started back with it for the mill. At first, it being 
 broad daylight and a well-frequented road, his nonappear- 
 ance caused no apprehension ; but as early afternoon came 
 and there was still no sign of Roessle the mill management 
 took alarm. Discovering that he had left the bank for the 
 return journey at a few minutes before eleven, and that noth 
 ing had been seen of him at his home, the police were noti 
 fied. Followed then several hours of fruitless search, un 
 til finally, with the whole countryside aroused and the efforts 
 of the police augumented by private search parties, the car 
 was found in a thicket at the edge of a crossroad some four 
 miles back from the river, and, a little way from the car, 
 the body of Roessle, dead, the man s head crushed in where 
 it had been fiendishly battered by some blunt, heavy object. 
 There was no clew no one could be found who had seen 
 the car on the crossroad the murderer, or murderers, and 
 the twenty-odd thousand dollars in cash had disappeared 
 leaving no trace behind. 
 
 There were several columns of this, which Jimmie Dale 
 skimmed through quickly ; but at the end he stared for a 
 long time at the last paragraph. Somehow, strange, to re 
 late, the paper had neglected to turn its " sob " artist loose, 
 and the few words, added almost as though they were an 
 afterthought, for once rang true and full of pathos in their 
 very simplicity at the Roessle home, where Mrs. Roessle 
 was prostrated, two little tots of five and seven, too young 
 to understand, had gravely received the reporter and told 
 him that some bad man had hurt their daddy. 
 
 "Mr. Dale, sir!" 
 
 Jimmie Dale lowered his paper. A club attendant was 
 standing before him, respectfully extending a silver care?
 
 THE MAN HIGHER UP 205 
 
 tray. From the man, Jimmie Dale s eyes fixed on a white 
 envelope on the tray. One glance was enough it was hers, 
 that letter. The Tocsin again ! His brain seemed suddenly 
 to be afire, and he could feel his pulse quicken, the blood 
 begin to pound in fierce throbs at his heart. Life and death 
 lay in that white, innocent-looking, unaddressed envelope^ 
 danger, peril it was always life and death, for those were 
 the stakes for which the Tocsin played. But, master of 
 many things, Jimmie Dale was most of all master of himself. 
 Not a muscle of his face moved. He reached nonchalantly 
 for the letter. 
 
 " Thank you," said Jimmie Dale. 
 
 The man bowed and started away. Jimmie Dale laid the 
 envelope on the arm of the lounging chair. The man had 
 reached the door when Jimmie Dale stopped him. 
 
 " Oh, by the way," said Jimmie Dale languidly, " where 
 <lid this come from ? " 
 
 " Your chauffeur, sir," replied the other. " Your chauffeui 
 gpve it to the hall porter a moment ago, sir." 
 
 " Thank you," said Jimmie Dale again. 
 
 The door closed. 
 
 Jimmie Dale glanced around the room. It was the can* 
 tion of habit, that glance ; the habit of years in which his life 
 had hung on little things. He was alone in one of the club s 
 private library rooms. He picked up the envelope, tore it 
 open, took out the folded sheets inside, and began to read. 
 At the first words he leaned forward, suddenly tense in his 
 chair. He read on, turning the pages hurriedly, incredu 
 lity, amazement, and, finally, a strange menace mirroring it 
 self in turn upon his face. 
 
 He stood up the letter in his hand. 
 
 " My God ! " whispered Jimmie Dale. 
 
 It was a call to arms such as the Gray Seal had nevef 
 received before such as the Tocsin had never made before. 
 
 And if it were true it True ! He laughed aloud a little 
 
 gratingly. True! Had the Tocsin, astounding, unbeliev- 
 fsble, mystifying as were the means by which she acquired 
 fter knowledge not only of this, but of countless other af
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 fairs, ever by so much as the smallest detail been astray ! It 
 it were true ! 
 
 He pulled out his watch. It was half-past nine. Benson, 
 his chauffeur, had sent the letter into the club. Benson had 
 been waiting outside there ever since dinner. Jimmie Dale, 
 for the first time since the first communication that he had 
 *ver received from the Tocsin, did not immediately destroy 
 Jier letter now. He slipped it into his pocket and stepped 
 quickly from the room. 
 
 In the cloakroom downstairs he secured his hat and over 
 coat, and, though it was a warm evening, put on the latter 
 since he was in evening clothes, then walked leisurely out of 
 the club. 
 
 At the curb, Benson, the chauffeur, sprang from his seat, 
 and, touching his cap, opened the door of a luxurious lim 
 ousine. 
 
 Jimmie Dale shook his head. 
 
 " I shall not keep you waiting any longer, Benson," he 
 said. " You may take the car home, and put it up. I shall 
 probably be late to-night." 
 
 " Very good, sir," replied the chauffeur. 
 
 " You sent in a letter a moment or so age, Benson ? " ob 
 served Jimmie Dale casually, opening his cigarette case. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Benson. " I hope I didn t do wrong, sir. 
 He said it was important, and that you were to have it at 
 once." 
 
 " He ? " Jimmie Dale was lighting his cigarette now. 
 
 " A boy, sir," Benson amplified. " I couldn t get anything 
 out of him. He just said he d been told to give it to me, 
 and tell me to see that you got it at once. I hope, sir, I 
 haven t " 
 
 " Not at all, Benson," said Jimmie Dale pleasantly. " It s 
 quite all risrht. Good -night, Benson." 
 
 " Good-night, sir," Benson answered, climbing back to his 
 seat. 
 
 There was a queer little smile on Jimmie Dale s lips, as he 
 watched the great car swing around in the street and glide 
 noiselessly away a queer little smile that still held there
 
 THE MAN HIGHER UP 20t 
 
 after he himself had started briskly along the avenue 
 in a downtown direction. It was invariably the same, al 
 ways the same the letters came unexpectedly, when least 
 looked for, now by this means, now by that, but always in a 
 manner that precluded the slightest possibility of tracing 
 them to their source. Was there anything, in his intimate 
 surroundings, in his intimate life, that she did not know 
 about him who knew absolutely nothing about her ! Benson^ 
 for instance that the man was absolutely trustworthy 
 or else she would never for an instant have risked the letter 
 in his possession. Was there anything that she did not < 
 yes, one thing she did not know him in the role he was 
 going to play to-night. That at least was one thing that 
 surely she did not know about him ; the role in which, many 
 times, for weeks on end, he had devoted himself body and 
 soul in an attempt to solve the mystery with which she sur 
 rounded herself ; the role, too, that often enough had been 
 a bulwark of safety to him when hard pressed by the police; 
 the role out of which he had so carefully, so painstakingly 
 created a now recognised and well-known character of the 
 anderworld the role of Larry the Bat 
 
 Jimmie Dale turned from Fifth Avenue into Broadway, 
 continued on down Broadway, across to the Bowery, kepi: 
 along the Bowery for several more blocks and finally 
 headed east into the dimly lighted cross street on which the 
 Sanctuary was located. 
 
 And now Jimmie Dale became cautious in his movements. 
 As he approached the black alleyway that flanked the miser 
 able tenement, he glanced sharply behind and about him; 
 and, at the alleyway itself, without pause, but with a curious 
 lightning-like side step, no longer Jimmie Dale now, but 
 the Gray Seal, he disappeared from the street, and was lost 
 in the deep shadows of the building. 
 
 In a moment he was at the side door, listening for any 
 sound from within none had ever seen or met the lodger on 
 the first floor either ascending or descending, except in the 
 familiar character of Larry the Bat. Ke opened the door, 
 it behind him, and in the utter blackness went noisa.
 
 208 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 lessly up the stairs stairs so rickety that it seemed a mouse "* 
 tread alone would have set them creaking. There seemed 
 an art in the play of Jimmie Dale s every muscle ; in the 
 movements, lithe, balanced, quick, absolutely silent. On the 
 first landing he stopped before another door, there was the 
 faint click of a key turning in the lock ; and then this door, 
 too, closed behind him. Sounded the faint click of the key 
 as it turned again, and Jimmie Dale drew a long breath, 
 stepped across the room to assure himself that the window 
 blind was down, and lighted the gas jet. 
 
 A yellow, murky flame spurted up, pitifully weak, almost 
 as though it were ashamed of its disreputable surround 
 ings. Dirt, disorder, squalour, the evidence of low living 
 testified eloquently enough to any one, the police, for in 
 stance, in times past inquisitive until they were fatuously 
 content with the belief that they knew the occupant for 
 what he was, that the place was quite in keeping with its 
 tenant, a mute prototype, as it were, of Larry the Bat, the 
 dope fiend. 
 
 For a little space, Jimmie Dale, immaculate in his even 
 ing clothes, stood in the centre of the miserable room, his 
 dark eyes, keen, alert, critical, sweeping comprehensively 
 over every object about him the position of a chair, of a 
 cracked drinking glass on the broken -legged table, of an 
 old coat thrown with apparent carelessness on the floor at 
 the foot of the bed, of a broken bottle that had innocent .v 
 strewn some sort of white powder close to the threshold, 
 inviting unwary foot tracks across the floor. And then, 
 taking out the Tocsin s letter, he laid it upon the table, 
 placed what money he had in his pockets beside it, and began 
 rapidly to remove his clothes. The Sanctuary had not been 
 invaded since his last visit there. 
 
 He turned back the oilcloth in the far corner of the room, 
 took up the piece of loose flooring, which, however, strangely 
 enough, fitted so closely as to give no sign of its existence 
 even should it inadvertently, by some curious visitor again*, 
 be trod upon ; and from the aperture beneath lifted out * 
 bundle of clothes and a small box.
 
 THE MAN HIGHER UP 209 
 
 Undressed now, he carefully folded the clothes he had 
 iaken off, laid them under the flooring, and began to dress 
 again, his wardrobe supplied by the bundle he had taken 
 out in exchange an old pair of shoes, the laces broken; 
 mismated socks; patched trousers, frayed at the bottoms; 
 a soiled shirt, collarless, open at the neck. Attired to his 
 satisfaction, he placed the box upon the table, propped up 
 a cracked mirror, sat down in front of it, and, with a deft, 
 artist s touch, began to apply stain to his hands, wrists, 
 neck, throat, and face but the hardness, the grim menace 
 that now grew into the dominant characteristic of his fea 
 tures was not due to the stain alone. 
 
 " Dear Philanthropic Crook " his eyes were on the Toc 
 sin s letter that lay before him. He read on for once, 
 even to Jimmie Dale s keen, facile mind, a first reading had 
 failed to convey the full significance of what she had writ 
 ten. It was too amazing, almost beyond belief the series 
 of crimes, rampant for the past few weeks, at which the 
 community had stood aghast, the brutal murder of Roessle 
 but a few hours old, lay bare before his eyes. It was all 
 there, all of it, the details, the hellish cleverness, the per 
 sonnel even of the thugs, all, everything except the proof, 
 
 " Get him, Jimmie the man higher up. Get him, Jim 
 mie before another pays forfeit with his life " the words 
 seemed to leap out at him from the white page in red, danc 
 ing lines " Get him Jimmie the man higher up." 
 
 Jimmie Dale finished the second reading of the letter, 
 read it again for the third time, then tore it into tiny frag-- 
 meats. His fingers delved into the box again, and the trans 
 formation of Jimmie Dale, member of New York s most 
 exclusive social set, into a low, vicious-featured denizen of 
 the underworld went on a little wax applied skilfully be 
 hind the ears, in the nostrils and under the upper lip. 
 
 It was all there all except the proof. And the proof 
 he laughed aloud suddenly, unpleasantly. There seemed 
 something sardonic in it ; ay, more than that, all that was 
 grim in irony. The proof, in Stangeist s own writing, sworn 
 to before witnesses in the presence of a notary, the text ot
 
 210 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 the document, of course, unknown to both witnesses and 
 notary, evidence, absolute and final, that would be admitted 
 in any court, for Stangeist was a lawyer, and would see to 
 that, was in Stangeist s own safe, for Stangeist s own pro 
 tection Stangeist, who was himself the head and brains 
 of this murder gang Stangeist, who was the man higher 
 up! 
 
 It was amazing, without parallel in the history of crime 
 and yet ingenious, clever, full of the craft and cunning 
 that had built up the shyster lawyer s reputation below the 
 dead line. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s lips were curiously thin now. So it was 
 Stangeist! A Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with a ven 
 geance ! He knew Stangeist not personally ; not by the rep 
 utation Stangeist held, low even as that was, among his 
 brother members of the profession ; but as the man was 
 known for what he really was among the crooks and crim 
 inals of the underworld, where, in that strange underground 
 exchange, whispered confidences passed between those whose 
 common enemy was the law, where Larry the Bat himself 
 was trusted in the innermost circles. 
 
 Stangeist was a power in the Bad Lands. There were 
 few among that unholy community that Stangeist, at one 
 time or another, in one way or another, had not rescued 
 from the clutches of the law, resorting to any trick or cun 
 ning, but with perjury, that he could handle like the master 
 of it that he was, employed as the most common weapon of 
 defence for his clients provided he were paid well enough 
 for it. The man had become more than the attorney for 
 Jie crime wo r ld he had become part of it. Cunning, 
 shrewd, crafty, conscienceless, cold-blooded that was Stan 
 geist. 
 
 The form and features of the man pictured themselves 
 in Jimmie Dale s mind the six-foot muscular frame, that 
 was invariably clothed in attire of the most fashionable cut ; 
 the thin lips with their oily, plausible smile, the straight 
 black hair that straggled into pin point, little black eyes, 
 the dark face w th its high cheek bones, which, with the pro
 
 THE MAN HIGHER UP 211 
 
 nouncea aquiline nose and the persistent rumour that he was 
 a quarter caste, had led the underworld, prejudiced always 
 in favour of a " monaker," to dub the man the " Indian 
 Chief." 
 
 Jimmie Dale laughed again still unpleasantly. So Stan- 
 geist had taken the plunge at last and branched out into ^ 
 wider field, had he? Well, there was nothing surprising m 
 that except that he had not done it before ! The irony 
 of it lay in the fact that at last he had been too clever, 
 overstepped himself in his own cleverness, that w r as all. 
 It was Australian Ike, The Mope, and Clarie Deane that 
 Stangeist had gathered aiound him, the Tocsin had said 
 and there were none worse in Larry the Bat s wide range of 
 acquaintanceship than those three. Stangeist had made him 
 self master of Australian Ike, The Mope, and Clarie Deane 
 and he had driven them a little too hard on the division of the 
 spoils and laughed at them, and cracked the whip much 
 after the fashion that the trainer in the cage handles the 
 growling beasts around him. 
 
 A dozen of the crimes that had appalled and staggered 
 New York they had committed under his leadership ; and 
 then, it seemed, they had quarrelled furiously, the three 
 pitted against Stangeist, threatening him, demanding a more 
 equitable share of the proceeds. None was better aware 
 than Stangeist that threats from men of their calibre were 
 (ikely to result in a grim aftermath and Stangeist, yester 
 day, the Tocsin said, had answered them as no other man 
 than Stangeist would either have thought of or have dared 
 to do. One by one, at separate times, covering the other 
 with a revolver, Stangeist had permitted them to read a 
 document that was addressed to the district attorney. It 
 was a confession, complete in every detail, of every crime 
 the four together had committed, implicating Stangeist as 
 fully and unreservedly as it did the other three. It required 
 no commentary ! If anything happened to Stangeist, a stab 
 in the dark, for instance, a bullet from some dark alleyway, 
 a blackjack deftly wielded, as only Australian Ike, The 
 Mope or Clarie Deane knew how to wield it the document
 
 212 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 automatically became a death sentence for Australian Ike 
 The Mope, and Clarie Deane ! 
 
 It was very simple and, evidently, it had been effective, 
 as witness the renewal of their operations in the murder of 
 Roessle that afternoon. Fear and avarice had both prob 
 ably played their part ; fear of the man who would with such 
 consummate nerve fling his life into the balance to turn the 
 tables upon them, while he jeered at them ; avarice that 
 prompted them to get what they could out of Stangeist s 
 brains and leadership, and to be satisfied with what they 
 could get since they could get no more ! 
 
 Satisfied ? Jimmie Dale shook his head. No ; that was 
 hsrdly the word cowed, perhaps, for the moment, would 
 be better. But afterward, with a document like that in exist 
 ence, when they would never be safe for an instant well, 
 beasts in the cages had been known to get the better of the 
 man with the whip, and beasts were gentle things compared 
 with Australian Ike, The Mope, and Clarie Deane! Some 
 day they would reverse the tables on the Indian Chief if 
 they could. And if they couldn t it would not be for the 
 lack of trying. 
 
 There would be another act in that drama of the House 
 Divided before the curtain fell ! And there would be a sort 
 of grim, poetic justice in it, a temptation almost to let the 
 play work itself out to its own inevitable conclusion, only 
 Jimmie Dale, the final touches given to his features, stood 
 up, and his hands clenched suddenly, fiercely it was not 
 just the man higher up alone, there were the other three 
 as well, the whole four of them, all of them, crimes without 
 number at their door, brutal, fiendish acts, damnable out 
 rages, murder to answer for, with which the public now was 
 beginning to connect the name of the Gray Seal ! The Gray 
 Seal! 
 
 Jimmie Dale s hands, whose delicate fingers were artfully 
 grimed and blackened now beneath the nails, clenched still 
 tighter and then, with a quick shrug of his shoulders, a 
 thinning of the firmly compressed lips, he picked up the coat 
 from where it lay upon the floor, put it on, put the money
 
 THE MAN HIGHER UP 213 
 
 that was on the table in his pocket, and replaced the box 
 under the flooring. 
 
 In quick succession, from the same hiding place, an 
 automatic, a black silk mask, an electric flashlight, that thin 
 metal box like a cigarette case, and a half dozen vicious- 
 looking little blued-steel burglar s tools were stowed away 
 in his pockets, the flooring carefully replaced, the oilcloth 
 spread back again ; and then, pulling a slouch hat well down 
 over his eyes, he reached up to turn off the gas. 
 
 For an instant his hand held there, while his eyes, sweep- 
 mg around the apartment, took in every single detail about 
 him in that same alert, comprehensive way as when he had 
 entered then the room was in darkness, and the Gray Seal, 
 as Larry the Bat, a shuffling, unkempt creature of the under 
 world, alias Jimmie Dale, the lionised of clubs, the matri 
 monial target of exclusive drawing-rooms, closed the door 
 of the Sanctuary behind him, shuffled down the stairs, 
 shuffled out into the lane, and shuffled along the street to 
 ward the Bowery. 
 
 A policeman on the corner accosted him familiarly. 
 " Hello, Larry ! " grinned the officer. 
 " Ello ! " returned Jimmie Dale affably through the side 
 of his mouth . " Fine night, ain t it ? " and shuffled on 
 along the street. 
 
 And now Jimmie Dale began to hurry still with that 
 shuffling tread, but covering the ground nevertheless with 
 amazing celerity. He had lost no time since receiving the 
 Tocsin s letter, it was true, but, for all that, it was now 
 after ten o clock. Stangeist s house was " dark " that even 
 ing, she had said, meaning that the occupants, Stangeist as 
 well as whatever servants there might be, for Stangeist had 
 no family, were out the servants in town for a theatre or 
 picture show probably and Stangeist himself as yet not 
 back, presumably from that Roessle affair. The stub of an 
 old cigar, unlighted, shifted with a sudden, savage twist of 
 the lips from one side of Jimmie Dale s mouth to the other. 
 There was need for haste. There was no telling when Stan 
 geist might get back as for the servants, that did not matter
 
 214 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 so much ; servants in suburban homes had a marked affiniti 
 for " last trains ! " 
 
 Jimmie Dale boarded a cross-town car, effected a transfer, 
 and in a quarter of an hour after leaving the Sanctuary was 
 huddled, an inoffensive heap, like a tired-out workingman, 
 in a corner seat of a Long Island train. From here, there 
 was only a short run ahead of him, and, twenty minutes 
 later, descending from the train at Forest Hills, he had 
 passed through the more thickly settled portion of the lit 
 tle place, and was walking briskly out along the country 
 road. 
 
 Stangeist s house lay, approximately, a mile and a half 
 from the station, quite by itself, and set well back from 
 the road. Jimmie Dale could have found it with his eyes 
 blindfolded the Tocsin s directions had lacked none of 
 their usual explicit minuteness. The road was quite 
 deserted. Jimmie Dale met no one. Even in the houses 
 that he passed the lights were in nearly every instance al 
 ready out. 
 
 Something, merciless in its rage, swept suddenly ovef 
 Jimmie Dale, as, unbidden, of its own volition, the last 
 paragraph he had read in that evening s paper began to re 
 peat itself over and over again in his mind. The two 
 little kiddies it seemed as though he could see them stand 
 ing there and from Jimmie Dale s lips, not given to pro 
 fanity, there came a bitter oath. It might possibly be that, 
 even if he were successful in what was before him to-night, 
 the authors of the Roessle murder would never be known. 
 That confession of Stangeist s was written prior to what 
 had happened that afternoon, and there would be no men 
 tion, naturally, of Roessle. And, for a moment, that seemed 
 to Jimmie Dale the one thing paramount to all others, the 
 one thing that was vital ; then he shook his head, and laughed 
 out shortly. After all, it did not matter whether Stangeist 
 and the blood wolves he had gathered around him paid the 
 penalty specifically for one particular crime cr for another 
 could make little difference they would pay, just as surely 
 just as certainly, once that paper was in his possession!
 
 THE MAN HIGHER UP 215 
 
 Jimmie Dale was counting the houses as he passed they 
 were more infrequent now, farther apart. Stangeist was 
 no fool not the fool that he would appear to be for keeping 
 a document like that, once he had had the temerity to ex 
 ecute it, in his own safe ; for, in a day or two, the Tocsin 
 had hinted at this, after holding it over the heads of Aus 
 tralian Ike, The Mope, and Clarie Deane again to drive the 
 force of it a little deeper home, he would undoubtedly de 
 stroy it and the supposition that it was still in existence 
 would have equally the same effect on the minds of the other 
 three ! Stangeist was certainly alive to the peril that he ran 
 with such a thing in his possession, only the peril had not 
 appealed to him as imminent either from the three thugs 
 with whom he had allied himself, or, much less, from any 
 one else, that was all. 
 
 Jimmie Dale halted by a low, ornamental stone fence, 
 some three feet high, and stood there for a moment, glanc 
 ing about him. This was Stangeist s house he could just 
 make out the building as it loomed up a shadowy, irregular 
 shape, perhaps two hundred yards back from the fence. 
 The house was quite dark, not a light showed in any win 
 dow. Jimmie Dale sat down casually on the fence, looked 
 carefully again up and down the road then, swinging his 
 legs over, quick now in every action, he dropped to the other 
 side, and stole silently across the grass to the rear of the 
 house. 
 
 Here he stopped again, reached up to a window that was 
 about on a level with his shoulders, and tested its fastenings. 
 The window it was the window of Stangeist s private 
 sanctum, according to the plan in her letter was securely 
 locked. Jimmie Dale s hands went into his pocket and 
 the black silk mask was slipped over his face. He listened 
 intently then a little steel instrument began to gnaw like 
 a rat. 
 
 A minute passed two of them. Again Jimmie Dale lis 
 tened. There was not a sound save the night sounds the 
 Jight breeze whispering through the branches of the trees; 
 ihe far-off rouble of a train ; the whir of insects ; the
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 hoarse croaking of a frog from some near-by creek or pond. 
 The window sash was raised an inch, another, and gradually 
 to the top. Like a shadow, Jimmie Dale pulled himself up to 
 the sill, and, poised there, his hand parted the heavy portieres 
 that hung within. It was too dark to distinguish even a single 
 object in the room. He lowered himself to the floor, and 
 slipped cautiously between the portieres. 
 
 From somewhere in the house, a clock began to strike. 
 Jimmie Dale counted the strokes. Eleven o clock. It was 
 getting late too late ! Stangeist was likely to be back at 
 any moment. The flashlight, in Jimmie Dale s hand now, 
 circled the room with its little round white ray, lingering 
 an instant in a queer, inquisitive sort of way here and there 
 on this object and that and went out. Jimmie Dale nod 
 ded the flat desk in the centre of the floor, the safe in the 
 corner by the rear wall, the position of everything the 
 room, even to the chairs, was photographed on his mind. 
 
 He stepped from the portieres to the safe, and the flash 
 light played again this time reflecting back from the glisten 
 ing nickelled knobs. Jimmie Dale s lips tightened. It was a 
 small safe, almost ludicrously small ; but to such height as 
 the art of safe design had been carried, that design was 
 embodied in the one before him. 
 
 * Type K-four-two-eight-Colby," muttered Jimmie Dale. 
 3t A nasty little beggar and it s eleven o clock now ! I d 
 use soup for once, if it weren t that it would put Stangeist 
 wise, and give him a chance to make his get-away before the 
 district attorney got the nippers on the four of them." 
 
 The light went out. Jimmie Dale dropped to his knees; 
 and, while his left hand passed swiftly, tentatively over 
 dials and handle, he rubbed the fingers of his right hand 
 rapidly to and fro over the carpet. Wonderful finger tips 
 were those of Jimmie Dale, sensitive to an abnormal degree; 
 and now, tingling with the friction, the nerves throbbing at 
 the skin surface, they closed in a light, delicate touch upon 
 the knob of the dial and Jimmie Dale s ear pressed close 
 against the face of the safe. 
 
 yime passed. The silence grew heavy seemed to palpitate
 
 THE MAN HIGHER UP 21T 
 
 through the room. Then a deep breath, half like a sigh, 
 half like a fluttering sob as of a strong man taxed to the 
 uttermost of his endurance, came from Jimmie Dale, and 
 his left hand swept away the sweat beads that had spurted 
 to his forehead. 
 
 "Eight thirteen twenty-two," whispered Jimmie Date. 
 
 There was a click, a low metalHc thud as the bolts s5d 
 back, and the door swung open. 
 
 And now the flashlight again, searching the mechanism ol 
 the inner door then darkness once more. 
 
 Five minutes, ten minutes went by. The clock strode 
 again and the single stroke seemed to boom out through 
 the house in a weird, raucous, threatening note, and seemed 
 to linger, throbbing in the air. 
 
 The inner door was open the flashlight s ray was flood 
 ing a nest of pigeonholes and little drawers. The pigeon 
 holes were crammed with papers, as, presumably, too, were 
 the drawers. Jimmie Dale sucked in his breath. He had 
 already been there well over half an hour every minute 
 now, every second was counting against him, and to search 
 that mass of papers before Stangeist returned was 
 
 "Ah!" it came in a fierce little ejaculation from Jimmie 
 Dale. From the centre pigeonhole, almost the first paper 
 he had touched, he drew a long, sealed envelope, and at a 
 single swift glance had read the inscription upon it, written 
 in longhand: 
 
 To THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY, 
 NEW YORK Cmr. 
 
 Important. Urgent. 
 
 The words in the corners were underscored three times. 
 
 Swiftly, deftly, Jimmie Dale s hands rolled the rounded 
 end of one of his collection of the legal instruments under 
 the flap of the envelope, turned the sheets over and drew out 
 the folded document inside. There were eight sheets of legal 
 foolscap, neatly fastened together at the top left-hand corner 
 with green tape. He opened them out, read a few words
 
 218 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 here and there, and turned the pages hurriedly over ta 
 scrutinise the last one and noded grimly. Three witnesses 
 had testified to the signature of Stangeist, and a notary s 
 seal, accompanied by the usual legal formula, was duly 
 affixed. 
 
 Jimmie Dale slipped the document into his pocket, and, 
 with the envelope in his hand, moved to the desk. He 
 opened first one drawer and then another, and finally dis 
 covering a pile of blank foolscap, took out four sheets, folded 
 them, and placed them in the envelope, sealing the flap of the 
 latter again. That it did not seal very well now brought a 
 quizzical twitch to Jimmie Dale s lips. Sealed or unsealed, 
 perhaps, it made little difference ; but, for all that, he was not 
 through with it yet. Apart from bringing the four to justice, 
 there was, after all, a chance to vindicate the Gray Seal in 
 this matter at least, and repudiate the newspaper theory 
 which the public, to whom the Gray Seal was already a 
 monster of iniquity, would seize upon with avidity. 
 
 There was no further need of light now. Jimmie Dale 
 replaced the flashlight in his pocket, took out the thin, metal 
 case, opened it, and with the tiny pair of tweezers that like 
 wise nestled there, lifted out one of the gray, diamond- 
 shaped paper seals. There was no question but that, once 
 under arrest, Stangeist s effects would be immediately and 
 thoroughly searched by the authorities ! Jimmie Dale s smile 
 from quizzical became ironic. It would afford the police 
 another little, bewildering reminder of the Gray Seal, and 
 give Carruthers, good old Carruthers of the Morning News- 
 Argus, so innocently ignorant that the Gray Seal was his old 
 college pal, yet the one editor of them all who was not for 
 ever barking and yelping at the Gray Seal s heels, a chance 
 to vindicate himself a little, too! Jimmie Dale moistened 
 the adhesive side of the gray seal, and, still mindful of tell 
 tale finger prints, laid it with the tweezers on the flap of the 
 envelope, and pressed it firmly into place with his elbow. 
 
 And then, suddenly, every faculty instantly on the alert, 
 he snatched up the envelope from the desk, and listened. 
 Was it imagination, a trick of nerves, or no, there it was
 
 THE MAN HIGHER UP 
 
 again! a luotfall on the gravel walk at the troat of the 
 house. The sound became louder, clearer two footfalls 
 instead of one. It was Stangeist, and somebody was with 
 him. 
 
 In an instant Jimmie Dale was across the room and kneel 
 ing again before the safe. His fingers were flying now. The 
 envelope shot back into the pigeonhole from which he had 
 taken it the inner door of the safe closed silently and 
 swiftly. 
 
 A dry chuckle came from Jimmie Dale s lips. It was just 
 like fiction, just precisely time enough to have accomplished 
 what he had come for before he was interrupted, not a 
 second more or less, the villain foiled at the psychological 
 moment ! The key was rattling in the front door now they 
 were in the hall he could hear Stangeist s voice there came 
 a dull glow from the hallway, following the click of an 
 electric-light switch. The outer door of the safe swung 
 shut, the bolts slid into place, the dial whirled under Jimmie 
 Dale s fingers. It was only a step to the portieres, the open 
 window and escape. He straightened up, stepped back, 
 the portieres closed behind him and the chuckle died on 
 Jimmie Dale s lips. 
 
 He was trapped caught without so much as a corner in 
 which to turn! Stangeist was even then coming into the 
 room an d outside, darkly outlined, two forms stood just 
 beneath the window. Instinctively, quick as a flash, Jimmie 
 Dale crouched below the sill. Who were they? What did 
 it mean? Questions swept in swift sequence through his 
 brain. Had they seen him ? It would be very dark against 
 the background of the portieres, but yet if they were watch 
 ing he drew a breath of relief. He had not been seen. 
 Their voices reached him in low, guarded whispers. 
 
 " Say, youse, Ike, pipe it ! Dere s a window open in the 
 snitch s room. Come on, we ll get in dere. It ll make the 
 hair stand up on the back of his neck fer a starter." 
 
 " Aw, f erget it ! " replied another voice. " Can the tee- 
 ayter stunt ! Clarie leaves the front door unfastened, don t 
 he? An dey ll be in dere in a minute now. Wotcber waist
 
 220 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 ter do? Crab the game? He might hear us an fix Clarie 
 before we had a chanst, the skinny old fox ! An dere s the 
 light now see! Beat it on yer toes fer the front of the 
 house ! " 
 
 The room was flooded with light. Through the portieres, 
 that Jimmie Dale parted by the barest fraction of an inch, 
 he could see Stangeist and another man, a thick-set, ugly- 
 faced-looking customer Clarie Deane, according to that 
 brief, whispered colloquy that he had heard outside. He 
 looked again through the window. The two dark forms had 
 disappeared now, but they had disappeared just a few 
 seconds too late with the two other men now in the room, 
 and one of them so close that Jimmie Dale could almost 
 have reached out and touched him, it was impossible to get 
 through the window without being detected, when the 
 slightest sound would attract instant attention and equally 
 instant suspicion. It was a chance to be taken only as a last 
 resort. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s face grew hard, as his fingers closed around 
 his automatic and drew the weapon from his pocket. It was 
 all plain enough. That last act in the drama which he had 
 speculatively anticipated was being staged with little loss of 
 time and in a grim sort of way the thought flashed across 
 his mind that, perilous as his own position was, Stangeist 
 at that moment was in even greater peril than himself, 
 Australian Ike, The Mope, and Clarie Deane, given the 
 chance, and they seemed to have made that chance now, 
 were not likely to deal in half measures Clarie Deane 
 had dropped into a chair beside the desk ; and The Mope and 
 Australian Ike were creeping around to the front door ! 
 
 The parting in the portieres widened a little more, a very 
 little more, slowly, imperceptibly, until Jimmie Dale, by the 
 simple expedient of moving his head, could obtain an un 
 obstructed view of the entire room. 
 
 Stangeist tossed a bag he had been carrving on the desk, 
 pulled up a chair opposite to Clarie Deane, and sat down. 
 Both men were side face to Jimmie Dale. 
 
 a You tell the boys," said Stangeist abruptly, " to fade
 
 THE MAN HIGHER UP 221 
 
 away after this for a while. Things are getting too hot. 
 And you tell The Mope I dock him five hundred for that 
 extra crunch on Roessle s skull. That sort of thing isn t 
 necessary. That s the kind of stunt that gets the public 
 sore the man was dead enough as it was. See ? " 
 
 " Sure ! " Clarie Deane s ejaculation was a grunt. 
 
 Stangeist opened the bag, and dumped the contents on the 
 desk pile after pile of banknotes, the pay roll of the Mar- 
 tindale-Kensington Mills. 
 
 " Some haul ! " observed Clarie Deane, with a hoarse 
 chuckle. " The papers said over twenty thousand." 
 
 " You can t always believe what the papers say," returned 
 Stangeist curtly ; and, taking a scribbling pad from the desk, 
 began to check up the packages. 
 
 Clarie Deane s cigar had gone out. He rolled the short 
 stub in his mouth, and leaned forward. 
 
 The bills were evidently just as they had been delivered 
 to the murdered paymaster at the bank, done up with little 
 narrow paper bands in packages of one hundred notes each, 
 save for a small bundle of loose bills which latter, with the 
 rolls of silver, Stangeist swept to one side of the desk. 
 
 Package by package, Stangeist went on jotting the amounts 
 down on the pad. 
 
 " Nix ! " growled Clarie Deane suddenly. " Cut that out ! 
 Them s fivers in that wad. Make that five hundred instead 
 of one I m onter yer ! " 
 
 " Mistake," said Stangeist suavely, changing the figures 
 with his pencil. " You re pretty wide awake for this time 
 of night, aren t you, Clarie ? " 
 
 " Oh, I dunno ! " responded Clarie Deane gruffly. " Not 
 so very ! " 
 
 Stangeist, finished with the packages, picked up the loose 
 bills, and, with a short laugh, tossed them into the bag and 
 followed them with the rolls of silver. He pushed the bag 
 toward Clarie Deane. 
 
 " That s a little extra for you," he said. " The trouble 
 with you fellows is that you don t know when you re well 
 off but the sooner you find it out the better, unless you
 
 222 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 want another lesson like yesterday." He made the addition 
 on the pad. " Fifteen thousand, eight hundred dollars," he 
 announced softly. " That s seven thousand, nine hundred 
 for the three of you to divide, less five hundred from The 
 Mope." 
 
 Clarie Deane s eyes narrowed. His hands were on his 
 knees, hidden by the desk. 
 
 " There s more n twenty there," he said sullenly and 
 drew a match across the under edge of the desk with a long, 
 crackling noise. 
 
 Stangeist s face lost its suavity, a snarl curled his lips ; but, 
 about to reply, he sprang suddenly to his feet instead, his 
 head turned sharply toward the door. 
 
 " What s that ! " he said hoarsely. " It s not the servants, 
 they wouldn t dare to " 
 
 Stangeist s words ended in a gulp. He was staring into 
 the muzzle of a heavy-calibered revolver that Clarie Deane 
 had jerked up from under the desk. 
 
 " You sit down, or 111 blow your block off ! " said Clark 
 Deane, with a sudden leer. 
 
 It happened then almost before Jimmie Dale could grasp 
 the details ; before even Clarie Deane himself could interfere. 
 The door burst open, two men rushed in and one, with a 
 bound, flung himself at Stangeist. The man s hand, grasp 
 ing a clubbed revolver, rose in the air. descended on 
 Stangeist s head and Stangeist went down in a limp heap, 
 crashed into the chair, and slid from the chair with a thud 
 to the floor. 
 
 There was an oath from Garie Deane. He jumped from 
 his seat, and with a violent shove sent the man reeling half 
 across the room. 
 
 " Blast yon. Mope ! " he snarled. " You re too blamed fly I 
 D ye wanter queer the whole biz? " 
 
 " Aw. vot s tbe matter wid yoiise!" The Mope, purple- 
 faced with ra^e, little blnrk eves glittering, mouth working 
 under a fl attend nose that ome previous encounter had 
 broken and bent over the side of fai? fact, advanced btilig 
 i-entlv
 
 THE MAN HIGHER UP 223 
 
 Australian Ike, who had entered the room with him, pulled 
 him back. 
 
 " Ferget it ! " he flung- out. " Clarie s dealin* the deck. 
 Ferget H ! " 
 
 The Mope glared from one to the other; then shook his 
 fist at Stangeist on the floor. 
 
 " Yottse two make me sick ! " he sneered. " Wot s the 
 use of waitin all night ? We was to bump him off, anyway, 
 wasn t we? Dat s wot youse said yerselves, cause wot was 
 ter stop him writin out another paper if we didn t fix him 
 f er keeps ? " 
 
 "That s all right," rejoined Clarie Deane; "but that s 
 the second act, you bonehead, see ! We ain t got the paper 
 yet, have we? Say, take a look at that safe! It s easier 
 ter scare him inter openin it than ter crack it, ain t it ? " 
 
 Jimmie Dale, from his crouched position, began to rise 
 to his feet slowly, making but the slightest movement at a 
 time, cautious of the least sound. His lips were like a thin 
 line, his fingers tightly pressed over the automatic in his 
 hand. There was not room for him between the portieres 
 and the window ; and, do what he could, the hangings bulged 
 a little. Let one of the three notice that, or inadvertently 
 brush against the portieres, and his life would not be worth 
 an instant s purchase. 
 
 They were lifting Stangeist up now, propping him up in 
 the chair. Stangeist moaned, opened his eyes, stared in a 
 dazed way at the three faces that leered into his, then dawn 
 ing intelligence came, and his face, that had been white be 
 fore, took on a pasty, grayish pallor. 
 
 " You the three of you ! " he mumbled. " What s this 
 mean ? " 
 
 And then Clarie Deane laughed in a low, brutal way. 
 
 " Wot d ye think it means ? We want that paper, an we 
 want it damn quick see ! D ye think we was goin ter stand 
 fer havin a trip ter Sing Sing an the wire chair danglin* 
 over our heads ! " 
 
 Stangeist closed his eyes. When he opened them again, 
 fcomething of the old-time craftiness was in his face.
 
 224, THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 " Well, what are you going to do about it ? " he inquired, 
 almost sharply. " You know what will happen to you, if 
 anything happens to me." 
 
 " Don t youse kid yerself ! " retorted Clarie Deane. " D ye 
 think we re fools? This ain t like it was yesterday see! 
 We gets the paper this time so there won t nothin hap 
 pen to us. You come across with it blasted quick now, or 
 The Mope ll give you another on the bean that ll put you 
 to sle3p fer keeps!" 
 
 The blood was running down Stangeist s face. He wiped 
 it away from his eyes. 
 
 " It s not here," he said innocently. " It s in my box in 
 the safety-deposit vaults." 
 
 " Aw," blurted out Australian Ike, pushing suddenly for 
 ward, " youse can t work dat crawl on " 
 
 " Cut it out, Ike ! " snapped Clarie Dane. " I m runnin* 
 this! So it s in the vaults, eh?" He shoved his face to 
 ward Stangeist s. 
 
 " Yes," said Stangeist easily. " You see I was looking 
 for something like this." 
 
 Garie Deane s fist clenched. 
 
 " You lie ! " he choked. " The Mope, here, was the last 
 of us you showed the paper to yesterday afernoon, an the 
 vaults was closed then an you ain t been there to-day, 
 cause you ve been watched. That s why we fixed it fei 
 to-night after the divvy that you ve just tried ter do us on 
 again, cause we knew you had it here." 
 
 " T tell you, it s not here." said Stangeist evenly. 
 
 "You lie!" said Clarie Deane again. "It s in that safe. 
 The Mope heard you tell the girl in yer office that if any 
 thing happened you she was ter wise up the district attor 
 ney that there was a paper in your safe at home fer him 
 that was important. Now then, you beat it over ter that 
 safe, an open it up we ll give you a minute ter do it in. * 
 
 " The paper s not there, I tell you," said Stangeist once 
 tnore. 
 
 "That s all right," submitted Clarie Deane grimly, 
 * There s a quarter of that minute gone."
 
 THE MAN HIGHER UP 225 
 
 " I won t ! " Stangeist flashed out violently. 
 " That s all right," repeated Clarie Deane. " There s half 
 of that minute gone." 
 
 Jimmie Dale s eyes, in a fascinated sort of way, were on 
 Stangeist. The man s face was twitching- now, moisture 
 began to ooze from his forehead, as the callous brutality of 
 the scowling faces seemed to get him and then he lurched 
 suddenly forward in his chair. 
 
 " My God ! " he cried out, a ring of terror in his voice. 
 " What do you mean to do ? You ll pay for it ! They ll get 
 you ! The servants will be back in a minute." 
 
 " Two skirts ! " jeered Clarie Deane. We ain t goin* 
 ter run away from them. If they comes before we goes, 
 we ll fix em. That minute s up ! " 
 
 Stangeist licked his lips with his tongue. 
 "Suppose suppose I refuse?" he said hoarsely. 
 " You can suit yerself," said Clarie Deane, with a vicious 
 grin. " We know the paper s there, an we gets it before 
 we leaves here see ? You can take yer choice. Either you 
 goes over ter the safe an opens it yerself, or else " he 
 paused and produced a small bottle from his pocket " this 
 is nitro-glycerin , an* we opens it fer you with this. Only 
 if we does the job we does it proper. We ties you up and 
 sets you against the door of the safe before we touches off 
 the soup, an mabbe if yer a good guesser you can guess 
 the rest." 
 
 There was a short, raucous guffaw from The Mope. 
 Stangeist turned a drawn face toward the man, stared at 
 him, and stared in a miserable way at the other two in turn. 
 He licked his lips again ncne was in a better position than 
 himself to know that there would be neither scruples nor 
 hesitancy to interfere with carrying out the threat. 
 
 " Suppose," he said, trying to keep his voice steady, " sup 
 pose I open the safe what then afterward ? " 
 
 " We ain t got the safe open yet," countered Clarie Deane 
 uncompromisingly. " An we ain t got no more time ter 
 fool over it, either. You get a move on before I count* 
 five, or The Mope an Ike ties you up [ One "
 
 226 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 Stangeist staggered to his feet, wiped the blood out of h 
 eyes for the second time, and, with lips working, went un 
 steadily across the room to the safe. 
 
 He knelt before it, and began to manipulate the dial ; while 
 the others crowded around behind him. The Mope was 
 fingering his revolver again club fashion. Australian Ike e 
 elbow just grazed the portieres, and Jimmie Dale flattened 
 himself against the window, holding his breath a smile on 
 his lips that was mirthless, deadly, cold. The end was not 
 far off now ; and then what? 
 
 Stangeist had the outer door of the safe open now and 
 now the inner door swung back. He reached in his hand to 
 the pigeonhole, drew out the envelope and with a sudden, 
 wild cry, reeled to his feet. 
 
 " My God ! " he screamed out. " What s what s this I " 
 
 Clarie Deane snatched the envelope from him. 
 
 " The Gray Seal! " the words came with a jerk from his 
 lips. He ripped the envelope open frantically and like a 
 man stunned gazed at the four blank sheets, while the colour 
 left his face. " It s gone! " he cried out hoarsely. 
 
 " Gone ! " There was a burst of oaths from Australian 
 Ike. " Gone ! Den we re nipped de lot of us ! " 
 
 The Mope s face was like a maniac s as he whirled on 
 Stangeist. 
 
 " Sure ! " he croaked. " But youse gets yers first, 
 youse 
 
 With a cry, Stangeist, to elude the blow, ducked blindly 
 backward into the portieres and with a rip and tear the 
 hangings were wrenched apart. 
 
 It came instantaneously a yell of mingled surprise and 
 fury from the three the crash and spit of Jimmie Dale s re 
 volver as he fired one shot at the floor to stop their rush 
 then he flung himself at the window, through it, and dropped 
 sprawling to the ground. 
 
 A stream of flame cut the darkness above him, a bullet 
 whistled by his head another and another. He was on 
 his feet, quick as a cat, and running close alongside of the 
 wall of the house. He heard a thud behind him, still ac>
 
 THE MAN HIGHER UP 227 
 
 0ther, and yet a third they were dropping through the win 
 dow after him. Came another shot, an angry hum of the 
 bullet closer than before then the pound of racing feet. 
 
 Jimmie Dale swung around the corner of the house, run 
 ning at top speed. Something that was like a hot iron sud 
 denly burned and seared abng the side of his head just 
 above the ear. He reeled, staggered, recovered himself, and 
 dashed on. It nauseated him, that stinging in his head, and 
 all at once seemed to be draining his strength away. The 
 shouts, the shots, the running feet became like a curious 
 buzzing in his ears. It seemed strange that they should have 
 hit him, that he should be wounded ! If he could only reach 
 the low stone wall by the road, he could at least make a fight 
 for his life on the other side ! 
 
 Red streaks swam before Jimmie Dale s eyes. The wall 
 was such a long way off a yard or two was a very long 
 way more to go the weakness seemed to be creeping up 
 now even to numb his brain. No, here was the wall they 
 hadn t hit him again he laughed in a demented way and 
 rolled his body over, and fell to the other side. 
 
 "Jimmie! " 
 
 The cry seemed to reach some inner consciousness, revive 
 him, send the blood whipping through his veins. That 
 voice ! It was her hers! The Tocsin ! There was an auto 
 mobile, engine racing, standing there in the road. He won 
 to his feet dark, rushing forms were almost at the wall. 
 He fired once twice fired again and turned, staggering 
 for the car. 
 
 " Jimmie ! Jimmie quick J " 
 
 Panting, gasping, he half fell into the tonneau. The car 
 leaped forward, yells filled the air but only one thing was 
 dominant in Jimmie Dale s reeling brain now. He pulled 
 himself up to his feet, and leaned over the back of the seat, 
 reaching for the slim figure that was bent over the wheel. 
 
 " It s you you at last ! " he cried. " Your face let me 
 see your face ! " 
 
 A bullet split the back panel of the car little spurting 
 flames were dancing out from the roadway behind.
 
 228 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 " Are you mad ! " she shouted back at him. " Let me 
 Steer do you want them to hit me ! " 
 
 " No-o," said Jimmie Dale, in a queer singsong sort of 
 way, and his head seemed to spin dizzily around. " No = 
 I guess He choked. " The paper it s in my 
 
 pocket " and he went down unconscious on the floor of the 
 car. 
 
 When he recovered his senses he was lying on a couch in 
 a plainly furnished room, and a man, a stranger, red, jov 
 ial-faced, farmerish looking, was bending over him. 
 
 " Where am I ? " he demanded finally, propping himself 
 up on his elbow. 
 
 " You re all right," replied the man. " She said you d 
 come around in a little while." 
 
 " Who said so ? " inquired Jimmie Dale. 
 
 " She did. The woman who brought you here about five 
 minutes ago. She said she ran you down with her car." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Jimmie Dale. He felt of his head it was 
 bandaged, and it was bandaged, he was quite sure, with a 
 piece of torn underskirt. He looked at the man again. 
 " You haven t told me yet where I am." 
 
 " Long Island," the other answered. My name s Haiv 
 Bon. I keep a bit of a truck garden here." 
 
 " Oh," said Jimmie Dale again. 
 
 The man crossed the room, picked up an envelope troaa 
 the table, and came back to Jimmie Dale. 
 
 " She said to give you this as soon as you got your senses, 
 and asked us to put you up for a while, as long as you wanted 
 to stay, and paid us for it, too. She s all right, she is. You 
 don t want to hold the accident up against her, she was 
 mighty sorry about it. And now I ll go and see if the old 
 lady s got your room ready while you re readin your letter." 
 
 The man left the room. 
 
 Jimmie Dale sat up on the couch, and tore the envelope 
 open. The note, scrawled in pencil, began abruptly : 
 
 You were quite a problem. I couldn t take you home**-- 
 *ould I ? I couldn t take you to what you call the Sanctuarr
 
 THE MAN HIGHER UP 229 
 
 could I? I couldn t take you to a hospital, nor call in a 
 doctor the stain you use wouldn t stand it. But, thank 
 God ! I know it s only a flesh wound, and you are all right 
 where you are for the day or two that you must keep quiet 
 and take care of yourself. By the time you read this the 
 paper will be on the way to the proper hands, and by morn 
 ing the. four where they should be. There were a few arti 
 cles in your clothes I thought it better to take charge of in 
 case well, in case of accident" 
 
 Jimmie Dale tore the note up, and smiled wryly at the 
 door. He felt in his pockets. Mask, revolver, burglar s 
 tools, and the thin metal insignia case were gone. 
 
 " And I had the sublime optimism," murmured Jimmie 
 Dale, " to spend months trying to find her as Larry the 
 Bat!"
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 TWO CROOKS AND A KNAVE 
 
 TT*HE bullet wound along the side of his head and just 
 above his ear would have been a very awkward thing 
 indeed, in more ways than one, for Jimmie Dale, the million 
 aire, to have explained at his club, in his social set, or even to 
 his servants, and of these latter to Jason the Solicitous in 
 particular ; but for Jimmie Dale as Larry the Bat it was a 
 matter of little moment. There was none to question Larry 
 the Bat, save in a most casual and indifferent way ; and a 
 bandage of any description, primarily and above all one that 
 he could arrange himself, with only himself to take note of 
 the incongruous hues of skin where the stain, the grease 
 paint, and the make-up was washed off, would excite little 
 attention in that world where daily affrays were common* 
 place happenings, and a wound, for whatever reason, had 
 long since lost the tang of novelty. Why then should it 
 arouse even a passing interest if Larry the Bat, credited as 
 the most confirmed of dope fiends, should have fallen down 
 the dark, rickety stairs of the tenement in one of his orgies, 
 and, in the expressive language of the Bad Lands, cracked 
 his bean ! 
 
 And so Jimmie Dale had been forced to maintain the role 
 of Larry the Bat for a far longer period than he had antic 
 ipated when, ten days before, he had assumed it for the 
 night s work that had so nearly resulted fatally for himself, 
 though it had placed Roessle s murderers behind the bars. 
 For the next day, unwilling to court the risk of remaining 
 in that neighbourhood, he had left Hanson s, the farmer s, 
 house on Long Island where the Tocsin had carried him in 
 
 230
 
 TWO CROOKS AND A KNAVE 231 
 
 an unconscious state, telephoned Jason that he had been un 
 expectedly called out of town for a few days, and returned 
 to the Sanctuary in New York. And here, to his grim dis* 
 may, he had found the underworld in a state of furious, 
 angry unrest, like a nest of hornets, stirred up, seeking to 
 wreak vengeance on an unseen assailant. 
 
 For years, as the Gray Seal, Jimmie Dale had lived with 
 the slogan of the police, " The Gray Seal dead or alive 
 but the Gray Seal ! " sounding in his ears ; with the news 
 papers screaming their diatribes, arousing the people against 
 him, nagging the authorities into sleepless, frenzied efforts 
 to trap him ; with a price upon his head that was large 
 enough to make a man, not too pretentious, rich for life but 
 in the underworld, until then, the name of the Gray Seal had 
 been one to conjure with, for the underworld had sworn 
 by the unknown master criminal, and had spoken his name 
 with a reverence that was none the less genuine even if 
 pungently tainted with unholiness. But now it was different. 
 Up and down through the Bad Lands, in gambling hells, ia 
 vicious resorts, in the hiding places where thugs and crooki 
 burrowed themselves away from the daylight, through th< 
 heart and the outskirts of the underworld travelled the fiat, 
 whispered out of mouths crooked to one side death to the 
 Gray Seal! 
 
 Gangland differences were forgotten in the larger issue 
 of the common weal. The gang spirit became the spirit of 
 a united whole, and the crime fraternity buzzed and hummed 
 poisonously, spurred on by hatred, thirst for revenge, fear, 
 and, perhaps most potent of all, a hideous suspicion now of 
 each other. 
 
 The underworld had received a shock at which it stood 
 aghast, and which, with its terrifying possibilities, struck 
 consternation into the soul of every individual of that 
 brotherhood whose bond was crime, who was already 
 " wanted " for some offence or other, whether it ranged 
 from murder in the first degree to some petty piece of sneak 
 thievery. Stangeist, the Indian chief, the lawyer whose cun- 
 braitt had stood as a rampart between the underworld
 
 232 THE ADVENTUKES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 and a prison cell, was himself now in the Tombs with the 
 certainty of the electric chair before him ; and with hira, 
 the same fate equally assured, were Australian Ike, The 
 Mope, and Clarie Deane ! Aristocrats of the Bad Lands, 
 peers of that inglorious realm were those four and the blow 
 had fallen with stunning force, a blow that in itself would 
 have been enough to have stirred the underworld to its 
 depths. But that was not all from the cells in the Tombs, 
 from the four came the word, and passed from mouth to 
 mouth in that strange underground exchange until all had 
 heard it, that the Gray Seal had " squealed." The Gray Seal 
 who, though unknown, they had counted the most eminent 
 imong themselves, had squealed! Who was the Gray Seal? 
 It he had held the secrets of Stangeist and his band, what 
 else might he not know? Who else might not fall next? 
 The Gray Seal had become a snitch, a menace, a source of 
 danger that stalked among them like a ghastly spectre. Wb* 
 was the Gray Seal? None knew. 
 
 " Death to the Gray Seal ! Run him to earth ! " went t!t 
 whisper from lip to lip; and with the whisper men star-* 
 uncertainly into each other s faces, fearful that the one W 
 whom they spoke might even be the Gray Seal! 
 
 Jimmie Dale s lips twisted queerly as he looked around 
 him at the squalid appointments of the Sanctuary. The 
 police were bad enough, the papers were worse; but this 
 was a still graver peril. With every denizen of the under 
 world below the dead line suspicious of each other, their 
 lives, the penitentiary, or a prison sentence the stakes against 
 which each one played, the role of Larry the Bat, clever as 
 was the make-up and disguise, was fraught now more than 
 ever before with danger and peril. It seemed as though 
 slowly the net was beginning at last to tighten around him. 
 
 The murky, yellow flame of the gas jet flickered suddenly, 
 as though in acquiescence with the quick, impulsive shrug 
 of Jimmie Dale s shoulders and Jimmie Dale, bending to 
 peer into the cracked mirror that was propped up on the 
 broken-legged table, knotted his dress tie almost fastidiously. 
 The hair, if just a trifle too long, covered the scar on his
 
 TWO CROOKS AND A KNAVE 233 
 
 now, the wound no longer required a bandage, and 
 Larry the Bat, for the time being at least, had disappeared. 
 Across the foot of the bed, neatly folded, lay his dress coat 
 and overcoat, but little creased for all that they had lain 
 in that hiding-place under the flooring since the night when, 
 hurrying from the club, he had placed them there to assume 
 instead the tatters of Larry the Bat. It was Jimmie Dale in 
 his own person again who stood there now in Larry the Bat s 
 disreputable den, an incongruous figure enough against the 
 background of his miserable surroundings, in perfect-fitting 
 shoes and trousers, the broad expanse of spotless white shirt 
 bosom glistening even in the poverty-stricken flare from the 
 single, sputtering gas- jet. 
 
 Jimmie Dale took the watch from his pocket that had not 
 been wound for many days, wound it mechanically, set it 
 by guesswork it was not far from eight o clock and re 
 placed it in his pocket. Carefully then, one at a time, he 
 examined his fingers, long, slim, sensitive, tapering fingers, 
 magical masters of safes and locks and vaults of the most 
 intricate and modern mechanism no single trace of grime 
 remained, they were metamorphosed hands from the filthy 
 paws of Larry the Bat. He nodded in satisfaction ; and 
 picked up the mirror for a final inspection of himself, that, 
 this time, did not miss a single line in his face or neck. 
 Again Jimmie Dale nodded. As though he had vanished 
 into thin air, as though he had never existed, not a trace 
 of Larry the Bat remained except the heap of rags upon 
 the floor, the battered slouch hat, the frayed trousers, the 
 patched boots witn their broken laces, the mismated socks, 
 the grimy flannr! shirt, and the old coat that he had just dis 
 carded. 
 
 The mirror was replaced on the table ; and, pushing the 
 heap of c.uches before him with his foot, Jimmie Dale knelt 
 down in the corner of the room where the oilcloth had been 
 tur**sd up and the loose planking of the floor removed, and 
 began to pack the articles avay in the hole. Jimmie Dale 
 rolled the trousers of Larry the Bat into a compact little 
 and stuffed them under the flooring. The gas jet
 
 234. THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 seemed to blink again in a sort of confidential approval, as 
 though the secret lay inviolate between itself and Jimmie 
 Dale. Through the closed window, shade tightly drawn, 
 came, low and muffled, the sound of distant life from the 
 Bowery, a few blocks away. The gas jet, suffering from 
 air somewhere within the pipes, hissed angrily, the yellow 
 flame died to a little blue, forked spurt and Jimmie Dale 
 was on his feet, his face suddenly hard and white as mar 
 ble. 
 
 Some one was knocking at the door! 
 
 For the fraction of a second Jimmie Dale stood motion 
 less. Found as Jimmie Dale in the den of Larry the Bat, 
 and the consequences required no effort of the imagination 
 to picture them ; police or denizen of the underworld who 
 was knocking there, it was all the same, the method of death 
 would be a little different, that was all one legalised, the 
 Tther not. Jimmie Dale, Larry the Bat, the Gray Seal, once 
 uncovered, could expect as much quarter as would be given 
 to a cornered rat. His eyes swept the room with a swift, 
 Iritical glance evidences of Larry the Bat, the clothes, 
 were still about, even if he in the person of Jimmie Dale, 
 alone damning enough, were not standing there himself. 
 And he was even weaponless the Tocsin had taken the 
 revolver from his pocket, together with those other telltale 
 articles, the mask, the flashlight, the little blued-steel tools, 
 before she had intrusted him that night, wounded and uncon- 
 icious, to Hanson s care. 
 
 Jimmie Dale slipped his feet out of his low evening pumps, 
 snatched up the old coat and hat from the pile, put them on, 
 and, without a sound, reached the gas jet and t timed it 
 off. A second had gone by no more the knocking still 
 sounded insistently on the door. It was dark now, perfectly 
 black,, He started across the room, his tread absolutely 
 silent as the trained muscles, relaxing, threw the body weight 
 gradually upon one foot before the next step was taken. 
 It was like a shadow, a little blacker in outline than the sur 
 rounding blackness, stealing across the floor. 
 
 Halfway to the door he paused. The knocking barf
 
 TWO CROOKS AND A KNAVE 235 
 
 Ceased. He listened intently. It was not repeated. In 
 stead, his ear caught a guarded step retreating outside in 
 the hall. Jimmie Dale drew a breath of relief. He went on 
 again to the door, still listening. Was it a trap that step 
 outside? 
 
 At the door now, tense, alert, he lowered his ear to the 
 keyhole. There came the faintest creak from the stairs. 
 Jimmie Dale s brows gathered. It was strange ! The knock 
 ing had not lasted long. Whoever it was was going away 
 but it required the utmost caution to descend those stairs, 
 rickety and tumble-down as they were, with no more sound 
 than that ! Why such caution ? Why not a more determined 
 and prolonged effort at his door the visitor had been easily 
 satisfied that Larry the Bat was not within. Too easily sat 
 isfied ! Jimmie Dale turned the key noiselessly in the lock. 
 He opened the door cautiously a half inch an inch. 
 There was no sound of footsteps now. Occasionally a lodger 
 moved about on the floor above; occasionally from some 
 where in the tenement came the murmur of voices as from 
 behind closed doors that was all. All else was silence and 
 darkness now. 
 
 The door, on its well-oiled hinges, swung wide open. Jim 
 mie Dale thrust out his head into the hall and something 
 fell upon the threshold with a little thud but for a moment 
 Jimmie Dale did not move. Listening, trying to pierce the 
 darkness, he was as still as the silence around him ; then he 
 stooped and groped along the threshold. His hand closed 
 upon what seemed like a small box wrapped in paper. He 
 picked it up, closed and locked the door again, and retreated 
 back across the room. It was strange unpleasantly strange 
 a box propped stealthily against the door so that it would 
 fall to the threshold when the door was opened ! And why 
 the stealth ? What did it mean ? Had the underworld with 
 %ts thousand eyes and ears already succeeded in a few days 
 where the police had failed signally for years had they sent 
 him this, whatever it was, as some grim token that they had 
 run Larry the Bat to earth ? He shook his head. No ; gang- 
 Jand struck more swiftly, with less finesse than that the
 
 236 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 * cat-and-mouse " act was never one it favoured, for th? 
 mouse had bee 1 , known to get away. 
 
 Jimmie Dai ^hted the gas again, and turned the pack 
 age over in his hands. It was, as he had surmised, a small 
 cardboard box ; and it was wrapped in plain paper and tied 
 with a string. : untied the string, and still suspicious, as a 
 man is suspicious in the knowledge that he is stalked by peril 
 at every turn, removed the wrapper a little gingerly. It was 
 still without sign or marking upon it, just an ordinary card 
 board box. He lifted off the cover, and, with a short, sud 
 den laugh, stared, a little out of countenance, at the contents. 
 
 On the top lay a white, unaddressed envelope. Hers! 
 Beneath he emptied the box on the table his black silk 
 mask, his automatic revolver, the kit of fine, small blued- 
 steel burglar s tools, his pocket flashlight, and the thin metal 
 insignia case. The Tocsin ! Impulsively Jimmie Dale turned 
 toward the door and stopped. His shoulders lifted in a 
 shrug that, meant to be philosophical, was far from philo 
 sophical. He could not, dared not venture far through the 
 tenement dressed as he was ; and even if he could there 
 were three exits to the Sanctuary, a fact that now for the 
 first time was not wholly a source of unmixed saisfaction 
 to him ; and besides she was gone ! 
 
 Jimmie Dale opened the letter, a grim smile playing on 
 his lips. He had forgotten for the moment that the illusion 
 he had cherished for years in the belief that she did not know 
 Larry the Bat as an alias of Jimmie Dale was no more than 
 an illusion. Well, it had been a piece of consummate ego 
 tism on his part, that was all. But, after all, what did ft 
 matter? He had had his innings, tried in the role of Larry 
 the Bat to solve her identity, devoted weeks on end to the at 
 tempt and failed. Some day, perhaps, his turn would 
 come ; some day, perhaps, she would no longer be able to 
 elude him, unless the letter crackled suddenly in his fin 
 gers unless the house that they had built on such strange 
 and perilous foundations crashed at some moment, without 
 an instant s warning, in disaster and ruin to the ground-. 
 Who knew but that this letter now, another call to the
 
 TWO CROOKS AND A KNAVE 237 
 
 Seal to act, another peril invited, would be the last? There 
 must be an end some day ; luck and nerve had their limita 
 tions it had almost ended last week! 
 
 " Dear Philanthropic Crook " it was the same inevitable 
 beginning. " You are well enough again, aren t you, Jim- 
 mie? I am sending these little things back to you, for you 
 will need them to-night." Jimmie Dale read on, muttering 
 snatches of the letter aloud : " Michael Breen prospecting in 
 Alaska map of location of rich mining claim Hamvert, 
 his former partner, had previously fleeced him of fifteen 
 thousand dollars his share of a deal together Breen was 
 always a very poor man Breen later struck a claim alone ; 
 but, taking sick, came back home died on arrival in New 
 York after giving map to his wife wife in very needy cir 
 cumstances lives with little daughter of seven in New 
 Rochelle works out by the day at Henry Mittel s house 
 on the Sound near-by wife intrusted map for safe-keeping 
 and advice to Mittel Hamvert after map telephone wires 
 cut room one hundred and forty-eight, corner, right, first 
 floor, Palais-Metropole Hotel, unoccupied connecting 
 doors quarter past nine to-night the Weasel Mittel s 
 house later the police look out for both the Weasel 
 and the police, Jimmie "" 
 
 There was more, several pages of it, explanations, speci 
 fic details down to a minute description of the locality and 
 plan of the house on the Sound. Jimmie Dale, to v intent 
 now to mutter, read on silently. At the end he shuffled the 
 sheets a little abstractedly, as his face hardened. Then his 
 fingers began to tear the letter into little shreds, tearing it 
 over and over again, tearing the shreds into tiny particles. 
 He had not been far wrong. From what the night prom 
 ised now, this might well be the last letter. Who knew? 
 There would be need of all the wit and luck and nerve to- 
 night that the Gray Seal had ever had before. 
 
 With a jerk, Jimmie Dale roused himself from the mo 
 mentary reverie into which he had fallen; and, all action
 
 238 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 now, stuffed the torn pieces of the letter into his trousers 
 pocket to be disposed of later in the street, took off the old 
 coat and slouch hat again, and resumed the disposal of Larry 
 the Bat s effects under the flooring. 
 
 This accomplished, he replaced the planking and oil 
 cloth, stood up, put on his dress coat and light overcoat, and, 
 from the table, stowed the black silk mask, the automatic, 
 the little kit of tools, the flashlight, and the thin metal case 
 away in his pockets. 
 
 Jimmie Dale raised his hand to the gas fixture, circled 
 the room with a glance that missed no single detail then 
 the light went out, the door closed behind him, locked, a dark 
 shadow crept silently down the stairs, out through the side 
 door into the alleyway, along the alleyway close to the wall 
 of the tenement where it was blackest, and, satisfied that for 
 the moment there were no passers-by, emerged on the street, 
 walking leisurely toward the Bowery. 
 
 Once well away from the Sanctuary, however, Jimmie 
 Dale quickened his steps ; and twenty minutes later, having 
 stopped but once to telephone to his home on Riverside 
 Drive for his touring car, he was briskly mounting the steps 
 of the St. James Club on Fifth Avenue. Another twenty 
 minutes after that, and he had dismissed Benson, his chauf 
 feur, and, at the wheel of his big, powerful machine, was 
 speeding uptown for the Palais-Metropole Hotel. 
 
 It was twelve minutes after nine when he drew up at the 
 curb in front of the side entrance of the hotel his watch, 
 set by guesswork, had been a little slow, and he had corrected 
 it at the club. He was replacing the watch in his pocket 
 as he sauntered around the corner, and passed in through the 
 main entrance to the big lobby. 
 
 Jimmie Dale avoided the elevators it was only one flight 
 up, and elevator boys on occasions had been known to be 
 observant. At the top of the first landing, a long, wide, 
 heavily carpeted corridor was before him. " Number one 
 hundred and forty-eight, the corner room on the right," tho 
 Tocsin had said. Jimmie Dale walked nonchalantly along
 
 TWO CROOKS AND A KNAVE 239 
 
 past No. 148. At the lower end of the hall a group of peo 
 pie were gathered around the elevator doors ; halfway down 
 the corridor a bell boy came out of a room and went ahead 
 of Jimmie Dale. 
 
 And then Jimmie Dale stopped suddenly, and began to 
 retrace his steps. The group had entered the elevator, the 
 bell boy had disappeared around the farther end of the hall 
 into the wing of the hotel the corridor was empty. In a 
 moment he was standing before the door of No. 148 ; in an 
 other, under the persuasion of a little steel instrument, deftly 
 manipulated by Jimmie Dale s slim, tapering fingers, the 
 lock clicked back, the door opened, and he stepped inside, 
 closing and locking the door again behind him. 
 
 It was already a quarter past nine, but no one was as yet 
 in the connecting room the fanlight next door had been 
 dark as he passed. His flashlight swept about him, located 
 the connecting door and went out. He moved to the door, 
 tried it, and found it locked. Again the little steel instru 
 ment came into play, released the lock, and Jimmie Dale 
 opened the door. Again the flashlight winked. The door 
 opened into a bathroom that, obviously, at will, was either 
 common to the two rooms or could, by the simple expedient 
 of locking one door or the other, be used by one of the 
 rooms alone. In the present instance, the occupant of the 
 adjoining apartment had taken " a room with a bath." 
 
 Jimmie Dale passed through the bathroom to the opposite 
 door. This was already three-quarters open, and swung 
 outward into the bedroom, near the lower end of the room 
 by the window. Through the crack of the door by the 
 hinges, Jimmie Dale flashed his light, testing the radius of 
 vision, pushed the door a few inches wider open, tested it 
 again with the flashlight and retreated back into No. 148, 
 closing the door on his side until it was just ajar. 
 
 He stood there then silently waiting. It was Hamvert s 
 room next door, and Hamvert and the Weasel were already 
 late. A step sounded outside in the corridor. Jimmie Dale 
 straightened intently. The step passed on down the hall 
 way and died away. A false alarm! Jimmie Dale smiled
 
 240 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 whimsically. It was a strange adventure this that confronted 
 him, quite the strangest in a way that the Tocsin had eve* 
 planned and the night lay before him full of p .r 1 in its 
 extraord ; jtry complications. To win the hand he must 
 block HL avert and the Weasel without allowing them an 
 inkling that his interference was anything more than, say v 
 the luck of a hotel sneak thief at most. The Weasel was a 
 dangerous man, one of the slickest second-story workers 
 in the country, with safe cracking as one of his favourite pur 
 suits, a man most earnestly desired by the police, provided 
 the latter could catch him " with the goods." As for Ham 
 vert, he did not know Hamvert, who was a stranger in New 
 York, except that Hamvert had fleeced a man named Michael 
 Breen out of his share in a claim they had had together 
 when Breen had first gone to Alaska to try his luck, and 
 now, having discovered that Breen, when prospecting alone 
 Romewhere in the interior a month or so ago, had found 
 a rich vein and had made a map or diagram of its location, 
 he, Hamvert, had followed the other to New York for the 
 purpose of getting it by hook or crook. Breen s " find " 
 had been too late ; taken sick, he had never worked his claim, 
 had barely got back home before he died, and only in time 
 to hand his wife the strange legacy of a roughly scrawled 
 little piece of paper, and Jimmie Dale straightened up 
 alertly once more. Steps again and this time corning 
 from the direction of the elevator ; then voices ; then the 
 opening of the door of the next room; then a voice, dis 
 tinctly audible: 
 
 " Pull up a chair, and we ll get down to business. You re 
 late, as it is. We haven t any time to waste, if we re going 
 to wash pay-dirt to-night." 
 
 " Aw, dat s all right ! " responded another voice quite 
 evidently the Weasel s. " Don t youse worry de game s 
 cinched to a fadeaway." 
 
 There was the sound of chairs being moved across the 
 floor. Jimmie Dale slipped the black silk mask over his 
 face, opened the door on his side of the bathroom cautiously, 
 and, without a sound, stepped into the bathroom that was
 
 TWO CROOKS AND A KNAVE 241 
 
 lighted now, of course, by the light streaming in through the 
 partially opened door of Hamvert s room. The two were 
 talking earnestly now in lower tones. Jimmie Dale only 
 caught a word here and there his faculties for the moment 
 were concentrated on traversing the bathroom silently. He 
 /cached the farther door, crouched there, peered through the 
 crack and the old whimsical smile flickered across his lips 
 \gain. 
 
 The Palals-Metropole was high class and exclusive, and 
 the Weasel for once looked quite the gentleman, and, for all 
 his sharp, ferret face, not entirely out of keeping with his 
 surroundings else he would never have got farther than the 
 lobby. The other was a short, thickset, heavy-jowled man, 
 with a great shock of sandy hair, and small black eyes that 
 looked furtively out from overhanging, bushy eyebrows. 
 
 " Well," Hamvert was saying, " the details are your con 
 cern. What I want is results. We won t waste time. 
 Vou re to be back here by daylight only see that there s no 
 come-back." 
 
 " Leave it to me ! " returned the Weasel, with assurance. 
 * How s dere goin ter be any come-back ? Mittel keeps it 
 in his safe, don t he? Well, gentlemen s houses has been 
 robbed before an dis job ll be a good one. De geographfy 
 stunt youse wants gets pinched wid de rest, dat s all. It 
 disappears see? Who s ter know youse gets yer claws on 
 it ? It s just lost in de shuffle." 
 
 " Right ! " agreed Hamvert briskly and from his in 
 side, pocket produced a package of crisp new bills, yellow 
 backs, and evidently of large denominations. " Half down 
 and half on delivery that s our deal." 
 
 " Dat s wot ! " assented the Weasel curtly. 
 
 Hamvert began to count the bills. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s hand stole into his pocket, and came out with 
 his handkerchief and the thin metal insignia case. From the 
 latter, with its little pair of tweezers, he took out one of the 
 adhesive gray seals. His eyes warily on the two men, he 
 dropped the seal on his handkerchief, restored the thin metal
 
 242 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 case to his pocket and in its stead the blue-black ugly 
 zle of his automatic peeped from between his fingers. 
 
 " Five thousand down," said Hamvert, pushing a pile of 
 notes across the table, and tucking the remainder back into 
 his pocket ; " and the other five s here for you when you get 
 back with the map. Ordinarily, I wouldn t pay a penny in 
 advance, but since you want it that way and the map s no 
 good to you while the rest of the long green is, I He 
 
 swallowed his words with a startled gulp, clutched hastily 
 at the money on the table, and began to struggle up from his 
 chair to his feet. 
 
 With a swift, noiseless side-step through the open door 
 Jimmie Dale was standing in the room. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s tones were conversational. " Don t ga 1 
 ap," said Jimmie Dale coolly. " And take your hand oft 
 that money ! " 
 
 The Weasel, whose back had been to the door, squirmed 1 
 around in his chair and in his turn stared into the muzzlf 
 of Jimmie Dale s revolver, while his jaw dropped an<f 
 sagged. 
 
 " Good-evening, Weasel," observed Jimmie Dale casually. 
 " I seem to be in luck to-night. I got into that room next 
 door, but an empty room is slim picking. And then it seemed 
 to me I heard some one in here mention five thousand dol- 
 lare twice, which makes ten thousand, and which happens 
 to be just exactly the sum I need at the present moment if I 
 can t get any more ! I haven t the honour of your wealthy 
 friend s acquaintance, but I am really charmed to meet him. 
 You er understand, both of you, that the slightest sound 
 might prove extremely embarrassing." 
 
 Hamvert s face was white, and he stirred uneasily in his 
 chair ; but into the Weasel s face, the first shock of surprised 
 dismay past, came a dull, angry red, and into the eyes a 
 vicious gleam and suddenly he laughed shortly. 
 
 " Why, youse damned fool," jeered the Weasel, " d youse 
 t ink youse can get away wid dat ! Say, take it from me, 
 youse are a piker ! Say, youse make me tired. Wot d youse 
 t ink youse are? D youse t ink dis is a tee-ayter, an dat youse
 
 TWO CROOKS AND A KNAVE 243 
 
 -tre a cheap-skate actor strollin acrost de stage? Aw, beat 
 it, youse make me sick ! Why, say, youse pinch dat money, 
 an youse have got de same chanst of gettin outer dis hotel as 
 a guy has of breakin outer Sing Sing ! By de time youse 
 gets five feet from de door of dis room we has de whole 
 works on yer neck." 
 
 " Do you think so, Weasel ? " inquired Jimmie Dale po- 
 ately. He carried his handkerchief to his mouth to cloak a 
 cough and his tongue touched the adhesive side of the little 
 diamond-shaped gray seal. Hand and handkerchief came 
 fcack to the table, and Jimmie Dale leaned his weight care 
 lessly upon it, while the automatic in his right hand still 
 covered the two men. " Do you think so, Weasel ? " he re 
 peated softly. " Well, perhaps you are right ; and yet ; some 
 how, I am inclined to disagree with you. Let me see, Weasel 
 it was Tuesday night, two nights ago, wasn t it, that a 
 trifling break in Maiden Lane at Thorold & Sons disturbed 
 the police ? It was a three-year job for even a first offender, 
 ten for one already on nodding terms with the police and 
 fifteen to twenty for well, say, for a man like you, Weasel 
 if he were caught! Am I making myself quite plain?" 
 
 The colour in the Weasel s cheeks faded a little his eyef 
 were holding in sudden fascination upon Jimmie Dale. 
 
 " I see that I am," observed Jimmie Dale pleasantly " I 
 said, if he were caught, you will remember. I am going 
 to leave this room in a moment, Weasel, and leave it entirely 
 to your discretion as to whether you will think it wise or 
 not to stir from that chair for ten minutes after I shut the 
 door. And now " Jimmie Dale nonchalantly replaced his 
 handkerchief in his pocket, nonchalantly followed it with 
 the banknotes which he picked up from the table and 
 smiled. 
 
 With a gasp, both men had strained forward, and were 
 staring, wild-eyed, at the gray seal stuck between them on 
 the tabletop. 
 
 * The Gray Seal ! " whispered the Weasel, and his 
 circled his lips. 
 
 Jimmie Dale shrugged his shoulder*.
 
 244 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 " That ivas a bit theatrical, Weasel," he said apologeti 
 cally ; and yet not wholly unnecessary. You will recafc 
 Stangeist, The Mope, Australian Ike, and Clarie Deane, and 
 can draw your own inference as to what might happen in 
 the Thorold affair if you should be so ill-advised as to force 
 my hand. Permit me " the slim, deft fingers, like a streak 
 of lightning, were inside Hamvert s coat pocket and out 
 again with the remainder of the banknotes and Jimmie 
 Dale was backing for the door not the door of the bath 
 room by which he had entered, but the door of the room it 
 self that opened on the corridor. There he stopped, and hia 
 hand swept around behind his back and turned the key in 
 the locked door. He nodded at the two men, whose faces 
 were working with incongruously mingled expressions of 
 impotent rage, bewilderment, fear, and fury and opened 
 the door a little. " Ten minutes, Weasel," he said gently. 
 " I trust you will not have to use heroic measures to restrain 
 your friend for that length of time, though if it is necessary 
 I should advise you for your own sake to resort almost to 
 murder. I wish you good evening, gentlemen." 
 
 The door opened farther; Jimmie Dale, still facing in 
 ward, slipped between it and the jamb, whipped the mask 
 from his face, closed the door softly, stepped briskly but 
 without any appearance of haste along the corridor t<j the 
 stairs, descended the stairs, mingled with a crowd m the 
 lobby for an instant, walked, seemingly a part of it, with a 
 group of ladies and gentlemen down the hall to the side en 
 trance, passed out and a moment later, after drawing on 
 a linen dust coat which he took from under the seat, and ex 
 changing his hat for a tweed cap, the car glided from the 
 curb and was lost in a press of traffic around the corner. 
 
 Jimmie Dale laughed a little harshly to himself. So far, 
 so good but the game was not ended yet for all the crackle 
 of the crisp notes in his pocket. There was still the map, 
 still the robbery at Mittel s house the ten-thousand-dollar 
 " theft " would not in any way change that, and it was a 
 question of time now to forestall any move the Weasel might 
 make.
 
 TWO CROOKS AND A KNAVE 245 
 
 Through the city Jimmie Dale alternately dodged, spurted, 
 tnd dragged his way, fuming with impatience; but once 
 out on the country roads and headed toward New Rochelle, 
 the big machine, speed limits thrown to the winds, roared 
 through the night a gray streak of road jumping under the 
 powerful lamps ; a village, a town, a cluster of lights flashing 
 by him, the steady pur of his sixty-horse-power engines; 
 the gray thread of open road again. 
 
 It was just eleven o clock when Jimmie Dale, the road 
 to himself for the moment at a spot a little beyond New 
 Rochelle, extinguished his lights, and very carefully ran his 
 car off the road, backing it in behind a small clump of trees. 
 He tossed the linen dust coat back into the car, and set off 
 toward where, a little distance away, the slap of waves from 
 the stiff breeze that was blowing indicated the shore line of 
 the Sound. There was no moon, and, while it was not partic 
 ularly dark, objects and surroundings at best were blurred 
 and indistinct ; but that, after all, was a matter of little con 
 cern to Jimmie Dale the first house beyond was Mittel s. 
 He reached the water s edge and kept along the shore. 
 There should be a little wharf, she had said. Yes ; there it 
 was and there, too, was a gleam of light from the house 
 itself. 
 
 Jimmie Dale began to make an accurate mental note of 
 his surroundings. From the little wharf on which he now 
 stood, a path led straight to the house, bisecting what ap 
 peared to be a lawn, trees to the right, the house to the left. 
 At the wharf, beside him, two motor boats were moored, 
 one on each side. Jimmie Dale glanced at them, and, sud 
 denly attracted by the familiar appearance of one, inspected 
 it a little more closely. His momentarily awakened interest 
 passed as he nodded his head. It had caught his attention, 
 that was all it was the same type and design, quite a popu 
 lar make, of which there were hundreds around New York, 
 as the one he had bought that year as a tender for his yacht, 
 
 He moved forward now toward the house, the rear of 
 which faced him the light that flooded the lawn came from a 
 <tde window. Jimmie Dale wiis figuring the time and dis-
 
 *46 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 tanr.e from New York as he crept cautiously along. How 
 quickly could the Weasel make the journey? The Weasel 
 would undoubtedly come, and if there was a convenient train 
 it might prove a close race but in his own favour was Me 
 fact that it would probably take the Weasel quite some 1 ttle 
 time to recover his equilibrium from his encounter with the 
 Gray Seal in the Palais-Metropole, also the further fact that, 
 from the Weasel s viewpoint, there was no desperate need of 
 haste. Jimmie Dale crossed the lawn, and edged along in the 
 shadows of the house to where the light streamed out from 
 what now proved to be open French windows. It was a 
 fair presumption that he would have an hour to the good on 
 the Weasel. 
 
 The sill was little more than a couple of feet from the 
 ground, and, from a crouched position on his knees below the 
 window, Jimmie Dale raised himself slowly and peered 
 guardedly inside. The room was empty. He listened a mo 
 ment the black silk mask was on his face again and with 
 a quick, agile, silent spring he was in the room. 
 
 And then, in the centre of the room, Jimmie Dale stood 
 motionless, staring around him, an expression, ironical, sar 
 donic, creeping into his face. The robbery had already been 
 committed! At the lower end of the room everything was in 
 confusion ; the door of a safe swung wide, the drawers of 
 a desk had been wrenched out, even a liqueur stand, on 
 which were well-filled decanters, had been broken open, and 
 the contents of safe and desk, the thief s discards as it were, 
 littered the floor in all directions. 
 
 For an instant Jimmie Dale, his eyes narrowed ominously, 
 surveyed the scene ; then, with a sort of professional instinct 
 aroused, he stepped forward to examine the safe and sud 
 denly darted behind the desk instead. Steps sounded in the 
 hall. The door opened a voice reached him : 
 
 " The master said I was to shut the windows, and I haven t 
 dast to go in. And he ll be back with the police in a minute 
 now. Come on in with me, Minnie." 
 
 " Lord ! " exclaimed another voice. " Ain t it a good thing 
 *he missus is away. She d have highsteericks ! "
 
 TWO CROOKS AND A KNAVE 247 
 
 Steps came somewhat hesitantly across the floor from 
 behind the desk, Jimmie Dale could see that it was a maid, 
 accompanied by a big, rawboned woman, sleeves rolled to the 
 elbows over brawny arms, presumably the Mittels cook. 
 
 The maid closed the French windows, there were no 
 others in the room, and bolted them ; and, having gained a 
 little confidence, gazed about her. 
 
 " My, but wasn t he cute ! " she ejaculated. " Cut the 
 telephone wires, he did. And ain t he made an awful mess ! 
 But the master said we wasn t to touch nothing till the police 
 saw it." 
 
 " And to think of it happening in our house ! " observed 
 the cook heavily, her hands on her hips, her arms akimbo. 
 " It ll all be in the papers, and mabbe they ll put our pictures 
 in, too." 
 
 " I won t get over it as long as I live ! " declared the maid. 
 " The yell Mr. Mittel gave when he came downstairs and 
 put his head in here, and then him shouting and using the 
 most terrible language into the telephone, and then finding 
 the wires cut. And me following him downstairs half dead 
 with fright. And he shouts at me. * Bella, he shouts, shut 
 those windows, but don t you touch a thing in that room. 
 I m going for the police. And then he rushes out of the 
 house." 
 
 " I was going to bed," said the cook, picking jp her cue 
 for what was probably the twentieth rehearsal of the scene, 
 " when I heard Mr. Mittel yell, and Lord, Bella, there he 
 is now ! " 
 
 Jimmie Dale s hands clenched. He, too, had caught the 
 scuffle of footsteps, those of three or four men at least, on 
 the front porch. There was one way, only one, of escape 
 through the French windows ! It was a matter of seconds 
 only before Mittel, with the police at his heels, would be in 
 the room and Jimmie Dale sprang to his feet. There was a 
 wild scream of terror from the maid, echoed by another 
 from the cook and, still screaming, both women fled for the 
 door. 
 
 " Mr. Mittel \ Mr. Mittel J " shrieked the maid she had
 
 flung herself out into the hall. " He s he s back 
 again ! " 
 
 Jimmie Dale was at the French windows, tearing at the 
 bolts. They stuck. Shouts came from the front entryway. 
 He wrenched viciously at the fastenings. They gave now. 
 The windows flew open. He glanced over his shoulder. A 
 man, Mittel presumably sirce he was the only one not in 
 uniform, was springing :nto the room. There was a blur of 
 forms and brass buttons behind Mittel and Jimmie Dale 
 leaped to the lawn, speeding across it like a deer. 
 
 But quick as he ran, Jimmie Dale s brain was quicker, 
 pointing the single chance that seemed open to him. The 
 motor boat ! It seemed like a God-given piece of luck tha( 
 he had noticed it -as like his own ; there would be no blind, 
 and that meant fatal, blunders in the dark over its mechan 
 ism, and he could start it up in a moment just the time to 
 cast her off, that was all he needed. 
 
 The shor.ts swelled behind him. Timmie Dale was running 
 for his life. He flung a glance backward. One form Mit 
 tel, he was certain was perhaps a hundred yards in the rear. 
 The others wer^ just emerging from the French windows 
 grotesque, leaung things they looked, in the light that 
 streamed out behind them from the room. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s feet pounded the planking of the wharf 
 He stoopc. 4 and snatched at the mooring line. Mittel was 
 almost at the wharf. It seemed an age, a year to Jimmie 
 Dale before the line was clear. Shouts rang still louder 
 across the lawn the police, racing in a pack, were more 
 than halfway from the house. He flung the line into the 
 boat, sprnn? in after it and Mittel, looming over him, 
 grasped at the boat s gumvhale. 
 
 Both men were panting from their exertions. 
 
 " Let go ! " snarled Jimmie Dale between clenched teeth. 
 
 Mittel s answer was a hoarse, gasping shout to the police 
 to hurry and then Mittel reeled back, measuring his length 
 upon the wharf from a blow with a boat hook full across the 
 face, driven with a sudden, untamed savagery that seemed 
 lor the moment to have mastered Jimmie Dale.
 
 TWO CROOKS AND A KNAVE 246 
 
 There was no time not a second not the fraction of a 
 second. Desperately, frantically he shoved the boat clear 
 of the wharf. Once twice three times he turned the 
 engine over without success and then the boat leaped for 
 ward. Jimmie Dale snatched the mask from his face, and 
 jumped for the steering wheel. The police were rushing 
 out along the wharf. He could just faintly discern Mittel 
 now the man was staggering about, his hands clapped to 
 his face. A peremptory order to halt, coupled with a threat 
 to fire, rang out sharply and Jimmie Dale flung himself 
 flat in the bottom of the boat. The wharf edge seemed to 
 open in little, crackling jets of flame, came the roar of re 
 ports like a miniature battery in action, then the flop, flop, 
 flop, as the lead tore up the water around him, the duller 
 ihud as a bullet buried its nose in the boat s side, and the 
 curious rip and squeak as a splinter flew. Then Mittel s 
 roice, high-pitched, as though in pain: 
 
 " Can t any of you run a motor boat ? He s got me bad, 
 I m afraid. That other one there is twice as fast." 
 
 " Sure ! " another voice responded promptly. " And if 
 that s right, he s run his head into a trap. Cast loose, there, 
 MacVeay, and pile in, all of you ! You go back to the house, 
 Mr. Mittel, and fix yourself up. We ll get him ! " 
 
 Jimmie Dale s lips thinned. It was true! If the other 
 boat had any speed at all, it was only a question of time be 
 fore he would be overtaken. The only point at issue was how 
 much time. It was dark that was in his favour but it was 
 not so dark but that a boat could be distinguished on the 
 water for quite a distance, for a longer distance than he 
 could hope to put between them. There was no chance of 
 eluding the police that way ! The keen, facile brain that had 
 saved the Gray Seal a hundred times before was weaving, 
 planning, discarding, eliminating, scheming a way out with 
 death, ruin, disaster the price of failure. His eyes swept 
 the dim, irregular outline of the shore. To his right, in the 
 opposite direction from where he had left his car, and per 
 haps a mile ahead, as well as he could judge, the land seemed 
 tc run out into a point. Jimmie Dale headed for it instantly,
 
 250 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 If he could reach it with a little lead to the good, there waa 
 a chance! It would take, say, six minutes, granting the 
 boat a speed of ten miles an hour and she could do that 
 The others could hardly overtake him in that time they 
 hadn t got started yet. He could hear them still shouting 
 and talking at the wharf. And Mittel s "twice as fast" 
 was undoubtedly an exaggeration, anyhow. 
 
 A minute more passed, another and then, astern, Jimmie 
 Dale caught the racket from the exhaust of a high-powered 
 engine, and a white streak seemed to shoot out upon the 
 surface of the water from where, obscured now, he placed 
 the wharf. A quarter-mile lead, roughly four hundred yards ; 
 yes, he had as much as that but that, too, was very little. 
 
 He bent over his engine, coaxing it, nursing it to its 
 highest efficiency; his eyes strained now upon the point 
 ahead, now upon his pursuers behind. He was running with 
 the wind, thank Heaven ! or the small boat would have had 
 a further handicap it was rolling up quite a sea. 
 
 The steering gear, he found, was corded along the side 
 of the boat, permitting its manipulation from almost any 
 position, and, abruptly now, Jimmie Dale left the engine to 
 rummage through the little locker in the stern of the boat. 
 But as he rummaged, his eyes held speculatively on the boat 
 astern. She was gaining unquestionably, steadily, but not 
 as fast as he had feared. He would still have a hundred 
 yards lead, at least, abreast the point and, he was smiling 
 grimly now, a hundred yards there meant life to the Gray 
 Seal ! The locker was full of a heterogeneous collection of 
 odds and ends a suit of oilskins, tools, tins, and cans of 
 various sizes and descriptions. Jimmie Dale emptied the 
 contents, some sort of powder, of a small, round tin box 
 overboard, and from his pocket took out the banknotes, 
 crammed them into the box, crammed his watch in on top 
 of them, and screwed the cover on tightly. His fingers 
 were flying now. A long strip torn from the trousers leg 
 of the oilskins was wrapped again and again around the 
 box and the box was stuffed into his pocket. 
 
 The nash of a revolver shot cut the blackness behind
 
 TWO CROOKS AND A KNAVE 
 
 (then another, and another. They were firing in a continuous 
 stream again. It was fairly long range, but there was al 
 ways the chanc>of a stray bullet finding its mark. Jimmie 
 Dale, crouching low, made his way to the bow of the boat 
 again. 
 
 The point was looming almost abreast now. He edged 
 in nearer, to hug it as closely as he dared risk the d-pth 
 of the water. Behind, remorseles ly, the other boat was 
 steadily closing the gap ; and the shots were not all wild- 
 one struck, with a curious singing sound, on sow piece of 
 metal a foot from his elbow. Closer to the shore, running 
 now parallel with the head of the point, Jimmie Dale again 
 edged in the boat, his jaws, clamped, working in little 
 twitches. 
 
 And then suddenly, with a swift, appraising glance be 
 hind him, he swerved the boat from her course and headed 
 for the shore not directly, but diagonally across the little 
 bay that, on the farther side of the point, had now opened 
 out before him. He was close in with the edge of the point, 
 ten yards from it, sweeping past it the point itself came 
 between the two boats, hiding them from each other and 
 Jimmie Dale, with a long spring, dove from the boat s side to 
 the water. 
 
 The momentum from the boat as he sank robbed him for 
 an instant of all control over himself, and he twisted, doubled 
 up, and rolled over and over beneath the water but the 
 next moment his head was above the surface again, and he 
 was striking out swiftly for the shore. It was only a few 
 yards but in a few seconds the pursuing boat, too, would 
 have rounded the point. His feet touched bottom. It was 
 haste now, nothing else, that counted. The drum of the 
 racing engines, the crackling roar of the exhaust from the 
 oncoming boat was in his ears. He flung himself upon the 
 shore and down behind a rock Around the point, past 
 him, tore the police boat, dark forms standing clustered 
 in the bow and then a sudden shout : 
 
 " There she is ! See her ? She s heading into the ha* 
 for the shore 1 "
 
 852 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 Jimmie Dr.le s lips relaxed. There was no doubt that 
 they had sighted their quarry again a perfect fusillade of 
 revolver shots directed at the now empt^boat was quite 
 sufficient proof of that! With something that was almost 
 a chuckle, Jimmie Dale straightened up from behind the 
 rock and began to run back along the shore. The little 
 motor boat would have grounded long before they overtook 
 her, and, thinking naturally enough, that he had leaped 
 ashore from her, they would go thrashing through the woods 
 and fields searching for him ! 
 
 It was a longer way back by the shore, a good deal longer ; 
 now over rough, rocky stretches where he stumbled in the 
 darkness, now through marshy, sodden ground where he 
 sank as in a quagmire time and again over his ankles. It 
 was even longer than he had counted on, and time, with the 
 Weasel on one hand and the return of the police on the 
 other, was a factor to be reckoned with again, as, a half 
 hour later, Jimmie Dale stole across the lawn of Mittel s 
 house for the second time that night, and for the second 
 time crouched beneath the open French windows. 
 
 Masked again, the water still dripping from what were 
 once immaculate evening clothes but which now sagged 
 limply about him, his collar a pasty string around his neck, 
 the mud and dirt splashed to his knees, Jimmie Dale was a 
 disreputable and incongruous-looking object as he crouched 
 there, shivering uncomfortably from his immersion in spite 
 ef his exertions. Inside the room, Mittel passed the windows, 
 pacing the floor, one side of his face badly cut and bruised 
 from the blow with the boat hook and as he passed, his 
 back turned for an instant, Jimmie Dale stepped into the 
 room. 
 
 Mittel whirled at the sound, and, with a suppressed cry, 
 instinctively drew back Jimmie Dale s automatic was 
 dangling carelessly in his r ght hand. 
 
 " I am afraid I am a trifle melodramatic," observed Jimmie 
 Dale apologetically, surveying his own bedraggled person; 
 3 * but I assure you it is neither intentional nor for effect. As 
 u *, t was afraid I would be late. Pardon me if I take the
 
 TWO CROOKS AND A KNAVE 253 
 
 liberty of helping myself ; one gets a chill in wet clothes so 
 easily " he passed to the liqueur stand, poured out a 
 generous portion from one of the decanters, and tossed it off. 
 
 Mittel neither spoke nor moved. Stupefaction, surprise, 
 and a very obvious regard for Jimmie Dale s revolver 
 mingled themselves in a helpless expression on his face. 
 
 Jimmie Dale set down his glass and pointed to a chair in 
 front of the desk. 
 
 " Sit down, Mr. Mittel," he invited pleasantly. " It will 
 be quite apparent to you that I have not time to prolong our 
 interview unnecessarily, in view of the possible return of the 
 police at any moment, but you might as well be comfortable. 
 You will pardon me again if I take another liberty " he 
 crossed the room, turned the key in the lock of the door 
 leading into the hall, and returned to the desk. " Sit down, 
 Mr. Mittel ! " he repeated, a sudden rasp in his voice. 
 
 Mittel, none too graciously, now seated himself. 
 
 " Look here, my fine fellow," he burst out, " you re carry* 
 ing things with a pretty high hand, aren t you? You seem 
 to have eluded the police for the moment, somehow, but let 
 me tell you I " 
 
 " No," interrupted Jimmie Dale softly, " let me tell you 
 }11 there is to be told." He leaned over the desk and stare<f 
 *-udely at the bruise on Mittel s face. " Rather a nasty 
 crack, that," he remarked. 
 
 Mittel s fists clenched, and an angry flush swept his cheeks. 
 
 " I d have made it a good deal harder," said Jimmie Dale, 
 with sudden insolence, " if I hadn t been afraid of putting 
 you out of business and so precluding the possibility of this 
 little meeting. Now then " the revolver swung upward and 
 held steadily on a line with Mittel s eyes " I ll trouble you 
 for the diagram of that Alaskan claim that belongs to Mrs. 
 Michael Breen ! " 
 
 Mittel, staring fascinated into the little, round, black 
 muzzle of the automatic, edged back in his chair. 
 
 " So so that s what you re after, is it ? " he jerked out. 
 * Well " he laughed unnaturally and waved his hand at 
 the disarray of the room " it s been stolen already."
 
 254 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 "I know that," said Jimmie Dale grimly. "By yout* 
 
 " Me ! " Mittel started up in his chair, a whiteness creeping 
 into his face. "Me! I I " 
 
 " Sit dov. n ! " Jimmie Dale s voice rang out ominously 
 cold. " I haven t any time to spare. You can appreciate 
 that. But even if the police return before that map is in 
 my possession, they will still be too late as far as you are 
 concerned Do you understand? Furthermore, if I am 
 caught you are ruined. Let me make it quite plain thc.t 
 I know the details of your little game. You are a curb 
 broker, Mr. Mittel ostensibly In reality, you run what is 
 nothing better than an exceedingly profitable bucket shop. 
 THe Weasel has been a customer and also a stool for you 
 for years. How Hamvert met the Weasel is unimportant 
 he came East with the intention of getting in touch with a 
 slick crook to help him the Weasel is the coincidence, that 
 is all. T quite understand that you have never met Hamvert, 
 nor Hamvert you, nor that Hamvert was aware that you and 
 the Weasel had anything to do with one another and were 
 playing in together but that equally is unimportant. WTien 
 Hamvert engaged the Weasel for ten thousand dollars to 
 get the map from you for him, the Weasel chose the line 
 of least resistance. He knew you, and approached you with 
 an offer to split the money in return for the map. It was 
 not a question of your accepting his offer it was simply a 
 matter of how you could do it and still protect yourself. 
 The Weasel was well qualified to point the way a fake 
 robbery of your house would answer the purpose admirably 
 you could not be held either legally or morally responsible 
 for a document that was placed, unsolicited by you, in your 
 possession, if it were stolen from you." 
 
 Mittel s face was ashen, colourless. His hands were open 
 ing and shutting with nervous twitches on the top of the 
 desk. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s lips curled. 
 
 " But " Jimmie Dale was clipping off his words now 
 viciously " neither you nor the Weasel were willing to trust 
 Hie other implicitly perhaps you know each other too well
 
 TWO CROOKS AND A KNAVE 
 
 You were unwilling to turn over the map until you had re 
 ceived your share of the money, and you were equally un 
 willing to turn it over until you were safe; that is, until you 
 had engineered your fake robbery even to the point of notify 
 ing the police that it had been committed ; the Weasel, on 
 the other hand, had some scruples about parting with any of 
 the money without getting the map in one hand before he 
 let go of the banknotes with the other. It was very simply 
 arranged, however, and to your mutual satisfaction. While 
 you robbed your own house this evening, he was to get half 
 the money in advance from Hamvert, giving Hamvert t 
 understand that he had planned to commit the robbery him 
 self to-night. He was to come out here then, receive the 
 map from you in exchange for your share of the money, 
 return to Hamvert with the map, and receive in turn his own 
 share. I might say that Hamvert actually paid down the 
 advance and it was perhaps unfortunate for you that you 
 paid such scrupulous attention to d "tails as to cut your own 
 telephone wires! I had not, of course, an exact knowledge 
 of the hour or minute in which you proposed to stage your 
 little play here. The object of my first visit a little while 
 ago was to forestall your turning the diagram over to the 
 Weasel. Circumstances favoured you for the moment. I 
 am back again, however, for the same purpose the map ! " 
 
 Mittel, in a cowed way, was huddled back in his chair. 
 He smiled miserably at Jimmie Dale. 
 
 "Quick!" Jimmie Dale flung out the word in a sharp, 
 peremptory bark. " Do you need to be told that the 
 cartridges are dry ? " 
 
 Mittel s hand, trembling, went into his pocket and pro 
 duced an envelope. 
 
 " Open it ! " commanded Jimmie Dale. " And lay it on 
 the desk, so that I can read it I am too wet to touch it." 
 
 Mittel obeyed like a dog that has been whipped. 
 
 A glance at the paper, and Jimmie Dale s eyes lifted 
 again to sweep the floor of the room. He pointed to a pile 
 of books and documents in one corner that had been thrown 
 cut of the safe-
 
 256 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 " Go over there and pick up that check book ! " he ordered 
 tersely. 
 
 "What for?" Mittel made feeble protest. 
 
 " Never mind what for ! " snapped Jimmie Dale. " Gc 
 and get it and hurry!" 
 
 Once more Mittel obeyed and dropped the book hesitantly 
 on the desk. 
 
 Jimmie Dale stared silently, insolently, contemptuously at 
 the other. 
 
 Mittel stirred uneasily, sat down, shifted his feet, and his 
 fingers fumbled aimlessly over the top of the desk. 
 
 " Compared with you," said Jimmie Dale, in a low voice, 
 " the Weasel, ay, and Hamvert, too, crooks though they 
 are, are gentlemen ! Michael Breen, as he died, told his wife 
 to take that paper to some one she could trust, who would 
 help her and tell her what to do ; and, knowing no one to go 
 to, but because she scrubbed your floors and therefore 
 thought you were a fine gentleman, she came timidly to you, 
 and trusted you you cur ! " 
 
 Jimmie Dale laughed suddenly not pleasantly. Mittel 
 shivered. 
 
 " Hamvert and Breen were partners out there in Alaska 
 when Breen first went out," said Jimmie Dale slowly, pulling 
 the tin can wrapped in oilskin from his pocket. " Hamvert 
 swindled Breen out of the one strike he made, and Mrs. 
 Breen and her little girl back here were reduced to poverty. 
 The amount of that swindle was, I understand, fifteen thou 
 sand dollars. I have ten of it here, contributed by the 
 Weasel and Hamvert; and you will. I think, recognise 
 therein a certain element of poetic justice but I am still 
 short five thousand dollars." 
 
 Jimmie Dale removed the cover from the tin can. Mittei 
 jazed at the contents numbly. 
 
 " You perhaps did not hear me?" prompted Jimmie Dale 
 coldly. " I am still short five thousand dollars." 
 
 Mittel circled his lips with the tip of his tongue. 
 
 " What do you want ? " he whispered hoarsely. 
 
 "The balance of the amount." There was an orainotw
 
 TWO CROOKS AND A KNAVE 257 
 
 quiet in Jimmie Dale s voice. " A check payable to Mrs 
 Michael Breen for five thousand dollars." 
 
 " I I haven t got that much in the bank," Mittel fenced, 
 stammering. 
 
 " No ? Then I should advise you to see that you have 
 by ten o clock to-morrow morning ! " returned Jimmie Dale 
 curtly. " Make out that check ! " 
 
 Mittel hesitated. The revolver edged insistently a little 
 farther across the desk and Mittel, picking up a pen, wrote 
 feverishly. He tore the check from its stub, and, with a 
 snarl, pushed it toward Jimmie Dale. 
 
 " Fold it ! " instructed Jimmie Dale, in the same curt tones. 
 * And fold that diagram with it. Put them both in this box. 
 Thank you ! " He wrapped the oilskin around the box 
 again, and returned the box to his pocket. And again with 
 that insolent, contemptuous stare, he surveyed the man at 
 the desk then he backed to the French windows. " It 
 might be as well to remind you, Mittel," he cautioned sternly, 
 u that if for anv reason this check is not honoured, whether 
 through lack of funds or an attempt by you to stop payment, 
 you ll be in a cell in the Tombs to-morrow for this night s 
 work that is quite understood, isn t it?" 
 
 Mittel was on his feet sweat glistened on his forehead. 
 
 " My Hod ! " he cried out shrilly. " Who are you? " 
 
 And Jimmie Dale smiled and stepped out on the lawn. 
 
 " Ask the Weasel," said Jimmie Dale and the next 
 instant, lost in the shadows of the house, was running for his 
 ear.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE ALIBI 
 
 TT\EATH to the Gray Seal!" through the underworld, 
 ^~^ in dens and dives that sheltered from the law the 
 vultures that preyed upon society, prompted by self-fear, by 
 secret dread, by reason of their very inability to carry out 
 their purpose, the whispered sentence grew daily more 
 venomous, more insistent. " The Gray Seal, dead or alive 
 but the Gray Seal! " It was the " standing orders " of the 
 police. Railed at by a populace who angrily demanded at 
 its hands this criminal of criminals, mocked at and threatened 
 by a virulent press, stung to madness by the knowledge of 
 its own impotence, flaunted impudently to its face by this 
 mysterious Gray Seal to whose door the law laid a hundred 
 crimes, for whom the bars of a death cell in Sing Sing was 
 the certain goal could he but be caught, the police, to a man, 
 was like an uncaged beast that, flicked to the raw by some 
 unseen assailant and murderous in its fury, was crouched to 
 strike. Grim paradox a common bond that linked the 
 hands of the law with those that outraged it ! 
 
 Death to the Gray Seal! Was it, at last, the beginning 
 of the end? Jimmie Dale, as Larry the Bat, unkempt, dis 
 reputable in appearance, supposed dope fiend, a figure 
 familiar to every denizen below the dead line, skulked along 
 the narrow, ill-lighted street of the East Side that, on the 
 corner ahead, boasted the notorious resort to which Bristol 
 Bob had paid the doubtful, if appropriate, compliment of 
 giving his name. From under the rim of his battered hat, 
 Jimmie Dale s eyes, veiled by half-closed, well-simulated 
 drug-laden lids, missed no detail either of his surroundings 
 or pertaining to the passers-by. Though already late in tfcue 
 
 258
 
 THE ALIBI 259 
 
 evening, half-naked children played in the gutters ; hawkers 
 of multitudinous commodities cried their wares under gaso 
 line banjo torches affixed to their pushcarts ; shawled women 
 of half a dozen races, and men equally cosmopolitan, loitered 
 at the curb, or blocked the pavement, or brushed by him. 
 Now a man passed him, flinging a greeting from the cornel 
 of his mouth ; now another, always without movement of the 
 lips and Jimmie Dale answered them from the corner oi 
 his mouth. 
 
 But while his eyes were alert, his mind was only sub 
 consciously attune to his surroundings. Was it indeed the 
 beginning of the end? Some day, he had told himself often 
 enough, the end must come. Was it coming now, surely, 
 with a sort of grim implacability when it was too late to 
 escape! Slowly, but inexorably, even his personal freedom 
 of action was narrowing, being limited, and, ironically 
 enough, through the very conditions he had himself created 
 as an avenue of escape. 
 
 It was not only the police now; it was, far more to be 
 feared, the underworld as well. In the old days, the role of 
 I^arry the Bat had been assumed at intervals, at his own 
 discretion, when, in a corner, he had no other way of escape ; 
 now it was forced upon him almost daily. The character 
 of 1-arry the Bat could no longer be discarded at will. He 
 had flung down the gauntlet to the underworld when, as 
 the Gray Seal, he had closed the prison doors behind 
 Stangeist, The Mope, Australian Ike, and Clarie Deane, and 
 the underworld had picked the gauntlet up. Betrayed, as 
 they believed, by the one who, though unknown to them, 
 they had counted the greatest among themselves, and each 
 one fearful that his own betrayal might come next, every 
 crook, every thug in the Bad Lands now eyed his oldest pal 
 with suspicion and distrust, and each was a self -constituted 
 sleuth, with the prod of self-preservation behind him, sworn 
 to the accomplishment of that unhallowed slogan death to 
 the Gray Seal. Almost daily now he must show himself 
 as Larry the Bat in some gathering of the underworld a 
 prolonged ftVsence from bis haunts was not merely to invite
 
 260 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 certain suspicion, where all were suspicious of each other, 
 it was to invite certain disaster. He had now either to carry 
 the role like a little old man of the sea upon his back, or 
 renounce it forever. And the latter course he dared not 
 even consider the Sanctuary was still the Sanctuary, and 
 the role of Larry the Bat was still a refuge, the trump card 
 in the lone hand he played. 
 
 He reached the corner, pushed open the door of Bristol 
 Bob s, and shuffled in. The place was a glare of light, a 
 hideous riot of noise. On a polished section of the floor 
 in the centre, a turkey trot was in full swing; laughter and 
 shouting vied raucously with an impossible orchestra. 
 
 Jimmie Dale slowly made the circuit of the room past 
 the tables, that, ranged around the sides, were packed with 
 occupants who thumped their glasses in tempo with the 
 music and clamoured at the rushing waiters for replenish 
 ment. A dozen, two dozen, men and women greeted him- 
 Jimmie Dale indifferently returned their salutes. What a 
 galaxy of crooks the cream of the underworld ! His eyes, 
 under half-closed lids, swept the faces lags, dips, gatmen, 
 yeggs, mob stormers, murderers, petty sneak thieves, stalls, 
 hangers-on they were all there. He knew them all; he 
 was known to all. 
 
 He shuffled on to the far end of the room, his leer a little 
 arrogant, a certain arrogance, too, in the tilt of his battered 
 hat. He also was quite a celebrity in that gathering Larry 
 the Bat was of the aristocracy and the elite of gangland. 
 Well, the show was over; he had stalked across the stage, 
 performed for his audience and in another hour now, free 
 r :til he must repeat the same performance the next day in 
 some other equally notorious dive, he would be sitting in 
 for a rubber of bridge at that most exclusive of all clubs, the 
 St. James, where none might enter save only those whose 
 names were vouched for in the highest and most select cir 
 cles, and where for partners he would possibly have a 
 justice of the supreme court, or mayhap an eminent divine! 
 He looked suddenly around him, as though startled. It 
 always startled him, that comparison. There was
 
 THE ALIBI 261 
 
 thing too stupendous to be simply ironical in the incongruity 
 of it. If if he were ever run to earth ! 
 
 His eyes met those of a heavy-built, coarse-featured man, 
 the chewed end of a cigar in his mouth, who stepped from 
 behind the bar, carrying a tin tray with two full glasses 
 upon it. It was Bristol Bob, ex-pugilist, the proprietor. 
 
 " How re you, Larry ? " grunted the man, with what he 
 meant to be a smile. 
 
 Jimmie Dale was standing in the doorway of a passage 
 that prefaced a rear exit to the lane. He moved aside to 
 allow the other to pass. 
 
 " Ello, Bristol," he returned dispassionately. 
 
 Bristol Bob went on along down the passage, and Jimmie 
 Dale shuffled slowly after him. He had intended to leave 
 the place by the rear door it obviated the possibility of an 
 undesirable acquaintance joining company with him if he 
 went out by the main entrance. But now his eyes were fixed 
 on the proprietor s back with a sort of speculative curiosity. 
 There was a private room off the passage, with a window 
 on the lane ; but they must be favoured customers indeed 
 that Bristol Bob would condescend to serve personally any 
 one who knew Bristol Bob knew that. 
 
 Jimmie Dale slowed his shuffling gait, then quickened it 
 again. Bristol Bob opened the door and passed into the 
 private room the door was just closing as Jimmie Dale 
 shuffled by. He had had only a glance inside but it was 
 enough. They were favoured customers indeed! It was 
 no wonder that Bristol Bob himself was on the job ! Two 
 men were in the room : Lannigan of headquarters, rated the 
 smartest plain-clothes man in the country and, across the 
 tafrle from Lannigan, Whitey Mack, as clever, finished and 
 daring a crook as was to be found in the Bad Lands, whose 
 particular " line " was diamonds, or, in the vernacular of his 
 ilk, " white stones," that had earned him the sobriquet of 
 " Whitey." Lannigan of headquarters, Whitey Mack of 
 the underworld, sworn enemies those two in secret session I 
 Bristol Bob might well play the part of outer guard. If a 
 choice few of those outside in the dance hall could get a
 
 262 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 glimpse into that private room it would be " good-night " tt> 
 Whitey Mack. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s eyes were narrowed a little as he shuffled on 
 down the passage. Lannigan and Whitey Mack with their 
 heads together! What was the game? There was nothing 
 in common between the two men. Lannigan, it was well 
 known, could not be " reached." Whitey Mack, with his 
 ingenious cleverness, coupled with a cold-blooded fearless 
 ness that had made him an object of unholy awe and respect 
 in the eyes of the underworld, was a thorn that was sore 
 beyond measure in the side of the police. Certainly, it was 
 no ordinary thing that had brought these two together; 
 especially, since, with the unrest and suspicion that was 
 bubbling and seething below the dead line, and with which 
 there was none more intimate than Whitey Mack, Whitey 
 Mack was inviting a risk in " making up " with the police 
 that could only be accounted for by some urgent and vital 
 incentive. 
 
 Jimmie Dale pushed open the door that gave on the lane, 
 Behind him, Bristol Bob closed the door of the private room 
 and retreated back along the passage. Jimmie Dale stepped 
 out into the lane and instinctively his eyes sought the 
 window of the private room. The shade was drawn, only a 
 yellow murk filtered out into the biack, unlighted lane, but 
 suddenly he started noiselessly toward k. The window was 
 open a bare inch or so at the bottom ! 
 
 The sill was just shoulder high, and, placing his ear to 
 the opening, he flattened himself against the wall. He 
 could not see inside, for the shade was drawn well to the 
 bottom ; but he could hear as distinctly as though he were 
 at the table beside the two men and at the first words, the 
 loose, disjointed frame of Larry the Bat seemed to tauten 
 curiously and strain forward lithe and tense. 
 
 " This Gray Seal dope listens good, Whitey ; but, coming 
 trom you, I m leery. You ve got to show me." 
 
 " Don t you want him ? " There was a nasty laugh from 
 Whitey Mack. 
 
 " You bet I want him I " returned the headquarters
 
 THE ALIBI 26? 
 
 Hth a suppressed savagery that left no doubt as to hit 
 earnestness. " I want him fast enough, but " 
 
 " Then, blast him, so do I ! " Whitey Mack rapped out 
 with a vicious snarl. " So does every guy in the fleet down 
 here. We got it in for him. You get that, don t you? 
 He s got Stangeist and his gang steered for the electric 
 chair now ; he put a crimp in the Weasel the other night 
 get that? He s like a blasted wizard with what he knows. 
 And who ll he deal the icy mitt to next ? Me damn him 
 *ne, for all I know ! " 
 
 " That s all right," observed Lannigan coolly. " I m not 
 questioning your sincerity for a minute ; I know all about 
 that ; but that doesn t land the Gray Seal. I ll work with 
 you if you ve anything to offer, but we ve had enough * tips * 
 and * information handed us at headquarters in the last 
 few years to make us a trifle skeptical. Show me what 
 you ve got, Whitey?" 
 
 " Show you ! " echoed Whitey Mack passionately. " Sure, 
 I ll show you! That s what I m going to do show you. 
 Ill show you the Gray Seal! I ain t handing you any tips. 
 I ve found out who the Gray Seal is!" 
 
 There was a tense silence. It seemed to Jimmie Dale as 
 though cold fingers were clutching at his heart, stifling its 
 beat then the blood came bursting to his forehead. He 
 could not see into the room, but that silence was eloquent. 
 It seemed as though he could picture the two men Lan 
 nigan leaning suddenly forward Lannigan and Whitey 
 Mack staring tensely into each other s eyes. 
 
 "You what!" It came low and grim from Lannigan, 
 
 " That s what ! " asserted Whitey Mack bluntly. " You 
 heard me ! That s what I said ! I know who the Gray 
 Seal is and I m the only guy that s wise to him. Am 1 
 letting you in right ? " 
 
 " You re sure ? " demanded Lannigan hoarsely. " You re 
 sure ? Who is he, then ? " 
 
 There was a half laugh, half snarl from WTiitey Mac. 
 
 " Oh, no, you don t ! " he growled. " Nix on that I What 
 &> you take me for a fool ? You beat k out of here afH&
 
 264 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 round him up eh while I suck my thumbs? Say, forge* 
 it! Do you think I m doing this because I love you? Why, 
 blame you, you ve been aching for a year to put the bracelets 
 on me yourself ! Say, wake up! I m in on this myself." 
 
 Again that silence. Then Lannigan spoke slowly, in a 
 puzzled way. 
 
 " I don t get you, Whitey," he said. " What do you 
 mean ? " Then, a little sharply : " You re quite right ; 
 you ve got some reputation yourself, and you re badly 
 
 * wanted if we could get the goods on you. If you re try 
 ing to plant something, look out for yourself, or " 
 
 " Can that ! " snapped Whitey Mack threateningly. " Can 
 that sort of spiel right now or quit! I ain t telling you 
 his name yet. But I ll take you to him to-night and you 
 and me nabs him together. Is that straight enough goods 
 for you ? " 
 
 " Don t get sore," said Lannigan, more pacifically. " Yes, 
 if you ll do that it s good enough for any man. But lay your 
 cards on the table face up, Whitey I want to see what you 
 opened the pot on." 
 
 " You ve seen em," Whitey Mack answered ungraciously. 
 
 * I ve told you already. The Gray Seal goes out for keeps 
 -curse him for a snitch I If I bumped him off, or wised 
 tip any of the guys to it, and we was caught, we d get the 
 juice for it even if it was the Gray Seal, wouldn t we? 
 Well, what s the use! If one of you dicks get him, he gets 
 bumped off just the same, only regular, up in the wire par 
 lour at Sing Sing. I ain t looking for that kind of trouble 
 when I can duck it. See ? " 
 
 " Sure," said Lannigan. 
 
 " Besides, and moreover," continued Whitey Mack, 
 ** there s some reward hung out for him that I m figuring to 
 horn in on. I d swipe it all myself, don t you make any mis 
 take about that, and you d never get a look-in, only, sore as 
 the mob is on the Gray Seal, it ain t healthy for any guy 
 around these parts to get the reputation of being a snitch, 
 3O matter who he snitches on. Bump him off
 
 THE ALIBI 265 
 
 Snitching well, you get the idea, eh? I m ducking that 
 too. Get me ? " 
 
 " I get you," said Lannigan, with a short, pleased laugh., 
 
 " Well, then," announced White) Mack, " here s my prop 
 osition, and it s my turn to hand out the look-out- for-your- 
 self dope. I m busting the game wide open for you to play, 
 but you throw me down, and " his voice sank into a sullen 
 snarl again " you can take it from me, I ll get you for it ! " 
 
 " All right," responded Lannigan soberly. " Let s hear it 
 If I agree to it, I ll stick to it." 
 
 " I believe you," said Whitey Mack curtly. " That s why 
 I picked you out for the medal they ll pin on you for this 
 And here s getting down to tacks ! I ll lead you to the Gray 
 Seal to-night and help you nab him and stay with you to 
 the finish, but there s to be nobody but you and me on the 
 job. When it s done I fade away, and nobody s to know I 
 snitched, and no questions asked as to how I found out about 
 the Gray Seal. I ain t looking for any of the glory you can 
 fix that up to suit yourself. The cash is different you 
 come across with half the reward the day they pay it." 
 
 " You ll get it ! " There was savage elation in Lanni* 
 gan s voice, the emphatic smash of a fist on the table. 
 " You re on, Whitey. And if we get the Gray Seal to 
 night, I ll do better by you than that." 
 
 " We ll get him ! " said Whitey Mack, with a vicious oathc 
 -And " 
 
 Jimmie Dale crouched suddenly low down, close against 
 the wall. The crunch of a footstep sounded from the end 
 of the lane. Some one had turned in from the cross street, 
 some fifty yards away, and was heading evidently for the 
 ^ack entrance to Bristol Bob s. Jimmie Dale edged noise 
 lessly, cautiously back past the doorway, kept on, pressed 
 close against the wall, and finally paused. He had not been 
 seen. The back door of Bristol Bob s opened and closed, 
 The man had gone in. 
 
 For a moment Jimmie Dale stood hesitant. There was a 
 wild surging in his brain, something like a myriad batteries 
 si trip hammers seemed to be pounding at his temples?
 
 266 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 Then, almost blindly, he kept on down the lane in the same 
 direction in which !ie had started to retreat as well one 
 cross street as another. 
 
 He turned into the cross street, went along it and pres 
 ently emerged into the full tide of the Bowery. It was 
 garishly lighted ; people swarmed about him. Subcon 
 sciously, there were crowded sidewalks; subconsciously, he 
 was on the Bowery that was all. 
 
 Ruin, disaster, peril faced him faced him, and staggered 
 him with the suddenness of the shock. Was it true? No; 
 it could not be true! It was a bluff Whitey Mack was 
 bluffing. Jimmie Dale s lips grew thin in a mirthless smile 
 as he shook his head. Neither Whitey Mack nor any other 
 man would dare to bluff like that. It was too straight, toe 
 open-handed, Whitey Mack had laid his cards too plainly on 
 the table. Whitey Mack s words rang in his ears : " I ll 
 lead you to the Gray Seal to-night and help you nab him 
 and stay with you to the finish." The man meant what he; 
 said, meant what he said, too, about the " finish " of th v 
 Gray Seal ; not a man in the Bad Lands but meant death 
 to the Gray Seal! But how, by what means, when, where 
 had Whitey Mack got his information? " I m the only one 
 nat s wise," Whitey Mack had said. It seemed impossible, 
 It was impossible! Whitey Mack was sincere enough 
 probably in what he had said, but the man simply could not 
 know. Whitey Mack could only have spotted some one 
 that, for some reason or other, he imagined was the Gray 
 Seal. That was it must be it! Whitey Mack had made 
 a mistake. What clew could he have obtained to 
 
 Over the unwashed face of Larry the Bat a gray pallor 
 spread slowly. His fingers were plucking at the frayed 
 edge of his inside vest pocket. The dark eyes seemed to turn 
 coal-black. A laugh, like the laugh of one darr"ed, rose to 
 his lips, and was choked back. It was gone! Gone! That 
 thin metal case, like a cigarette case, that, between the little 
 sheets of oil paper, held those diamond-shaped, gray- 
 coloured, adhesive seals, the insignia of the Gray Seal wai 
 Clew! It seemed as though there were an
 
 THE ALIBI 
 
 powering nausea upon him. Clew! That little case was not 
 a clew it was a death warrant ! 
 
 His hands clenched fiercely. If he could only think for a 
 moment! The lining of his pocket had given away. The 
 case had dropped out. But there was nothing about the case 
 to identify any one as the Gray Seal unless it were found in 
 one s actual possession. Therefore Whitey Mack, to have 
 solved his identity, must have seen him drop the case. 
 There could be no question about that. It was equally ob 
 vious then that Whitey Mack would know the Gray Seal 
 as Larry the Bat. Did he also know him as Jimmie Dale? 
 Yes, or no? It was a vital question. His life hung on it. 
 
 That keen, facile brain, numbed for the moment, was 
 beginning to work with lightning speed. It was four o clock 
 that afternoon when he had assumed the character of Larry 
 the Bat some time between four o clock and the present, 
 it was now well after eleven, the case had dropped from his 
 pocket. There had been ample time then for Whitey Mack 
 to have made that appointment with Lannigan and ample 
 time to have made a surreptitious visit to the Sanctuary. 
 Had Whitey Mack gone there? Had Whitey Mack found 
 that hiding place in the flooring under the oilcloth? Had 
 Whitey Mack discovered that the Gray Seal was not only 
 Larry the Bat but Jimmie Dale? 
 
 Jimmie Dale swept his hand across his forehead. It was 
 damp from little clinging beads of moisture. Should he go 
 to the Sanctuary and change become Jimmie Dale again? 
 Was it the safest thing to do or the most dangerous ? Even 
 if Whitey Mack had been there and discovered the dual per 
 sonality of Larry the Bat, how would he, Jimmie Dale, know 
 it? The man would have been crafty enough to have left 
 no sign behind him. Was it to the Sanctuary that Whitey 
 Mack meant to lead Lannigan that evening or did Whitey 
 Mack know him as Jimmie Dale, and to make it the more 
 sensational, plan to carry out the coup, say, at the St. James 
 Club? Whitey Mack and Lannigan were still at Bristol 
 Bob s; he had probably time, if he so elected, to reach the 
 Sanctuary, change, and get away again. But every minute-
 
 268 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 was priceless now. What should he do ? Run from the city 
 as he was for cover or take the gambler s chance? Whitey 
 Mack knew him as Larry the Bat it was not certain that 
 Whitey Mack knew him as Jimmie Dale. 
 
 He had halted, absorbed, in front of a moving-picture 
 theatre. Great placards, at first bat a blur of colour, sud 
 denly forced themselvcj in concrete form upon his conscious 
 ness. Letters a foot high leaped out at him : " THE DOU 
 BLE LIFE." There was the picture of a banker in his 
 private office hastily secreting a forged paper as the hero 
 in the guise of a clerk entered ; the companion picture was 
 the banker in convict stripes staring out from behind the 
 barred doors of a cell. There seemed a ghastly augury in 
 the coincidence. Why should a thing like that be thrust upon 
 him to shake his nerve when he needed nerve now more 
 than he had ever needed it in his life before? 
 
 He raised his hand to jerk aimlessly at the brim of his 
 hat, dropped his hand abruptly to his side again, and started 
 quickly, hurriedly away through the throng around him. A 
 sort of savagery had swept upon him. In a flash he had 
 made his decision. He would take the gambler s chance! 
 And afterward Jimmie Dale s lips were like a thin, straight 
 line it was Whitey Mack s life or his own! Whitey Mack 
 had said he was the only one that was wise and Whitey 
 Mack had not told Lannigan yet, wouldn t tell Lannigan 
 until the show-down. If he, Jimmie Dale, got to the Sanc 
 tuary, became Jimmie Dale and got away again, even if 
 Whitey Mack knew him as Jimmie Dale, there was still a 
 chance. It was his life or Whitey Mack s Whitey Mack, 
 with his lean-jawed, clean-shaven wolf s face! If he could 
 get Whitey Mack before the other was ready to tell Lanni 
 gan ! Surely he had the right of self-preservation ! Surely 
 his life was as valuable as Whitey Mack s, as valuable as a 
 man s who, as those in the secrets of the underworld knew 
 well enough, had blood upon his hands, who lived by crime, 
 who was a menace to the community ! Had he not the right 
 to preserve his own life at the expense of one such as that? 
 He had neve;- taken life the thought was abhorrent t Br
 
 THE ALIBI 288 
 
 was there any other way in event of Whitey Mack know 
 ing him as Jimmie Dale? His back was against the wall; 
 he was trapped ; certain death, and, worse, dishonour stared 
 him in the face. Lannigran and Whitey Mack would be to 
 gether the odds would be two to one against him and he 
 had no quarrel with Lannigan somehow he must let Lanni- 
 gan out of it. 
 
 The other side of the street was less crowded. He crossed 
 over, and, still with the shuffling tread that dozens around 
 him knew as the characteristic gait of Larry the Bat. but 
 covering the ground with amazing celerity, he hurried along. 
 It was only at the end of the block, that cross street from 
 the Bowery that led to the Sanctuary. How much time had 
 he? He turned the corner into the darker cross street 
 Whitey Mack would have learned from Bristol Bob that 
 Larry the Bat had just been there ; that is, that Larry the Bat 
 was not at the Sanctuary. Whitey Mack would probably be 
 in no hurry he and Lannigan might wait until later, until 
 Whitey Mack should be Satisfied that Larry the Bat had 
 gone home. It was the line of least resistance ; they would 
 not attempt to scour the city for him. They might even 
 wait in that private room at Brisol Bob s until they decided 
 that it was time to sally out. He might perhaps still find 
 them there when he got back; at any rate, from there he 
 must pick up their trail again. On the other hand all this 
 was but supposition they might make at once for the Sanc 
 tuary to lie in wait for him. In any case there was need, 
 desperate need, for haste. 
 
 He glanced sharply around him; and, by the side of the 
 tenement house now that bordered on the alleyway, with a 
 curious, swift, gliding motion, he seemed to blend into the 
 shadow and darkness. It was the Sanctuary, that room on 
 the first floor of the tenement, the tenement that had three 
 entrances, three exits a passageway through to the saloon 
 on the next street that abutted on the rear, the usual front 
 door, and the side door in the alleyway. Gone was the 
 shuffling gait. Quick, alert, he ran, crouching, bent down, 
 *long the alleyway, reached the side door, opened it stealthily^
 
 270 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 dosed it behind him with equal caution, and, in the dark 
 antry, stood motionless, listening intently. 
 
 There was no sound. He began to mount the rickety, 
 dilapidated stairs ; and, where it seemed that the lightest 
 tread must make them creak out in blatant protest, his 
 trained muscles, delicately compensating his body weight, 
 carried him upward with a silence that was almost uncanny. 
 There was need of silence, as there was need of haste. He 
 was not so sure now of the time at his disposal that he had 
 even reached the Sanctuary first. How long had he loitered 
 in that half-dazed way on the Bowery ? He did not know 
 perhaps longer than he had imagined. There was the possi 
 bility that Whitey Mack and Lannigan were already above, 
 waiting for him ; but, even if they were not already there and 
 tie got away before they came, it was imperative that no one 
 should know that Larry the Bat had come and gone. 
 
 He reached the landing, and paused again, his right hand, 
 with a vicious muzzle of his automatic peeping now from be 
 tween his fingers, thrown a little forward. It was black, 
 utterly black, around him. Again that stealthy, catlike tread 
 and his ear was at the keyhole of the Sanctuary door. A 
 full minute, priceless though it was, passed ; then, satisfied 
 that the room was empty, he drew his head back from the 
 keyhole, and those slim, tapering ringers, that in their tips 
 seemed to embody all the human senses, felt over the lock. 
 Apparently it had been undisturbed ; but that was no proof 
 that Whitey Mack had not been there after finding the metal 
 case. Whitey Mack was known to be clever with a lock 
 clever enough for that, anyhow. 
 
 He slipped in the key, turned it. and, on hinges that were 
 always oiled, silently pushed the door open and stepped 
 across the threshold. He closed the door until it was just 
 ajar, that any sound might reach him from without and, 
 whipping off his coat, began to undress swiftly. 
 
 There was no light. He dared not use the gas ; it might 
 be seen from the alleyway. He was moving now -quickly, 
 surely, silently here and there. It was like some weird spec 
 tre figure, a little blacker than the surrounding darkness.
 
 THE ALIBI 271 
 
 flitting about the room. The oilcloth in the corner wag 
 turned back, the loose flooring lifted, the clothes of Jimmie 
 Dale taken out, the rags of Larry the Bat put in. The min 
 utes flew by. It was not the change of clothing that took 
 long it was the eradication of Larry the Bat s metke-up 
 from his face, throat, neck, wrists, and hands. Occasionally 
 his head was turned in a tense, listening attitude; but al 
 ways the fingers were busy, working with swift deftness. 
 
 It was done at last. Larry the Bat had vanished, and in 
 his place stood Jimmie Dale, the young millionaire, the 
 social lion of New York, immaculate in well-tailored tweeds. 
 He stooped to the hole in the flooring, and, his fingers go 
 ing unerringly to their hiding place, took out a black silk 
 mask and an electric flashlight his automatic was already 
 in his possession. His lips parted grimly. Who knew what 
 part a flashlight might not play and he would need the 
 mask for Lannigan s benefit, even if it did not disguise him 
 from Whitey Mack. Had he left any telltale evidence of 
 his visit? It was almost worth the risk of a light to make 
 sure. He hesitated, then shook his head, and, stooping 
 again, carefully replaced the flooring and laid the oilcloth 
 over it he dared not show a light at any cost. 
 
 But now even more caution than before was necessary. 
 At times, the lodgers had naturally enough seen their fellow 
 lodger, Larry the Bat, enter and leave the tenement none 
 had ever seen Jimmie Dale either leave or enter. He stole 
 across the room to the door, halted to assure himself that 
 the hall was empty, slipped out into the hall, and locked the 
 door behind him. Again that trained, long-practiced, silent 
 tread upon the stairs. It seemed as though an hour passed 
 before he reached the bottom, and his brain was shrieking at 
 him to hurry, hurry, hurry! The entry way at last, the door, 
 the alleyway, a long breath of relief and he was on the 
 cross street. 
 
 A step, two, he took in the direction of the Bowery and 
 he was bending down as though to tie his shoe, his auto 
 matic, from his side pocket, concealed in his hand. Was that 
 some one there? Ho^i have sworn he saw a shadow-like
 
 372 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 form start out from behind the steps of the house on the op 
 posite side of the street as he had emerged from the alley 
 way. In his bent posture, without seemingly turning his 
 head, his eyes swept sharply up and down the other side 
 of the ill-lighted street. Nothing! There was not even a 
 pedestrian in sight on the block from there to the Bowery. 
 
 Jimmie Dale straightened up nonchalantly, and stooped 
 almost instantly again, as though the lace were still proving 
 refractory. Again that sharp, searching glance. Again 
 nothing ! He went forward now in apparent unconcern; 
 but his right hand, instead of being buried in his coat pocket, 
 swung easily at his side. 
 
 It was strange! His ineffective ruse to the contrary, he 
 was certain that he had not been mistaken. "Was it Whitey 
 Mack? Was the question answered? Was the Gray Seal 
 known, too, as Jimmie Dale? Were they trailing him now, 
 with the climax to come at the club, at his own palatial home, 
 wherever the surroundings would best lend themselves to 
 assuaging that inordinate thirst for the sensational that was 
 so essentially a characteristic of the confirmed criminal? 
 What a headline in the morning s papers it would make ! 
 
 At the corner he loitered by the curb to light a cigarette 
 still not a soul in sight on either side of the street behind him, 
 except a couple of Italians who had just passed by. Strange 
 again! The intuition, if it were only intuition, was still 
 strong. He swung abruptly on his heel, mingled with the 
 passers-by on the Bowery, walked a rapid half dozen steps 
 until the building hid the cross street, then ran across the 
 road to the opposite side of the Bowery, and, in a crowd now, 
 came back to the corner. He crossed from curb to curb 
 slowly, sheltered by a fringe of people that, however, in nc 
 way obstructed his view down the side street. And then 
 Jimmie Dale shrugged his shoulders. He had evidently been 
 mistaken, after all. He was overexcited; his nerves were 
 raw that, perhaps, was the solution. Meanwhile, every 
 minute was counting, it Whitey Mack and Lannigan should 
 still be at Bristol Bob s. 
 
 He kept on down the Bowery, hurrying with growing iflfe*
 
 THE ALIBI 273 
 
 patience through the crowds that massed in front ot various 
 places of amusement. He had not intended to come along 
 -he Bowery, and, except for what had occurred, would have 
 ^aken a ies-s frequented street He would turn off at the 
 Text block. 
 
 He was in front of that moving-picture theatre again. 
 * THE DOUBLE LIFE "his eyes were attracted invol 
 untarily to the lurid, overdone display. It seemed to 
 threaten him ; it seemed to dangle before him a premonition, 
 as it were, of what the morning held in store ; but now, too s 
 it seemed to feed into flame that smouldering fury that pos 
 sessed him. His life or Whitey Mack s 1 Men, women, 
 and the children who turned night into day in that quarter 
 of the city were clustered thick around the signs, hiving like 
 bees to the bald sensationalism. Almost savagely he began to 
 force his way through the crowd and the next instant, 
 Hike a man stunned, had stopped in his tracks. His ringers 
 had closed m a fierce, spasmodic clutch over an envelope that 
 had been thrust suddenly into his hand. 
 
 "Jimtnte!" from somewhere came a low, quick voice. 
 " Jimmie, it is half-past eleven now hurry" 
 
 He whirled, scanning wildly this face, then that. It was 
 her voice her voice! The Tocsin! The sensitive fingers 
 were telegraphing to his brain, as they always did, that the 
 texture of the envelope, too, was hers. Her voice; yes, any 
 where, out of a thousand voices, he would distinguish hers 
 but her face, he had never seen that. Which, out of all the 
 crowd around him, was hers? Surely he could tell her by 
 her dress; she would be different; her personality alone 
 ;mist single her out. She 
 
 " Say, have yotise got de pip, or do youse t ink youse owns 
 de earth ! " a man flung at him, heaving and pushing to get 
 by. 
 
 With a stan, though he scarcely heard the man, Jimmie 
 Dale moved on. His brain was afire. AH the irony of the 
 jvorhl seemed marsed in a sudden, overwhelming attack upon 
 him, ft wns useless intuitively he had known it was use 
 *s* from the instant he had heard net voice. It was alway?
 
 274 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 the same always ! For years she had eluded him like 
 that, come upon him without warning and disappeared, but 
 leaving always that tangible proof of her existence a letter, 
 the call of the Gray Seal to arms. But to-night it was as it 
 had never been before. It was not alone baffled chagrin 
 now, not alone the longing, the wild desire to see her face, 
 to look into her eyes it was life and death. She had come 
 at the very moment when she, perhaps alone of all the world, 
 could have pointed the way out, when life, liberty, every 
 thing that was common to them both was at stake, in deadly 
 peril and she had gone, ignorant of it all, leaving him 
 staggered by the very possibility of the succour that was held 
 up before his eyes only to be snatched away without power 
 of his to grasp it. His intuition had not been at fault he 
 had made no mistake in that shadow across the street from 
 the Sanctuary. It had been the Tocsin. He had been fol 
 lowed ; and it was she who had followed him, until, in a 
 crowd, she had seized the opportunity of a moment ago. 
 Though ultimately, perhaps, it changed nothing, it was a re 
 lief in a way to know that it was she, not Whitey Mack, 
 who had been lurking there; but her persistent, incompre 
 hensible determination to preserve the mystery with which 
 she surrounded herself was like ^ow to cost them both a 
 ghastly price. If he could only have had one word with 
 her just one word ! 
 
 The letter in his hand crackled under his clenched fist. 
 He stared at it in a half-blind, half-bitter way. The call 
 of the Gray Seal to arms ! Another coup, wifci its incident 
 danger and peril, that she had planned for him to execute! 
 He could have laughed aloud at the inhuman mockery of it. 
 The call of the Gray Seal to arms now! When with every 
 faculty drained to its last resource, cornered, trapped, ha 
 was fighting for his very existence ! 
 
 " Jimmie, it is half-past eleven now hurry! " The words 
 were jangling discordantly in his brain. 
 
 And now he laughed outright, mirthlessly. A young girl 
 hanging on her escort s arm, passing, glanced at him and 
 jiggled. It was a different Jimmie Dale for the moment
 
 THE ALIBI 275 
 
 For once his immobility had forsaken him. He laughed 
 again a sort of unnatural, desperate indifference to every, 
 thing falling upon him. What did it matter, the moment or 
 two it would take to read the letter? He looked around him. 
 He was on the corner in front of the Palace Saloon, and, 
 turning abruptly, he stepped in through the swinging doors. 
 As Larry the Bat, he knew the place well. At the rear of 
 the barroom and along the side of the wall were some half 
 dozen little stalls, partitioned off from each other. Several 
 of these were unoccupied, and he chose the one farthest 
 from the entrance. It was private enough; no one would 
 disturb him. 
 
 From the aproned individual who presented himself he or 
 dered a drink. The man returned in a moment, and Jim- 
 mie Dale tossed a coin on the table, bidding the other keep 
 the change. He wanted no drink; the transaction was 
 wholly perfunctory. The waiter was gone; he pushed the 
 glass away from him, and tore the envelope open. 
 
 A single sheet, closely written on both sides of the paper, 
 was in his hand. It was her writing ; there was no mistak 
 ing that, but every word, every line bore evidence of frantic 
 haste. Even that customary formula, " dear philanthropic 
 crook," that had prefaced every line she had ever written 
 him before, had been omitted. His eyes traversed the first 
 few lines with that strange indifference that had settled upon 
 him. What, after all, did it matter what it was ; he could 
 do nothing not even save himself probably. And then, 
 with a little start, he read the lines over again, muttering 
 snatches from them. 
 
 " . . . Max Diestricht diamonds the Ross-Logan 
 stones wedding sliding panel in wall of workshop end 
 of the room near window ten boards to the right from side 
 wall press small knot in the wood in the centre of the tenth 
 board to-night . , ." 
 
 It brought a sudden thrill of excitement to Jimmie Dale 
 that, impossible as he would have believed it an instant ago,
 
 276 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 for the moment overshadowed the realisation of his owt, 
 peril. A robbery such as that, if it were ever accomplished, 
 would stir the country from end to end ; it would set New 
 York by the ears ; it would loose the police in full cry like 
 a pack of bloodhounds with their leashes slipped. The so 
 ciety columns of the newspapers had been busy for months 
 featuring the coming marriage of the Ross-Logans daughter 
 to one of the country s young merchant princes. The com 
 bined fortunes of the two families would make the young 
 couple the richest in America. The prospective groom s 
 wedding gift was to be a diamond necklace of perfectly 
 matched, large stones that would eclipse anything of the kind 
 in the country. Europe, the foreign markets, had been lit 
 erally combed and ransacked to supply the gems. The stones 
 had arrived in New York the day before, the duty on them 
 alone amounting to over fifty thousand dollars. All this 
 had appeared in the papers. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s brows drew together in a frown. On just 
 exactly what percentage the duty was figured he did not 
 know; but it was high enough on the basis of fifty thousand 
 dollars to assume safely that the assessed value of the stones 
 was not less than four times that amount. Two hundred 
 thousand dollars laid down, a quarter of a million ! Well, 
 why not ? In more than one quarter diamonds were ranked 
 as the soundest kind of an investment. Furthermore, 
 through personal acquaintance with the " high contracting 
 parties," who were in his own set, he knew it to be true. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. The papers, too, had thrown 
 the limelight on Max Diestricht, who, though for quite a 
 time the fashion in the social world, had, up to the present, 
 been comparatively unknown to the average New Yorker. 
 His own knowledge of Max Diestricht went deeper than 
 the superficial biography furnished by the newspapers the 
 old Hollander had done more than one piece of exquisite 
 jewelry work for him. The old fellow was a character that 
 beggared description, eccentric to the point of extravagance, 
 and deaf as a post ; but, in craftmanship, a modern Cellini 
 He employed no workmen, lived alone over his shop on one
 
 THE ALIBI 277 
 
 of the lower streets between Fifth and Sixth Avenues near 
 Washington Square and possessed a splendid contempt for 
 such protective contrivances as safes and vaults. If his 
 prospective patrons expostulated on this score before intrust 
 ing him with their valuables, they were at liberty to take their 
 work elsewhere. It was Max Diestricht who honoured you 
 by accepting the commission ; not you who honoured Max 
 Diestricht by intrusting him with it. " Of what use is it 
 to me, a safe ! " he would exclaim. " It hides nothing : it 
 only says, I am inside ; do not look farther ; come and 
 get me ! Yes ? It is to explode with the nitro-glycerine 
 pouf! and I am deaf and I hear nothing. It is a foolishness, 
 that " he had a habit of prodding at one with a levelled fore 
 finger " every night somewhere they are robbed, and have I 
 been robbed ? Hein, tell me that ; have I been robbed ? " 
 
 It was true. In ten years, though at times having stones 
 and precious metal aggregating large amounts deposited with 
 him by his customers, Max Diestricht had never lost so much 
 as the gold filings. There was a queer smile on Jimmie 
 Dale s lips now. The knot in the tenth board was signifi 
 cant! Max Diestricht was scrupulously honest, a genius 
 in orginality and conception of design, a master in the per 
 fection and delicacy of his finished work he had been com 
 missioned to design and set the Ross-Logan necklace. 
 
 The brain works quickly. All this and more had flashed 
 almost instantaneously through Jimmie Dale s mind. His 
 eyes fell to the letter again, and he read on. Halfway 
 through, a sudden whiteness blanched his face, and, follow 
 ing it, a surging tide of red that mounted to his temples. It 
 dazed him ; it seemed to rob him for the moment of the 
 power of coherent thought. He was wrong ; he had not 
 read aright. It was incredible, dare-devil beyond belief 
 and yet in its very audacity lay success. He finished the 
 letter, read it once more and his fingers mechanically be 
 gan to tear it into little shreds. His brain was in a whirl, 
 a vortex of conflicting emotions. Had Whitey Mack and 
 Lannigan left Bristol Bob s yet? Where were they now? 
 Was there time for this? He was staring at the little tora
 
 278 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 scraps of paper in his hand. He thrust them suddenly ints 
 his pocket, and jerked out his watch. It was nearly mid 
 night. The broad, muscular shoulders seemed to square 
 back curiously, the jaws to clamp a little, the face to harden 
 and grow cold until it was like stone. With a swift move 
 ment he emptied his glass into the cuspidor, set the glass 
 back on the table, and stepped out from the stall. His ces- 
 tination was Max Diestricht s. 
 
 The Palace Saloon was near the upper end of the Bowery, 
 and, failing a taxicab, of which none was in sight, his quick 
 est method was to walk, and he started briskly forward. It 
 was not far ; and it was barely ten minutes from the time 
 he had left the Palace Saloon when he swung through Wash 
 ington Square to Fifth Avenue, and, a moment later, turned 
 from that thoroughfare, heading west toward Sixth Ave 
 nue, along one of those streets which, with the city s north 
 ward trend, had quite lost any distincitve identity, and irom 
 being once a modestly fashionable residential section had now 
 become a conglomerate potpourri of small tradesmen s stores, 
 shops and apartments of the poorer class. He knew Max 
 Diestricht s he could well have done without the aid of 
 the arc lamp which, even if dimly, indicated that low, al 
 most tumble-down, two-story structure tucked away between 
 the taller buildings on either side that almost engulfed it. 
 It was late. The street was quiet. The shops and stores 
 had long since been closed, Max Diestricht s among them 
 the old Hollanders name in painted white letters stood out 
 against the background of a darkened workshop window. 
 In the story above, the lights, too, were out ; Max Diestricht 
 was probably fast asleep and he was stone deaf ! 
 
 A glance up and down the street, and Jimmie Dale was 
 standing, or, rather, leaning against Max Diestricht s door. 
 There was no one to see, and if there were, what was there 
 to attract attention to a man standing nonchalantly for a 
 moment in a doorway ? It was only for a moment, Those, 
 master fingers of Jimmie Dale were working surely, swiftly, 
 silently. A little steel instrument that was never out of his 
 possession was in the lock and out again. The door opened.
 
 THE ALIBI 
 
 closed; he drew the black silk mask from his pocket and 
 slipped it over his face. Immediately in front of him the 
 stairs led upward ; immediately to his right was the door into 
 the shop the modest street entrance was common to both. 
 
 The door into the workshop was not locked. He opened 
 it, steped inside, and closed it quietly behind him. The 
 olace was in blackness. He stood for a moment silent, strain 
 ing his ears to catch the slightest sound, reconstructing the 
 olan of his surroundings in his mind as he remembered it. 
 It was a narrow, oblong room, running the entire depth of 
 the building, a very long room, blank walls on either side, 
 a window in the middle of the rear wall that gave on a 
 back yard, and from the back yard there was access to the 
 lane ; also, as he remembered the place, it was a riot of dis 
 order, with workbenches and odds and ends strewn with 
 out system or reason in every direction one had need of 
 care to negotiate it in the dark. He took his flashlight from 
 his pocket, and, preliminary to a more intimate acquaint 
 ance with the interior, glanced out through the front window 
 near which he stood and, with a suppressed cry, shrank 
 back instinctively against the wall. 
 
 Two men were crossing the street, heading directly for 
 the shop door. The arc lamp lighted up their faces. It was 
 Inspector Lannigan of headquarters and Whitey Mack! 
 The quick intake of Jimmie Dale breath was sucked through 
 clenched teeth. They were close on his heels then far 
 closer than he had imagined. It would take Whitey Mack 
 scarcly any longer to open that front door than it had taken 
 him. Close on his heels! His face was rigid. He could 
 hear them now at the door. The flashlight in his hand 
 winked down the length of the room. It vas a dangerous 
 thing to do, but it was still more dangerous to stumble 
 into some object and make a noise. He darted forward, 
 circuiting a workbench, a stool, a small hand forge. Again 
 the flashlight gleamed. Against the side wall, near the rear, 
 was another workbench, with a sort of coarse canvas cur 
 tain hanging part way down in front of it, evidently to pro 
 tect such things as might be stored away beneath it from
 
 280 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 dust, and Jimmie Dale sprang for it, whipped back the caiv 
 vas, and crawled underneath. He was not an instant too 
 soon. As the canvas fell back into place, the shop door 
 opened, closed, and the two men had stepped inside. 
 
 Whitey Mack s voice, in a low whisper though it was, 
 seemed to echo raucously through the shop. 
 
 " Mabbe we ll have a sweet wait, but I got the straight 
 dope on this. He s going to make a try for Dutchy s spar 
 klers to-night. We ll let him go the limit, and we don t either 
 of us make a move till he s pinched them, and then we get 
 him with the goods on him. He can t get away ; he hasn t 
 a hope ! There s only two ways of getting in here or getting 
 out this door and window here, and a window that s down 
 there at the back. You guard this, and I ll take care of tht 
 other end. Savvy ? " 
 
 " Right ! " Lannigan answered grimly. " Go ahead ! " 
 
 There was the sound of footsteps moving forward, then 
 a vicious bump, the scraping of some object along the floor, 
 and a muffled curse from Whitey Mack. 
 
 " Use your flashlight! " advised the inspector, in a guarded 
 Yoice. 
 
 " I haven t got one, damn it ! " growled Whitey Mack. 
 * It s all right. I ll get along." 
 
 Again the steps, but more warily now, as though the man 
 were cautiously feeling ahead of him for possible obstacles. 
 Jimmie Dale for a moment held his breath. He could have 
 reached out and touched the man as the other passed. 
 Whitey Mack went on until he had taken up a position 
 against the rear wall. Jimmie Dale heard him as he brushed 
 against it. 
 
 Then silence fell. He was between them now. Stretched 
 tui) length on the floor, Jimmie Dale raised the lower por 
 tion of the canvas away from in front of his face. He could 
 see nothing ; the place was in Stygian blackness ; but it had 
 been close and stifling, and, at least, it gave him more air. 
 
 The minutes dragged by each more interminable than the 
 we that had gone before. Not a movement, not a sound, 
 And then, through the stillness, very faint at first, came tbf
 
 THE ALIBI 281 
 
 regular, repressed breathing of Whitey Mack, who was much 
 tiie nearer of the two men. And, once noticeable, almost im 
 perceptible as it was. it seemed to pervade the room and fill 
 it with a strange, ominous resonance that rose and fell until 
 the blackness palpitated with it. 
 
 Slowly, very slowly, Jimmie Dale s hand crept into his 
 pocket and crept out again with his automatic. He lay mo 
 tionless once more. Time in any concrete sense ceased to 
 exist. Fancied shapes began to assume form in the dark 
 ness. By the door, Lannigan stirred uneasily, shifting his 
 position slightly. 
 
 Was it hours was it only minutes? It seemed to ring 
 through the nerve-racking stillness like the shriek of a 
 hurtling shell and it was only a whisper. 
 
 " Watch yourself, Lannigan," whispered Whitey Mack, 
 " He s coming now through the yard ! Don t move till I 
 start something. Let him get his paws on the sparklers." 
 
 Silence again. And then a low rasping at the window, 
 like the gnawing of a rat ; then, inch by inch, the sash was 
 lifted. There was the sound as of a body forcing its way 
 over the sill cautiously, then a step upon the floor inside, 
 another, and still another. The figure of a man loomed up 
 suddenly against the glow of a flashlight as he threw the 
 round, white ray inquisitively here and there over the rear 
 wall. And now he appeared to be counting the boards, 
 One, two, three ten. His hand ran up and down the tenth 
 board. Again and again he repeated the operation, and 
 something like the snarl of a baited beast echoed through the 
 room. He half turned to snatch at something in his pocket, 
 and the light for a moment showed a black-bearded, lower 
 ing face, partially hidden by a peaked cap that was pulled 
 far down over his eyes. 
 
 There was the rip and tear of rending wood, as a steel 
 jimmy, in lieu of the spring the man evidently could not 
 find, bit in between the boards, a muttered oath of satisfac 
 tion, and a portion of the wall slid back, disclosing what 
 looked like a metal-lined cupboaixl. He reached in, seized 
 one of a dozen little boxes, and wrenched off th* cover. A
 
 282 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 blue, scintillating gleam seemed to leap out to meet thft 
 white ray of the flashlight. The man chuckled hoarsely, and 
 began to cram the rest of the boxes into his pockets. 
 
 Jimmie Dale stirred. On hands and knees he was creep 
 ing now from beneath the workbench. Something caught 
 and tore behind him the canvas curtain. And at the sound, 
 with a sharp cry, the man at the wall whirled, the light went 
 out, and he sprang toward the window. Jimmie Dale gained 
 his feet and leaped forward. A revolver shot cut a lane of 
 fire through the blackness ; and, above the roar of the report, 
 Whitey Mack s voice in a fierce yell: 
 
 "It s all x ight, Lannigan! I got him! No hell!" 
 There was a terrific crash of breaking glass. " He s got 
 away ! " 
 
 " Not yet, he hasn t ! " gritted Jimmie Dale between his 
 teeth, and his clubbed revolver swung crashing to the head 
 of a dark form in front of him. 
 
 There was a half sigh, half moan. The form slid limply 
 to the floor. Lannigan was floundering down the shop, leap 
 ing obstacles in a mad rush, his flashlight picking out the 
 way. 
 
 Jimmie Dale stepped swiftly backward, and his hand 
 groped out for the droplight, over the end of the bench, 
 that he had knocked against in his own rush. His fingers 
 clutched it and the lower end of the shop was flooded 
 with light. Except for his felt hat that lay a little distance 
 away, there was no sign of Whitey Mack ; the huddled 
 form of the man, who but a moment since had chuckled 
 as he pocketed old Max Diestricht s gems, lay sprawled, 
 inert, upon the floor, and Lannigan was staring into the 
 muzzle of Jimmie Dale s automatic. 
 
 " Drop that gun, Lannigan ! " said Jimmie Dale coolly. 
 " And I ll trouble you not to make a noise ; it might attract 
 attention from the street ; there s been too much already. 
 Drop that gun!" 
 
 The revolver clattered from Lannigan s hand to the floor, 
 A step forward, and Jimmie Dale s toe sent it spinning under 
 a bench. Another step, and, his revolver still covering th
 
 THE ALIBI 203 
 
 other, he had whipped a pair of handcuffs from the officer s 
 side pocket. 
 
 Lannigan, as though the thought had never occurred to 
 him, offered no resistance. He was storing in a dazed sort 
 of way back and forth from Jimmie Dale to the man on the 
 floor. 
 
 " What s this mean ? " he burst out suddenly, 
 
 " Where s " 
 
 "Your wrist, please! " requ* ted Jimmie Dale pleasantly. 
 ** No the left one. Thank you " as ttie handcuff snapped 
 shut. " Now go over there and s : t down on the floor beside 
 that fellow. Quick!" Jimmie Dale s voice rasped sud 
 denly, imperatively. 
 
 Still bewildered, but a little sullen now, Lannigan obeyed. 
 Jimmie Dale stooped quickly, and snapped the other link of 
 the handcuff over the unconscious man s right wrist. 
 Jimmie Dale smiled. 
 
 "That s the approved way of taking your man, isn t it? 
 Left wrist to the prisoner s right. He s only stunned ; he ll 
 be around in a moment. Know him ? " 
 Lannigan shook his head. 
 
 " Take a good look at him," invited Jimmie Dale. u You 
 ought to know most of them in the business." 
 
 Lannigan bent over a little closer, and then, with an 
 amazed cry, his free hand shot forward and tore away the 
 other s beard. 
 
 It was Whitey Mack ! 
 " My God ! " gasped Lannigan. 
 
 " Quite so ! " said Jimmie Dale evenly. " You ll find the 
 diamonds in his pockets, and, excuse me " his fingers were 
 running through Whitey Mack s clothes " ah, here it is " 
 the thin metal case was in his hand " a little article that 
 belongs to me, and whose loss,, I am free to admit, caused 
 me considerable concern until I was informed that he had 
 only found it without having the slightest idea as to whom 
 it belonged. It miide quite a difference ! " He had opened 
 the case carelessly before Lannigan s eyes. " The Gray 
 Seal I I ll say it for you," said Jimmie Dale whimsically
 
 284 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 * This is what probably put the idea into his head, atte. 
 first, in s^ine wa", having discovered old Max Diestricht s 
 hiding piace; and, : f I ->ad given him time enough, he woulc 
 probably have stuck one of these seals, in clumsy imitation 
 of -hat little eccentricity of mine, on the wall over there 
 to stamp the job as genuine. You begin to get it, don t you, 
 Lannigan ? Pretty sure-fire as an alibi, eh ? And he d have 
 got away with it, too, as far as you were concerned. He 
 had only to fire that shot, smash the window, tuck his false 
 beard, mustache, and peaked cap into his pocket, put on his 
 own hat that you se there on the floor and yell that the 
 man had escaped. He d help you chase the thief, too! 
 Rather neat, don t you think, Lannigan? And worth the 
 risk, too, considering the howl that would go up af tht theft 
 of those stones, and that, known as the slickest diamond thief 
 in the country, he would be the first to be suspected ex 
 cept that the police themselves, in the person of Inspector 
 Lannigan of headquarters, would be prepared to prove a 
 perfectly good alibi for him." 
 
 Lannigan s head was thrust forward ; his eyes, hard, were 
 riveted on Whitey Mack. 
 
 " My God ! " he said again under his breath. Then 
 fiercely : " He ll get his for this ! " 
 
 It was a moment before Jimmie Dale spoke; he was 
 musingly examining the automatic in his hand. 
 
 " I am going now, Lannigan," he observed quietly. " I 
 require, say, fifteen minutes in which to effect my escape. 
 It is, of course, obvious that an alarm raised by you might 
 prove extremely awkward, but a piece of canvas from that 
 bench there, together with a bit of string, would make a 
 most effective gag. I prefer, however, not to submit you 
 to that in dignity. Instead, I offer you the alternative of 
 giving me your word to retrain quietly where you are 
 for fifteen nmutes." 
 
 Lannigan hesitated. 
 
 Jimmie Dale smiled. 
 
 * I agree," said Lannigan shortly. 
 
 Jimmie Dale stepped back. The electric-light
 
 THE ALIBI 285 
 
 clicked. The place was in darkness. There was a moment, 
 two, of utter stillness; then softly, from the front end of 
 the shop, a whisper: 
 
 "If I were you, Lannigan, I d take that gun from Whitey s 
 pocket before he comes round and beats you to it." 
 
 And the door had closed silently behind Jimmie Dale.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE STOOL-PIGEON 
 
 I N the subway, ten minutes before, a freckled-faced 
 * senger boy had squeezed himself into a beat beside 
 Jimmie Dale, yanked a dime novel from a refractory pocket, 
 and, blissfully lost to all the world, had buried his head in 
 its pages. Jimmie Dale s glance at the youngster had equally, 
 perforce, embraced the lurid title of the thriller, " Dicing 
 with Death," so imperturbably thrust under his nose. At 
 the time, he had smiled indulgently ; but now, as he left the 
 subway and headed for his home on Riverside Drive, the 
 vrords not only refused to be ignored, but had resolved them 
 selves into a curiously persistent refrain in his mind. The] 
 were exactly what they purported to be, dime-novelish, of 
 the deepest hue of yellow, melodramatic in the extreme ; but 
 also, to him now, they were grimly apt and premonitorily 
 appropriate. " Dicing with Death " there was not an hour: 
 not a moment in the day, when he was not literally dicing 
 with death ; when, with the underworld and the police allied 
 against him, a single false move would lose him the throw 
 that left death the winner! 
 
 The risk of the dual life enforced upon him grew daily 
 greater, and in the end there must be the reckoning. He 
 would have been a madman to have shut his eyes in the face 
 of what was obvious but it was worth it all, and in his 
 soul he knew that he would not have had it otherwise even 
 now. To-night, to-morrow, the day after, would come 
 another letter from the Tocsin, and there would be another 
 w crime " of the Gray Seal s blazoned in the press would 
 that be the last affair, or would there be another or to 
 night, to-morrow, the day after, would he be trapped before 
 *en one more letter came !
 
 THE STOOL-PIGEON 287 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders, as he ran up the steps of his 
 house. Those were the stakes that he himself had laid on 
 ihe table to wager upon the game, he had no quarrel there ; 
 but if only, before the end came, or even with the end itself, 
 he could find her! 
 
 With his latchkey he let himself into the spacious, richly 
 furnished, well-lighted reception hall, and, crossing this, 
 went up the broad staircase, his steps noiseless on the heavy 
 carpet. Below, faintly, he could hear some of the servants 
 they evidently had not heard him close the door behind 
 him. Discipline was relaxed somewhat, it was quite ap 
 parent, with Jason, that peer of butlers, away. Jason, 
 poor chap, was in the hospital. Typhoid, they had thought 
 it at first, though it had turned out to be some milder form 
 of infection. He would be back in a few days now; but 
 meanwhile he missed the old man sorely from the house. 
 
 He reached the landing, and, turning, went along the hall 
 to the door of his own particular den, opened the door, 
 dosed it behind him and in an instant the keen, agile brain, 
 trained to the little things that never escaped it, that daily 
 held his life in the balance, was alert. The room was un 
 usually dark, even for night-time. It was as though the 
 window shades had been closely drawn a thing Jason never 
 did. But then Jason wasn t there! Jimmie Dale, smiling 
 then a little quizzically at himself, reached up for the elec 
 tric-light switch beside the door, pressed it and, his finger 
 still on the buttom, whipped his automatic from his pocket 
 with his other hand. The room was still in darkness. 
 
 The smile on Jimmie Dale s lips was gone, for his lips 
 now had closed together in a tight, drawn line. The lights 
 in the rest of the house, as witness the reception hall, were 
 in order. This was no accident! Silent, motionless, he 
 stood there, listening. Was he trapped at last in his own 
 house! By whom? The police? The thugs of the under 
 world ? It made little difference the end would differ only 
 in the method by which it was attained! What was that! 
 Was there a slight stir, a movement at the lower end of the 
 room or was it his imagination? His hand fell from the
 
 288 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 electric-light switch to the doorknob behind his back 
 Slowly, without a sound, it began to turn under his slim, 
 tapering fingers, whose deft, sensitive touch had made him 
 known and feared as the master cracksman of them all; 
 and, as noiselessly, the door began to open. 
 
 It was like a duel a duel of silence. What was the 
 intruder, whoever he might be, waiting for? The abortive 
 click of the electric-light switch, to say nothing of the 
 opening of the door when he had entered, was evidence 
 enough that he was there. Was the other trying to place 
 him exactly through the darkness to make sure of his at 
 tack ! The door was open now. And suddenly Jimmie 
 Dale laughed easily aloud and on the instant shifted his 
 position. 
 
 " Well ? " inquired Jimmie Dale coolly from the other side 
 of the threshold. 
 
 It seemed like a long-drawn sigh fluttering through the 
 room, a gasp of relief and then the blood was pounding 
 madly at his temples, and he was back in the room again, 
 the door closed once more behind him. 
 
 " Oh, Jimmie why didn t you speak ? I had to be sure 
 "hat it was you." 
 
 It was her voice! Hers! The Tocsin! Here! She 
 .vas here here in his house! 
 
 " You ! " he cried. " You here ! " He was pressing the 
 electric-light switch frantically, again and again. 
 
 Her voice came out of the darkness from across the room: 
 
 " Why are you doing that, Jimmie? You know already 
 that I have turned off the lights." 
 
 " At the sockets of course ! " He laughed out the words 
 almost hysterically. " Your face I have never seen your 
 face, you know." He was moving quickly toward the read 
 ing lamp on his desk. 
 
 There was a quick, hurried swish of garments, and she 
 was blocking his way. 
 
 " No," she said, in a low voice ; " you must not light 
 that lamp." 
 
 He laughed again, shortly, fiercely now. She was close
 
 THE STOOL-PIGEON 289 
 
 v him his hands reached out for her, touched her, and 
 thrilling at the touch, swept her toward him 
 
 Jimmie -Jimmie are you mad ! " she breathed. 
 
 Mad ! Yes he was mad with the wildest, most passionate 
 exhilaration he had ever known. He found his voice with 
 an effort. 
 
 " These months and years that 1 have tried until my soul 
 was sick to find you ! " he cried out. " And you are here 
 now ! Your face I must see your face ! " 
 
 She had wrenched herself away from him. He could 
 Hear her breath coming sharply in little gasps. He groped 
 his way onward toward the desk. 
 
 "Wait!" her tones seemed to ring suddenly vibrant 
 through the rocrm. "Wait, before you touch that lampl 
 I I put you on your honour not to light it," 
 
 He stopped abruptly. 
 
 tr My honour ? " he repeated mechanically. 
 
 " Yes ! I came here to-night because there was no other 
 way. No other way do you understand? I came, trust 
 ing to your honour not to take advantage of the conditions 
 that forced me to do this. I had no fear that I was wrong 
 I have no fear now. You will not light that lamp, and 
 you will not make any attempt to prevent my going away 
 as I came unknown. Is there any question about it, Jim 
 mie? I am in your house." 
 
 "You don t know what you are saying!" he burst out 
 wildly. " I ve risked my life for a chance like this again 
 and again; I ve gone through hell, living in squalour for a 
 month on end as Larry the Bat in the hope that I might 
 discover who you are and do you think I ll let anything 
 stop me now ! I tell you, no a thousand times no ! " 
 
 She made no answer. There was only her low, quick 
 breathing coming from somewhere near him. He made an 
 other step toward the lamp and stopped. 
 
 " I tell you, no ! " he said again, and took another step 
 forward and stopped once more. 
 
 Still she made no answer. A minute, passed another 
 His hand lifted and swept across his forehead in an agitated
 
 290 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE BALE 
 
 way Still silence. She neither moved nor spoke His hanc 
 dropped slowly to his side. There was a queer, twisted smil* 
 upon his lips 
 
 " You win ! " he said hoarsely. 
 
 " Thank you, Timmie," she said simply. 
 
 " And your name, who you ...re " he was speaking, but 
 he did not seem to recognise iiis own voice " the hundred 
 other things I ve sworn I d make you explain when I found 
 you, are all taboo as well, I suppose ! " 
 
 u Yes," she said. 
 
 He laughed bitterly. 
 
 " Don t you know," he cried out, " that between the police 
 and the underworld, our house of cards is likely to collapse 
 at any minute that they are hunting the Gray Seal day and 
 night ! Is it to be always like this that I am never to know 
 until it is too late ! " 
 
 She came toward him out of the darkness impulsively. 
 
 " They will never get you, Jimmie," she said, in a sup 
 pressed voice. " And some day, I promise you now, you 
 shall have your reward for to-night. You shall know 
 everything." 
 
 44 When ? " The word came from him with fierce eager 
 ness. 
 
 " I do not know," she answered gently. " Soon, perhaps 
 perhaps sooner than either of us imagine. * 
 
 " And by that you mean what ? " he asked, and his 
 hand reached out for her again through the blackness. 
 
 This time she did not draw away. There was an instant s 
 hesitation ; then she spoke again hurriedly, a note of anxiety 
 in her voice. 
 
 "You are beginning all over again, aren t you, Jimmfer 
 And I have told you that to-night I can explain nothing. 
 And, besides, it is what has brought me here that counts now, 
 and every moment is of " 
 
 " Yes, I know," he interposed ; " but, then, at least you 
 will tell me one thing : Why did you come to-night, instead 
 of sending me a letter as you always have before ? " 
 
 * because it is different to-night than it ever was before*
 
 THE STOOL-PIGEON 291 
 
 <he replied earnestly. " Because there is something in what 
 has happened that I cannot explain myself ; because there is 
 danger, and where I could not see clearly I feared a trap, 
 and so I dared not send what, in a letter, could at best be 
 only vague and incomplete details. Do you see ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Jimmie Dale but he was only listening in ap 
 abstracted way. If he could only see that face, so close to 
 his! He had yearned for that with all his soul for years 
 now ! And she was here, standing beside him, and his hand 
 was upon her arm ; and here, in his own den, in his own 
 house, he was listening to another call to arms for the Gray 
 Seal from her own lips ! Honour ! Was he but a poor, 
 quixotic fool ! He had only to step to the desk and switch on 
 the light ! Why should he steadied himself with a jerk, and 
 drew away his hand. She was in his house. " Go on," he 
 said tersely. 
 
 " Do you know, or did you ever hear of old Luther 
 Doyle ? " she asked. 
 
 " No," said Jimmie Dale. 
 
 * Do you know a man, then, named Connie Myers? " 
 
 Connie Myers! Who in the Bad Lands did not know 
 Connie Myers, who boasted of the half dozen prison sen 
 tences already to his credit ? Yes ; he knew Connie Myers ! 
 But, strangely enough, it was not in the Bad Lands or as 
 Larry the Bat that he knew the man, or that the other knew 
 him it was as Jimmie Dale. Connie Myers had introduced 
 himself one night several years ago with a blackjack that 
 had just missed its mark as the man had jumped out from 
 a dark alleyway on the East Side, and he, Jimmie Dale, had 
 thrashed the other to within an inch of his life. He had 
 reason to know Connie Myers and Connie Myers had rea 
 son to remember him I 
 
 " Yes," he said, with a grim smile ; " I know Connie 
 Myers." 
 
 " And the tenement across the street from where you live 
 as Larry the Bat that, of course, you know." 
 
 He leaned toward her wonderingly now. 
 
 * Of course ! " he ejaculated. " Naturally ! " 
 
 " JUsten, then- Jimmie " She was speaking quickly
 
 292 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALt 
 
 " It is a strange- story. This Luther Doyle was already ortv 
 fifty, when, some eight or nine years ago, his parents died! 
 within a few months of each other, and he inherited some 
 where in the neighbourhood of a hundred thousand dollars * f 
 but the man, though harmless enough, was mildly insane, 
 half-witted, queer, and the old couple, on account of their 
 son s mental defects, took care to leave the money securely 
 invested, and so that he could only touch the interest. Dur 
 ing these eight or nine years he has lived by himself in the 
 same old family house where he had lived with his parents, in 
 a lonely spot near Pelham. And he has lived in a most frugal, 
 even miserly, manner. His income could not have been 
 less than six thousand dollars a yv.ar, and his expenditures 
 could not have been more than six hundred. His dementi*^ 
 ironically enough from the day that he came into his fortune, 
 took the form of a most pitiable and abject fear that he 
 would die in poverty, misery, and want ; and so, year aftei 
 year, cashing his checks as fast as he got them, never trust 
 ing the bank with a penny, he kept hiding away somewhere 
 in his house every cent he could scrape and save from his 
 income which to-day must amount, at a minimum calcula 
 tion, to fifty thousand dollars." 
 
 " And," observed Jimmie Dale quietly. " Connie Myer* 
 robbed him of it, and " 
 
 " No ! " Her voice was quivering with passion, as she 
 caught up his words. " Twice in the last month Connie 
 Myers tried to rob him, but the money was too securely hid 
 den. Twice he broke into Doyle s house when the olc? 
 man was out, but on both occasions was unsuccessful in his: 
 search, and was interrupted and forced to make his escape 
 on account of Doyle s return. To-night, an hour ago, in an 
 empty room on the second floor of that tenement, in the 
 room facing the landing, old Luther Doyle was murdered! 1 
 
 There was silence for an instant. Her hand had closed in 
 a tight pressure on his arm. The darkness seemed to add 
 % sort of ghastly significance to her words. 
 
 " In God s name, how do you know all this ? " he de 
 manded wildly. " Ho\v ^ you know all these things ? " 
 
 " Does that matfc~7 now ? " she answered tensely
 
 THE STOOL-PIGEON 298 
 
 mil know that when you know the rest. Oh, don t you un 
 derstand, Jimmie, there is not a moment to lose now ? It 
 was easy to lure a half-witted creature like that anywhere; 
 it was Connie Myers who lured him to the tenement and 
 murdered him there but from that point, Jimmie, I am 
 not sure of our ground. I do not know whether Connie 
 Myers is alone in this or not ; but I do know that he is going 
 to Doyle s house again to-night to make another search 
 for the money. There is no *uestion but that old Doyle was 
 murdered to give Connie Myers and his accomplices, if there 
 are any, a chance to tear the house inside out to find the 
 money, to give them the whole night to work in without 
 interruption if necessary but Doyle dead in his own house 
 could have interfered no more with them than Doyle dead in 
 that tenement ! Why was he lured to the tenement by Con 
 nie Myers when he could much more easily have been put 
 out of the way in his own house? Jimmie, there is some 
 thing behind this, something more that you must find out. 
 There may be others in this besides Connie Myers, I do not 
 know; but there is something here that I am afraid of. 
 Jimmie, you must get that man, you must get the others if 
 there are others, and you must stop them from getting the 
 money in that house to-night ! Do you understand now why 
 I have come here ? I could not explain in a letter ; I do not 
 quite seem to be explaining- now. It would seem as though 
 there were no need for the Gray Seal that simply the police 
 should be notified. But I know, Jimmie, call it intuition, 
 what you will, I know that there is need for us, for you to 
 night that behind all this is a tragedy, deeper, blacker, than 
 even the brutal, cold-blooded murder that is already done." 
 Her voice, in its passionate earnestness, died away; antf 
 an anger, cold, grim, remorseless, settled upon Jimmie Dak 
 settled as it alway settled upon him at her call to arm." 
 His brain was already at work in its quick, instant way 
 probing, sifting, planning. She was right! It was strange, 
 it was more than strange that, with the added risk, the 
 danger, the difficulty, the man should have been brought 
 to be done away with in that tenement ! Why ? Conrua
 
 294 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 Myers took form before him the coarse features, the 
 tawny hair that straggled across the low forehead, the shifty 
 eyes that were an indeterminate colour between brown ant 
 gray, the thin lips that seemed to draw in and give the javr 
 a protruding, belligerent effect. And Connie Myers knew 
 him as Jimmie Dale it would have to be then as Larry the 
 Bat that the Gray Seal must work. That meant time to 
 go to the Sanctuary and change. 
 
 " The police," he asked suddenly, aloud, " they have not 
 yet discovered the body?" 
 
 " Not yet," she replied hurriedly. " And that is still an 
 other reason for haste there is no telling when they will. 
 See here ! " She thrust a paper into his hand. " Here is 
 a plan of old Doyle s house, and directions for rinding it. 
 You must get Connie Myers red-handed, you must make 
 him convict himself, for the evidence through which I know 
 him to be guilty can never be used against him. And, Jim 
 mie, be careful I know I am not wrong, that there is still 
 something more behind all this. And now go, Jimmie, go! 
 There is no time to lose ! " She was pushing him across 
 the room toward the door. 
 
 Go! The word seemed suddenly to bring dismay. It 
 was she again who was dominant now in his mind. Who 
 knew if to-night, when he was taking his life in his hands 
 again, would not be the last ! And she was here now, here 
 beside him where she might never be again! 
 
 She seemed to divine his thoughts, for she spoke again, 
 a strange new note of tenderness in her voice that thrilled 
 him. 
 
 " You must never let them get you, Jimmie for my 
 sake. It will not last much longer it is near the end 
 and I shall keep my promise. But go, now, Jimmie go t " 
 
 " Go? " he repeated numbly. " Go? But but you? " 
 
 " I ? " She slipped suddenly away from him, retreating 
 back down the room. " I will go as I came." 
 
 " Wait ! Listen ! " he pleaded. 
 
 There was no answer. 
 
 She was there somewhere back there in the darkness
 
 THE STOOL-PIGEON 295 
 
 still. He stood hesitant at the door. It seemed that every 
 faculty he possessed urged him back there again to her. 
 Could he let her escape him now when she was so utterly 
 in his power, she who meant everything in his life! And 
 then, like a cold shock, came that other thought she who 
 had trusted to his honour ! With a jerk, his hand swept out, 
 felt for the doorknob, and closed upon it. 
 
 " Good-night 1 " he said heavily, and stepped out into the 
 
 hall. 
 
 It seemed for a while, even after he had gained the street 
 and made his way again to the subway, that nothing was con 
 crete around him, that he was living through some fantas 
 tical dream. His head whirled, and he could not think 
 rationally and then slowly, little by little, his grip upon 
 himself came back. She had come and gone! With the 
 roar of the subway in his ears, its raucous note seeming to 
 strike so perfectly in consonance with the turmoil within 
 him, he smiled mirthlessly. After all, it was as it always 
 was! She was gone and ahead of him lay the chances 
 of the night! 
 
 " Dicing with death ! " The words, unbidden, came back 
 once more. If they were true before, they were doubly ap 
 plicable now. It was different to-night from what it had 
 ever been before, as she had said. Usually, to the smallest 
 detail, everything wa.s laid open, crear before him in those 
 astounding letters. To-night, it was vague at best. A man 
 had been murdered. Connie Myers had committed the mur 
 der under circumstances that pointed strongly to some hid 
 den motive behind and beyond the mere chance it afforded 
 him to search his victim s house for the hidden cash. What 
 was it? 
 
 Jimmie Dale stared out at the black subway walls. The 
 answer would not come. Station after station passed. At 
 Fourteenth Street he changed from the express to a local, 
 got out at Astor Place, and a few minutes later was walking 
 rapidly down the upper end of the Bowery. 
 
 The answer would not come only the fact itself grew 
 more and more deeply significant. The ghastly, callous
 
 296 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 fiendishness that lured an old, half-witted man to his death 
 had Jimmie Dale in that grip of cold, merciless anger again, 
 and there was a dull flush now upon his cheeks. Whatever 
 it meant, whatever was behind it, one thing at least was 
 certain he would get Connie Myers! 
 
 He was close to the Sanctuary now it was down the next 
 cross street. He reached the corner and turned it, head- 
 rng east; but his brisk walk had changed to a nonchalant 
 gaunter there were some people coming toward him. It 
 was the Gray Seal now, alert and cautious. The little group 
 passed by. Ahead, the tenement bordering on the black 
 alleyway loomed up the Sanctuary, with its three entrances 
 and exits ; the home of Larry the Bat. And across from 
 it was that other tenement, that held a new interest for 
 him now, where, in an empty room on the second floor, 
 she had said, old Doyle still lay. Should he go there? He 
 was thinking quickly now, and shook his head. It would 
 take what he did not have to spare time. It was already ten 
 o clock ; and, granted that Connie Myers had committed the 
 crime only a little over an hour ago, the man by this time 
 would certainly be on his way to Doyle s house near Pel- 
 ham, if, indeed, he were not already there. No, there was 
 no time to spare the question resolved itself simply into 
 how long, since he had already searched twice and failed 
 on both occasions, it would take Connie Myers to unearth 
 old Doyle s hiding place for the money. 
 
 Jimmie Dale glanced sharply around him, slipped into 
 the alleyway, and, crouching against the tenement wall, 
 moved noiselessly along to the side entrance. A moment 
 more, and he had negotiated the rickety stairs with prac 
 ticed, soundless tread, was inside the squalid quarters of 
 Larry the Bat, and the door of the Sanctuary was locked 
 and bolted behind him. 
 
 Perhaps five minutes passed and then, where Jimmie 
 Dale, the millionaire, had entered, there emerged Larry the 
 Bat, of the aristocracy and the elite of the Bad Lands. But 
 instead of leaving by the side door and the alleyway, as he had 
 entered, he went along the lower hallway to the front en-
 
 THE STOOL-PIGEON 297 
 
 trance. And here, instinctively, he paused a moment at the 
 top of the steps, as his eyes rested upon the tenement on the 
 opposite side of the street. 
 
 It was strange that the crime should have been committed 
 there! Something again seemed to draw him toward that 
 impty room on the second story. He had decided once that 
 he would not go, that there was not time ; but, after all, it 
 would not take long, and there was at least the possibility 
 of gaining something more valuable even than time from 
 the scene of the crime itself there might even be the evi 
 dence he wanted there that would disclose the whole of 
 Connie Myers game. 
 
 He went down the steps, and started across the street; 
 but halfway over, he hesitated uncertainly, as a child s cry 
 came petulantly from the doorway. It was dark in th*" 
 street; and, likewise, it was one of those hot, suffocating 
 evenings when, in the crowded tenements of the poorer class, 
 miserable enough in any case, misery was added to a hun 
 dredfold for lack of a single God-given breath of air. 
 These two facts, apparently irrelevant, caused Jimmie Dale 
 to change his mind again. He had not noticed the woman 
 with the baby in her arms, sitting on the doorstep ; but now, 
 as he reached the curb, he not only saw, but recognised her 
 and he swung on down the street toward the Bowery. 
 He could not very well go in without passing her, without 
 being recognised himself and that was a needless risk. 
 
 He smiled a little wanly. Once the crime was disco-^red, 
 *he would not have hesitated long before informing the 
 police that she had seen him enter there ! Mrs. Hagan was , 
 no friend of his! One could not live as he had lived, as 
 Larry the Bat, and not see something in an intimate way 
 of the pitiful little tragedies of the poor around him; for, 
 bad, tough, and dissolute as the quarter was, all were not 
 degraded there, some were simply poor. Mrs. Hagan 
 was poor. Her husband was a day labourer, often out of 
 a job and sometimes he drank. That was how he, Jim 
 mie Dale, or rather, Larry the Bat, had come to earn Mrs. 
 Hagan s enmity. He had found Mike Hagan drunk one
 
 298 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 night, and in the act of being arrested, and had wheedled 
 the man away from the officer on the promise that he would 
 take Hagan home. And he was Larry the Bat, a dope 
 fiend, a character known to all the neighbourhood, and Mrs. 
 Hagan had laid her husband s condition to his influence 
 and companionship! He had taken Mike Hagan home^> 
 and Mrs. Hagan had driven Larry the Bat from the door 
 of her miserable one-room lodging in that tenement with 
 the bitter words on her tongue that only a woman can use 
 when shame and grief and anger are breaking her heart. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders, as, back along the Bowery, 
 he retraced his steps, but now, with the hurried shuffle of 
 Larry the Bat where before had been the brisk, athletic 
 stride of Jimmie Dale. 
 
 At Astor Place again, he took the subway, this time to 
 the Grand Central Station and, well within an hour from 
 the time he had left the Sanctuary, including the train 
 journey to Pelham, he was standing in a clump of trees that 
 fringed a deserted roadway. He had passed but few houses, 
 once he was away from Pelham, and, as well as he could 
 judge, there was none now within a quarter of a mile of 
 him except this one of old Luther Doyle s that showed 
 up black and shadowy just beyond the trees. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s eyes narrowed as he surveyed the place. 
 It was little wonder that, known to have money, an attempt 
 to rob old Doyle should have been made in a place like this ! 
 It was even more grimly significant than ever of some deeper 
 meaning that, in its loneliness an ideal place for a murder, 
 the man should have been lured from there for that pur 
 pose to a crowded tenement in the city instead ! What did 
 it mean? Why had it been done ? He shook his head. The 
 answer would not come now any more than it had come 
 before in the subway, or in the train on the way out, when 
 he had set his brain so futilely to solve the problem. 
 
 From a survey of the house, Jimmie Dale gave attention 
 to the details of his surroundings : the trees on either side , 
 the open space in front, a distance of fifty yards to the road ; 
 the absence of any fence. And then, abruptly, he state
 
 THE STOOL-PIGEON 299 
 
 forward. There was no light to be seen anywhere about 
 the house. Was it possible that Connie Myers was not yet 
 there ? He shook his head again impatiently. Connie Myers 
 would not have wasted any time as the Tocsin had said, 
 there was always present the possibility that the crime in that 
 tenement might be discovered at any moment. Connie 
 Myers would have lost no time; for, let the discovery be 
 made, let the police identify the body, as they most certainly 
 would, and they would be out here hotfoot. Jimmie Dale 
 stood suddenly still. What did it mean ! He had not thought 
 of that before! If old Doyle had been murdered here, 
 there would not have been even the possibility of discovery 
 until the morning at the earliest, and Connie Myers would 
 have had all the time he wanted ! 
 
 What was that sound! A low, muffled tapping, like a 
 succession of hammer blows, came from within the house. 
 Jimmie Dale darted forward, reached the side of the house, 
 and dropped on hands and knees. One question at least 
 was answered Connie Myers was inside. 
 
 The plan that she had given him showed an old-fashioned 
 cellarway, closed by folding trapdoors, that was located a 
 little toward the rear; and, in a moment, creeping along, 
 he came upon it. His hands felt over it. It was shut, 
 fastened by a padlock on the outside. Jimmie Dale s lips 
 thinned a little, as he took a small steel instrument from 
 his pocket. Either through inadvertence or by intention, 
 Connie Myers had passed up an almost childishly simple 
 means of entrance into the house ! One side of the trapdoor 
 was lifted up silently and silently closed. Jimmie Dale 
 was in the cellar. The hammering, much more distinct now, 
 heavy, thudding blows, came from a room in the front 
 the connection between the cellar and the house, as shown 
 on the Tocsin s plan, was through another trapdoor in the 
 floor of the kitchen. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s flashlight played on a short, ladderlike 
 stairway, and in an instant he was climbing upward. The 
 sounds from the front of the house continued now without 
 interruption ; there was little fear that Connie Myers would
 
 800 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 hear anything else even the protesting squeak of the hingtv 
 as Jimmie Dale cautiously pushed back the trapdoor in tht 
 flooring above his head. An inch, two inches he lifted it; 
 and, his eyes on a level with the opening now, he peered 
 into the room. The kitchen itself was intensely dark ; but 
 through an open doorway, well to one side so that he could 
 not see into the room beyond, there struggled a curiously 
 faint, dim glimmer of light. And then Jimmie Dale s form 
 straightened rigidly on the stairs. The blows stopped, and 
 a voice, in a low growl, presumably Connie Myers , reached 
 him. 
 
 " Here, take a drive at it from the lower edge ! " 
 There was no answer save that the blows were resumed 
 again. Jimmie Dale s face had set hard. Connie Myen 
 was not alone in this, then ! Well, the odds were a 
 little heavier, doubled that was all! He pushed the trap-, 
 door wide open, swung himself up through the opening 
 to the floor; and the next instant, back a little from the. 
 connecting doorway, his body pressed closely against th& 
 kitchen wall, he was staring, bewildered and amazed, into 
 the next room. 
 
 On the floor, presumably to lessen the chance of any light 
 rays stealing through the tightly drawn window shades, 
 burned a small oil lamp. The place was in utter confusion. 
 The right-hand side of a large fireplace, made of rough, 
 untrimmed stone and cement, and which occupied almost 
 the entire end of the room, was already practically de 
 molished, and the wreckage was littered everywhere; part 
 of the furniture was piled unceremoniously into one corner 
 out of the way; and at the fireplace itself, working with 
 sledge and bar, were two men. One was Connie Myers. An 
 ironical glint crept into Jimmie Dale s eyes. The false beard 
 and mustache the man wore would deceive no one who knew 
 Connie Myers ! And that he should be wearing them now, 
 as he knelt holding the bar while the other struck at it, 
 seemed both uncalled for and absurd. The other tnan^ 
 heavily built, roughly dressed, had his back turned, and Jinv 
 mie Dale could not see his face.
 
 THE STOOL-PIGEON 301 
 
 The puzzled frown on Jimmie Dale s forehead deepened 
 Somewhere in the masonry of the fireplace, of course, was 
 where old Luther Doyle had hidden his money. That was 
 quite plain enough ; and that Connie Myers, in some way 
 or other, had made sure of that fact was equally obvious. 
 But how did old Luther Doyle get his money in there from 
 time to time, as he received the interest and dividends whose 
 accumulation, according to the Tocsin, comprised his hoard ! 
 And how did he get it out again? 
 
 " All right, that ll do ! " grunted Connie Myers suddenly. 
 " We can pry this one out now. Lend a hand on the bar ! " 
 
 The other dropped his sledge, turned sideways as he 
 stooped to help Connie Myers, his face came into view 
 and, with an involuntary start, Jimmie Dale crouched farther 
 back against the wall, as he stared at the other. It was 
 Hagan ! Mrs. Hagan s husband ! Mike Hagan ! " 
 
 " My God ! " whispered Jimmie Dale, under his breath. 
 
 So that was it! That the murder had been committed 
 in the tenement was not so strange now ! A surge of anger 
 swept Jimmie Dale and was engulfed m a wave of pity. 
 Somehow, the thin, tired face of Mrs. Hagan had risen be 
 fore him, and she seemed to be pleading with him to go 
 away, to leave the house, to forget that he had ever been 
 there, to forget what he had seen, what he was seeing now. 
 His hands clenched fiercely. How realistically, how im 
 portunately, how pitifully she took form before him! She 
 was on her knees, clasping his knees, imploring him, terrified. 
 
 From Jimmie Dale s pocket came the black silk mask 
 Slowly, almost hesitantly, he fitted it over his face Mike 
 Hagan knew Larry the Bat. Why should he have pity for 
 Mike Hagan? Had he any for Connie Myers? What 
 right had he to let pity sway him ! The man had gone the 
 limit ; he was Connie Myers accomplice a murderer 1 But 
 the man was not a hardened, confirmed criminal like Connie 
 Myers. Mike Hagan a murderer ! It would have been un 
 believable but for the evidence before his own eyes now, 
 The man had faults, brawled enough, and drank enough tf
 
 02 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 have brought him several times to the notice of the polier 
 but this ! 
 
 Jimmie Dale s eyes had never left the scene before him. 
 Both men were throwing their weight upon the bar, and 
 the stone that they were trying to dislodge they were into 
 the heart of the masonry now seemed to move a little. 
 Connie Myers stood up, and, leaning forward, examined 
 the stone critically at top and bottom, prodding it with the 
 bar. He turned from his examination abruptly, and thrust 
 the bar into Hagan s hands. 
 
 " Hold it ! " he said tersely. " I ll strike for a turn." 
 
 Crouched, on his hands and knees, Hagan inserted the 
 point of the bar into the crevice. Connie Myers picked up 
 the sledge. 
 
 " Lower ! Bend lower ! " he snapped and swung the 
 sledge. 
 
 It seemed to go black for a moment before Jimmie Dale s 
 eyes, seemed to paralyse all action of mind and body. There 
 was a low cry that was more a moan, the clang of the iron 
 bar clattering on the floor, and Mike Hagan had pitched for 
 ward on his face, an inert and huddled heap. A half laugh, 
 half snarl purled from Connie Myers lips, as he snatched a 
 stout piece of cord from his pocket and swiftly knotted the 
 unconscious man s wrists together. Another instant, and, 
 picking up the bar, prying with it again, the loosened stone 
 toppled with a crash into the grate. 
 
 It had come sudden as the crack of doom, that blow 
 too quick, too unexpected for Jimmie Dale to have lifted a 
 finger to prevent it. And now that the first numbed shock 
 of mingled horror and amazement was past, he fought back 
 the quick, fierce impulse to spring out on Connie Myers. 
 Whether the man was killed or only stunned, he could do no 
 good to Mike Hagan now, and there was Connie Myers he 
 was staring in a fascinated way at Connie Myers. Behind 
 the stone that the other had just dislodged was a large 
 hollow space that had been left in the masonry, and from 
 this now Connie Myers was eagerly collecting handfuls of 
 banknotes that were rolled up into the shape of littl*
 
 THE STOOL-PIGEON 308 
 
 cylinders, each one grotesquely tied with a string. The man 
 was feverishly excited, muttering to himself, running from 
 the fireplace to where the table had been pushed aside with 
 the rest of the furniture, dropping the curious little rolls 
 of money on the table, and running back for more. And 
 then, having apparently emptied the receptacle, he wriggled 
 his body over the dismantled fireplace, stuck his head into 
 the opening, and peered upward. 
 
 " Kinks m his nut, kinks in his nut ! " Connie Myers was 
 muttering. " I ll drop the bar through from the top, mabbe 
 there s some got stuck in the pipe." 
 
 He regained his feet, picked up the bar, and ran with it 
 into what was evidently the front hall then his steps 
 sounded running upstairs. 
 
 Like a flash, Jimmie Dale was across the room and at 
 the fireplace. Like Connie Myers, he, too, put his head into 
 the opening ; and then, a queer, unpleasant smile on his lips, 
 he bent quickly over the man on the floor. Hagan was no 
 more than stunned, and was even then beginning to show 
 signs of returning consciousess. There was a rattle, a clang, 
 a thud and the bar, too long to come all the way through, 
 dropped into the opening and stood upright. Connie Myers* 
 footsteps sounded again, returning on the run and Jimmie 
 Dale was back once more on the other side of the kitchen 
 doorway. 
 
 It was all simple enough once one understood ! The 
 same queer smile was still flickering on Jimmie Dale s lips. 
 There was no way to get the money out, except the way 
 Connie Myers had got it out by digging it out ! With the 
 irrational cunning of his mad brain, that had put the money 
 even beyond his own reach, old Doyle had built his fireplace 
 with a hollow some eighteen inches square in a great walJ of 
 solid stonework, and from it had run a two-inch pipe up 
 somewhere to the story above ; and down this pipe he had 
 dropped his little string-tied cylinders of banknotes, satisfied 
 that his hoard was safe ! There seemed something pitfully 
 ironic in the elaborate, insane craftiness of the old man s 
 fear-twisted, demented mind.
 
 804 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 And now Connie Myers was back in the room again 
 
 and again a puzzled expressiDn settled upon Jimmie Dale s 
 
 ace as he watched the other. For perhaps a minute the 
 
 mi stood by the table sifting the little rolls of money 
 
 through his fingers gloatingly then, impulsively, he pushed 
 
 hese to one side, produced a revolver, laid it on the table, 
 
 .nd from another pocket took out a little case which, as he 
 
 opened it, Jimmie Dale could see contained a hypodermic 
 
 syringe. One more article followed the other two a letter, 
 
 which Connie Myers took out of an unsealed envelope. 
 
 He dropped this suddenly on the table, as Mike Hagan, 
 
 three feet away on the floor, groaned and sat up. 
 
 Hagan s eyes swept, bewildered, confused, around him, 
 questioningly at Connie Myers and then, resting suddenly 
 on his bound wrists, they narrowed menacingly. 
 
 " Damn you, you smashed me with that sledge on pur" 
 pose!" he burst out and began to struggle to his feet. 
 
 With a brutal chuckle, Connie Myers pushed Hagan back, 
 and shoved his revolver under the other s nose. 
 
 " Sure ! " he admitted evenly. " And you keep quiet, or 
 I ll finish you now instead of letting the police do it ! " 
 He laughed out jarringly. " You re under arrest, you know, 
 for the murder of Luther Doyle, and for robbing the poor 
 old nut of his savings in his house here." 
 
 Hagan wrenched himself up on his elbow. 
 
 " What what do you mean ? " he stammered. 
 
 " Oh, don t worry ! " said Connie Myers maliciously. " I m 
 not making the arrest, I d rather the police did that. I m 
 not mixing up in it, and by and by " he lifted up the 
 hypodermic for Hagan to see " I m going to shoot a little 
 dope into you that ll keep you quiet while I get away my* 
 self." 
 
 Hagan s face had gone a grayish white he had caught 
 sight of the money on the table, and his eyes kept shifting 
 back and forth from it to Myers face. 
 
 " Murder ! " he said huskily. " There is no murder. I 
 don t know who Doyle is. You said this house was yours 
 you hired me to come here. You said you were going to
 
 THE STOOL-PIGEON 303 
 
 tear down the fireplace and build another. You said I could 
 work evenings and earn some extra money." 
 
 " Sure, I did ! " There was a vicious leer now on Connie 
 Myers lips. " But you don t think I picked you out by 
 accident, do you? Your reputation, my bucko, was just 
 shady enough to satisfy anybody that it wouldn t be beyond 
 you to go the limit. Sure, you murdered Doyle 1 Listen to 
 this." He took up the letter: 
 
 " To THE POLICE : Luther Doyle was murdered this even 
 ing in the tenement at 67 Street. You ll find his body 
 
 in a room on the second floor. If you want to know who 
 did it, look in Mike Hagan s room on the floor above. 
 There s a paper stuck under the edge of Hagan s table with 
 a piece of chewing gum, where he hid it. You ll know what 
 it is when you go out and take a look at Doyle s house in 
 Pelham. Yours truly, A FRIEND." 
 
 Mike Hagan did not speak his lips were twitching, and 
 there was horror creeping into his eyes. 
 
 " D ye get me ! " sneered Connie Myers. " Tell your story 
 who d believe it ! I got you cinched. Twice I tried to get 
 this old dub s coin out here, and couldn t find it. But the 
 second time I found something else a piece of paper with 
 a drawing of the fireplace o. it, and a pLce in the drawing 
 marked with an X. That was good enough, wasn t it? 
 That s the paper I stuck under your table this afternoon 
 when your wife was out see? Somebody s got to stand 
 for the job, and if it s somebody else it won t be me get 
 me ! When 1 had a look at that fireplace I knew I couldn t 
 do the job alone in a week, and I didn t dare blast it with 
 soup for fear of spoiling what was inside. And since I 
 had to have somebody to help me, 1 thought I might as well 
 let him help me all the way through and stand for it. I 
 picked you, Mike that s why I croaked olv^ Doyle in your 
 tenement to-night. I wrote this letter while 1 was waiting 
 lor you to show up at the station to ccme out here with me, 
 ind I m going to see that the police get it in the next hour.
 
 306 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 When they find Doyle in the room below yours, and that 
 paper in your room, and the busted fireplace here I guess 
 they won t look any farther for who did it. And say " he 
 leaned forward with an ugly grin " mabbe you think I m 
 soft to be telling you all this? But don t you fool your 
 self. You don t know me you don t know who I am. So 
 tell em the truth! They won t believe you anyway with 
 evidence like that against you and the neater the story the 
 more they ll think it shows brains enough on your part to 
 have pulled a job like this ! " 
 
 " My God ! " Hagan was rocking on his knees, beads of 
 sweat were starting out on his forehead. " You wouldn t 
 plant a man like that ! " he cried brokenly. " You wouldn t 
 do it, would you ? My God you wouldn t do that ! " 
 
 Jimmie Dale s face under his mask was white and rigid. 
 There was something primal, elemental in the savagery that 
 was sweeping upon him. He had it all now all! She 
 had been right there was need to-night for the Gray Seal 
 So that was the game, inhuman, hellish, the whole of it, to 
 the last filthy dregs Connie Myers, to protect himself, was 
 railroading an innocent man to death for the crime that he 
 himself had committed ! There was a cold smile on Jimmie 
 Dale s lips now, as he took his automatic from his pocket. 
 No, it wasn t quite all the game there was still his hand to 
 play! He edged forward a little nearer to the door and 
 halted abruptly, listening. An automobile had stopped out 
 side on the road. Hagan was still pleading in a frenzied 
 way ; Connie Myers was callously folding his letter, while 
 he watched the other warily neither of the men had heard 
 the sound. 
 
 And then, quick, almost on the instant, came a rush of 
 feet, a crash upon the front door an imperative command 
 to open in the name of the law. The police! Jimmie Dale s 
 brain was working now with lightning speed. Somehow 
 the police had scumbled upon the crime in that tenement ; 
 and, as he had foreseen in such an event, had identified 
 Doyle. But they could not be sure that any one was present 
 here in the house now they could not see a light any more
 
 THE STOOL-PIGEON 307 
 
 than he had. He must get Mike Hagan away must see that 
 Connie Myers did not get away. Myers was on his feet now. 
 fear struck in his turn, the letter clutched in a tight-closed 
 fist, his revolver swung out, poised, in the other hand- 
 Hagan, too, was on his feet, and, unheeded now by Connie 
 Myers, was wrenching his wrists apart. 
 
 Another crash upon the door another. Another demand 
 in a harsh voice to open it. Then some one running around 
 to the window at the side of the house and Jimmie Dale 
 sprang forward. 
 
 There was the roar of a report, a blinding flash almost in, 
 Jimmie Dale s eyes, as Connie Myers, whirling instantly at 
 his entrance, fired and missed. It happened quick then, 
 in the space of the ticking of a watch before Jimmie Dale, 
 flinging himself forward, had reached the man. Like a 
 defiant challenge to their demand it must have seemed to the 
 officers outside, that shot of Connie Myers at Jimmie Dale, 
 for it was answered on the instant by another through the 
 side window. And the shot, fired at random, the interior of 
 the room hidden from the officers outside by the drawn 
 shades, found its mark and Connie Myers, a bullet in his 
 brain, pitched forward, dead, upon the floor. 
 
 " Quick! " Jimmie Dale flung at Hagan. " Get that letter 
 out of his hand ! " He jumped for the lamp on the floor, 
 extinguished it, and turned again toward Hagan. " Have 
 you got it ? " he whispered tensely. 
 
 " Yes," said Hagan, in a numbed way. 
 
 " This way, then ! " Jimmie Dale caught Hagan s arm, and 
 pulled the other across the room and into the kitchen to the 
 trapdoor. " Quick ! " he breathed again. " Get down there 
 quick ! And no noise ! They don t know how many are 
 in the house. When they find him they ll probably be 
 satisfied." 
 
 Hagan, stupefied, dazed, obeyed mechanically and, in an 
 instant, the trapdoor closed behind them, Jimmie Dale was 
 standing beside the other in the cellar. 
 
 " Not a sound now ! " he cautioned once more. 
 
 His flashlight winked, went out, winked again; then held
 
 808 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 steadily, in curious fascination it seemed, as, in its circuit; 
 the ray fell upon Hagan fell upon the torn, ragged edge of 
 a paper in Hagan s hand! With a suppressed cry, Jimmie 
 Dale snatched it away from the other. It was but a torn 
 half of the letter! "The other half! The other half, 
 Hagan where is it ? " he demanded hoarsely. 
 
 Hagan, almost in a state of collapse, muttered inaudibly. 
 The crash of a toppling door sounded from above. Jimmie 
 Dale shook the man desperately. 
 
 " Where is it ? " he repeated fiercely. 
 
 " He he was holding it tight, it it tore in his hand,"* 
 Hagan stammered. " Does it make any difference ? Oh, 
 let s get out of here, whoever you are for God s sake let s 
 get out of here ! " 
 
 Any difference! Jimmie Dale s jaws were clamped like 
 a steel vise. Any difference! The difference between life 
 and death for the man beside him that was all! He was 
 reading the portion in his hand. It was the last part of the 
 letter, beginning with : " There s a paper stuck under the 
 
 edge of Haq-an s table " From above, from the floor of 
 
 the front room now, came the rush and trample of feet. He 
 could not go back for the other half. And any attempt to 
 conceal the fact that Connie Myers had been alone in the 
 house was futile now. They would find the torn letter 
 in the dead man s hand, proof enough that some one else 
 had been there. What was in that part of the letter that was 
 still clutched in that death grip upstairs ? A sentence from it, 
 that he had heard Connie Myers read, seemed to burn itself 
 into his brain. " If you want to know who did it, look in 
 Mike Hagan s room on the floor above." And then, sud 
 denly, like light through the darkness, came a ray of hope. 
 He pulled Hagan to the cellarway, and stealthily lifted one 
 side of the double trapdoor. There was a chance, desperate 
 enough, one in a thousand but still a chance ! 
 
 Voices from the house came plainly now, but there was 
 no one in sight. The police, to a man, were evidently alii 
 inside. From the road in front showed the lamp glare of 
 Jheir automobile.
 
 THE STOOL-PIGEON 309 
 
 ** Run for the car ! " Jimmie Dale jerked out from be 
 tween set teeth and with Hagan beside him, steadying the 
 man by the arm, dashed across the intervening fifty yards. 
 
 They had not been seen. A minute more, and the car, 
 evidently belonging to the local police, for it was headed in 
 the direction of New York, and as though it had come from 
 Pelham, swept down the road, swept around a turn, and 
 Jimmie Dale, with a gasp of relief, straightened up a little 
 from the wheel. 
 
 How much time had he ? The police must have heard the 
 car ; but, equally, occupied as they were, they might well give 
 it no thought other than that it was but another car passing 
 by. There was no telephone in the house ; the nearest house 
 was a quarter of a mile away, and that might or might not 
 have a telephone. Could he count on half an hour? He 
 glanced anxiously at the crouched figure beside him. He 
 would have to! It was the only chance. They would tele 
 phone the contents of the dead man s half of the letter to the 
 New York police. Could he get to Hagan s room first! 
 * Look in Hagan s room," their part of the letter read but 
 it did rot say for what, or exactly where! If they found 
 nothing, Hagan was safe. Connie Myers reputation, the fact 
 that he was found in disguise at Doyle s house, was, barring 
 any incriminating evidence, quite enough to let Hagan out. 
 There would only remain in the minds of the police the ques 
 tion of who, beside Connie Myers, had been in old Doyle s 
 house that night? And now Jimmie Dale smiled a little 
 whimsically. Well, perhaps he could answer that and, if 
 not quite to the satisfaction of the police, at least to the com 
 plete vindication of Mike Hagan. 
 
 But he could not drive through towns and villages with a 
 mask on his face; and there, ahead now, lights were be 
 ginning to show. And more than ever now, with what was 
 before him, it was imperative that Mike Hagan should not 
 recognise Larry the Bat. Jimmie Dale glanced again at 
 Hagan and slowed down the car. They were on the out 
 skirts of a town, and off to the right he caught the twinkling 
 lights of a street car
 
 810 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 " Hagan," he said sharply, " pull yourself together, and 
 listen to me! If you keep your mouth shut, you ve nothing 
 to fear; if you let out a word of what s happened to-night, 
 you ll probably go to the chair for a crime you know noth 
 ing about. Do you understand ? keep your mouth shut ! ** 
 
 The car had stopped. Hagan nodded his head. 
 
 " All right, then. You get out here, and take a street car 
 into New York," continued Jimmie Dale crisply. " But 
 when you get there, keep away from your home for the next 
 two or three hours. Hang around with some of the boys 
 you know, and if you re asked anything afterward, say you 
 were batting around town all evening. Don t worry you ll 
 find you re out of this when you read the morning papers. 
 Now get out hurry ! " He pushed Hagan from the car. 
 " I ve got to make my own get-away." 
 
 Hagan, standing in the road, brushed his hand bewilder- 
 ingly across his eyes. 
 
 " Yes but you I " 
 
 " Never mind about that ! " Jimmie Dale leaned out, and 
 gripped Hagan s arm impressively. " There s only one thing 
 you ve got to think of, or remember. Keep your mouth shut t 
 No matter what happens, keep your mouth shut if you 
 want to save your neck ! Good-night, Hagan ! " 
 
 The car was racing forward again. It shot streaking 
 through the streets of the town ahead, and, dully, over iti 
 own inferno, echoed shouts, cries, and execrations of an out 
 raged populace then out into the night again, roaring its 
 way toward New York. 
 
 He had half an hour perhaps! It was a good thing 
 Hagan did not know, or had not grasped the significance of 
 that torn letter the man would have been unmanageable 
 with fear and excitement. It would puzzle Hagan to find 
 no paper stuck under his table when he came to look for it! 
 But that was a minor consideration, that mattered not at alt 
 
 Half an hour! On roared the car towns, black roads, 
 villages, wooded lands were kaleidoscopic in their passing. 
 Half an hour! Had he done it? Had he come anywhere 
 near doing it? He did not know. He was in the city at
 
 THE STOOL-PIGEON 311 
 
 last and now he had to moderate his speed ; but, by keeping 
 to the less frequented streets, he could still drive at a fast 
 pace. One piece of good fortune had been his the long 
 motor coat he had found in the car with which to cover the 
 rags of Larry the Bat, and without which he would have 
 been obliged to leave the car somewhere on the outskirts of 
 the city, and to trust, like Mike Hagan, to other and slower 
 means of transportation. 
 
 Blocks away from Hagan s tenement, he ran the car into 
 a lane, slipped off the motor coat, and from his pocket 
 whipped out the little metal insignia case and in another 
 moment a diamond-shaped gray seal was neatly affixed to 
 the black ebony rim of the steering wheel. He smiled 
 fronically. It was necessary, quite necessary that the police 
 should have no doubt as to who had been in Doyle s house 
 with Connie Myers that night, or to whom they had so 
 considerately loaned their automobile ! 
 
 He was running now through lanes, dodging down side 
 streets, taking every short cut he knew. Had he beaten the 
 police to Mike Hagan s room? It would be easy then. If 
 they were ahead of him, then, by some means or other, 
 he must still get that paper first. 
 
 He was at the tenement now shuffling leisurely up the 
 steps. The front door was open. He entered, and went 
 tip the first flight of stairs, then along the hall, and up the 
 next flight. He had half expected the place to be bustling 
 with excitement over the crime ; but the police evidently had 
 kept the affair quiet, for he had seen no one since he had 
 entered. But now, as he began to mount the third flight, he 
 went more slowly some one was ahead of him. It was very 
 dark he could not see. The steps above died away. He 
 reached the landing, started along for Hagan s room and 
 a light blazed suddenly in his face, and a hard, quick grip on 
 his shoulder forced him back against the wall. Then the 
 flashlight wavered, glistened on brass buttons,, went out 
 and a voice laughed roughly: 
 
 * It s only Larry the Bat 1"
 
 312 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 " Larry the Bat, eh ? " It was another voice, harsh an<f 
 curt. " What are you doing here ? " 
 
 He was not first, after all ! The telephone message from 
 Pelham it was almost certainly that had beaten him! 
 They were ahead of him, just ahead of him, they had only 
 been a few steps ahead of him going up the stairs, just a 
 second ahead of him on their way to Hagan s room ! Jimmic 
 Dale was thinking fast now. He must go, too to Hagan s 
 room with them somehow there was no other way there 
 was Hagan s life at stake. 
 
 " Aw, I ain t done nothin ! " he whined. " I was just goin 
 ter borrow the price of a feed from Mike Hagan lemme 
 go!" 
 
 " HagarL ^ 1 " snapped the questioner. " Are you a friend 
 of his" 
 
 " Sure. 1 am ( x 
 
 The officers whispered tor a mocr^n* together. 
 
 " We ll try it," decided the one who appeared to be m 
 command. " We re in the dark, anyhow, and the t!;:nf IVAV 
 be only a steer. Mabbe it ll work anyway, it won t do any 
 harm." His hand fell heavily on Jimmie Dale s shoulder. 
 " Mrs. Hassan know you?" brusquely. 
 
 " Sure she does ! " sniffled Larry the Bat. 
 
 " Good ! " rasped the officer. " Well, we ll make the visit 
 with you. And you do what you re told, or we ll put the 
 screws on you see? We re after something here, and 
 you ve blown the whole game savvy? You ve spilled the 
 gravy understand ? " 
 
 In the darkness, Jimmie Dale smiled grimly. It was far 
 more than he had dared to hope for they were playing 
 into his hands ! 
 
 " But I don t know bout any game," grovelled Larry the 
 Bat piteously. 
 
 " Who in hell said you did ! " growled the officer. " You re 
 supposed to have snitched the lay to us, that s all and mind 
 you play your part ! Come on ! " 
 
 It was two doors down the hall to Mike Hagan s room, 
 and there one of the officers, putting his shoulder to the
 
 THE STOOL-PIGEON 313 
 
 aoor, burst it open and sprang- in. The other shoved Jimmie 
 Dale forward. It was quickly done. The three were in the 
 room. The door was closed again. 
 
 Came a cry of terror out of the darkness, a movement as 
 of some one rising up hurriedly in bed; and then Mrs, 
 Hagan s voice: 
 
 " What is it ! Who is it ! Mike ! " 
 
 The table it was against the right-hand wall, Jimmie Dale 
 remembered. He sidled quickly toward it. 
 
 " Strike a light ! " ordered the officer in charge. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s fingers were feeling under the edge of the 
 table a quick sweep along it nothing! He stooped, reach 
 ing farther in another sweep of his arm and his ringers 
 closed on a sheet of paper and a piece of hard gum. In an 
 instant they were in his pocket. 
 
 A match crackled and flared up. A lamp was lighted. 
 Larry the Bat sulked sullenly against the wall. 
 
 Terror-stricken, wide-eyed, Mrs. Hagan had clutched the 
 child lying beside her to her arms, and was sitting bolt up 
 right in bed. 
 
 " Now then, no fuss about it ! " said the officer in charge, 
 with brutal directness. " You might as well make a clean 
 breast of Mike s share in that murder downstairs Larry the 
 Bat, here, has already told us the whole story. Come on, 
 now out with it ! " 
 
 "Murder!" her face went white. "My Mike 
 murder!" She seemed for an instant stunned and then 
 down the worn, thin, haggard face gushed the tears. " I 
 don t believe it ! " she cried. " I don t believe it ! " 
 
 " Come on now, cut that out ! " prodded the officer roughly, 
 * I tell you Larry the Bat, here, has opened everything up 
 wide. You re only making it worse for yourself." 
 
 " Him ! " She was staring now at Jimmie Dale. " Oh, 
 God ! " she cried. " So that s what you are, are you a 
 stool-pigeon for the cops? Well, whatever ycu told them, 
 you lie! You re, the curse of this neighbourhood, you are, 
 and if my Mike is bad at all, it s you that s helped to make 
 him bad. But murder you lie I "
 
 8U THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 She had risen slowly from the bed a gaunt, pitiful figure, 
 pitifully clothed, the black hair, gray-streaked, streaming 
 thinly over her shoulders, still clutching the baby that, too> 
 was crying now. 
 
 The officers looked at one another and nodded. 
 
 " Guess she s handing it straight we ll have a look on our 
 own hook," the leader muttered. 
 
 She paid no attention to them she was walking straight 
 to Jimmie Dale. 
 
 " It s you, is it," she whispered fiercely through her sobs, 
 " that would bring more shame and ruin here you that s 
 selling my man s life away with your filthy lies for what 
 
 they re paying you it s you, is it, that " Her voice 
 
 broke. 
 
 There was a frightened, uneasy look in I -any the Bat s 
 eyes, his lips were twitching weakly, he drew far back 
 against the wall and then, glancing miserably at the officers, 
 as though entreating their permission, began to edge toward 
 the door. 
 
 For a moment she watched him, her face white with out 
 rage, her hand clenched at her side and then she found her 
 voice again. 
 
 " Get out of here ! " she said, in a choked, strained way 
 pointing to the door, " Get out of here you dirty skate ! * 
 
 " ^ure !" mumbled Larry the Bat, his eyes on the floor, 
 "* Surel " he mumbled and the door closed behind him.
 
 PART TWO: THE WOMAN IN THE CASE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 BELOW THE DEAD LINE 
 
 TlfHISPERINGS ! Always whisperings, low, sibilant, 
 floating errantly from all sides, until they seemed a 
 component part of the drug-laden atmosphere itself. And 
 occasionally another sound: the soft slap-slap of loose- 
 slippered feet, the faint rustle of equally loose-fitting gar 
 ments. And everywhere the sweet, sickish smell of opium. 
 It was Chang Foo s, simply a cellar or two deeper in Chang 
 Foo s than that in which Dago Jim had quarrelled once 
 and died ! 
 
 Larry the Bat, vicious-faced, unkempt, disreputable, lay 
 sprawled out on one of the dive s bunks, an opium pipe be 
 side him. But Larry the Bat was not smoking ; instead, his 
 ear was pressed closely against the boarding that formed the 
 rather flimsy partition at the side of the bunk. One heard 
 many things in Chang Foo s if one cared to listen if one 
 could first win one s way through the carefully guarded 
 gateway, that to the uninitiated offered nothing more in 
 teresting than the entrance to a Chinese tea-shop, and an 
 uninviting one at that! 
 
 Had he been followed in here? He had been shadowed 
 for the last hour; of that, at least, he was certain. Why? 
 By whom ? For an hour he had dodged in and out through 
 the dens of the underworld, as only one who was at home 
 there and known to all could do and at last he had taken 
 refuge in Chang Foo s like a fox burrowing deep into its 
 hole. 
 
 315
 
 316 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 Few could find their way into the most infamous opium 
 den in all New York, where not only the poppy ruled as 
 master, but where crime was hatched, ay, and carried to its 
 ghastly consummation, sometimes, as well ; and of those few, 
 not one but was of the underworld itself. And it was that 
 fact which held his muscles strained and rigid now under 
 the miserable rags that covered them, and it was that which 
 kept the keen, quick brain alert and active, every faculty 
 keyed up and tense. If it were the police, he had little to 
 fear, for they could not force their way in without warning r 
 but if it were the underworld, he was in imminent peril, and 
 had done little better than run himself into a trap from which 
 there was no escape. 
 
 " Death to the Gray Seal!" he had heard that whispered 
 more than once in this very place. Who knew at what 
 moment the role of Larry the Bat would be uncovered, and 
 the underworld, where now he held so high a place, would 
 be at his throat like a pack of snarling wolves! Who had 
 been shadowing him during the last hour? 
 
 Whisperings! Nothing tangible! He could catch no 
 words. Only the never-ending whisperings of gathered 
 groups here and there and sometimes the clink of coin 
 where some game was in progress. 
 
 The curtain before his bunk was drawn suddenly aside i 
 and Larry the Bat s fingers, where his hand was carelessly 
 hidden by his body, tightened upon his automatic. 
 
 " Smokee some more ? " 
 
 The fingers relaxed. It was only Sam Wah, one of the 
 attendants. 
 
 " Nix ! " said Larry the Bat, in a slightly muddled tone. 
 u Got enough." 
 
 The curtain fell into place again. Larry the Bat s lips set 
 in a thin smile. Ultimately it made little difference whether 
 it was the police or the underworld ! The smile grew thinner. 
 It was the flip of a coin, that was all ! With one there was 
 the death house at Sing Sing for the Gray Seal ; with the 
 other well, there were many ways, from a shot or a knife 
 thrust in the open street, to his murder in some hidden dive
 
 BELOW THE DEAD LINE 817 
 
 like this of Chang Foo s, for instance, where he now was 
 the Gray Seal was responsible for the occupancy of too 
 many penitentiary cells by those of the underworld to look 
 for any other fate ! 
 
 He raised himself up sharply on his elbow. A shrill, high 
 note, like the scream of a parrakeet, rang out a second time, 
 He tore the curtain aside, and jumped to his feet. All 
 around him, in the twinkling of an eye, Chinamen in flutter 
 ing blouses, chattering like magpies, mingled with snarling, 
 cursing whites, were running madly. A voice, prefaced with 
 an oath, bawled out behind him, as he sprang forward and 
 joined the rush : 
 
 " Beat it ! De cops ! Beat it ! " 
 
 The police! A raid! Was it for him? From rooms, an 
 amazing number of them, more forms rushed out, joined; 
 divided, separated, and dashed, some this way, some that, 
 along branching passageways. There had been raids before, 
 the police had begun to change their minds about Chang 
 Foo s, but Chang Foo s was not an easy place to raid. House 
 after house in that quarter of Chinese laundries, of tea 
 shops, of chop-suey joints, opened one into the other through 
 secret passages in the cellars. Larry the Bat plunged down 
 a staircase, and halted in the darkness of a cellar, drawing 
 back against the wall while the flying feet of his fellow 
 fugitives scurried by him. 
 
 Was it for him, this raid? If not, the police had not a 
 hope of getting him if he kept hie head ; for back in Chang 
 Foo s proper, which would be quite closed off now, Chang 
 Foo would be blandly submitting to arrest, offering himself 
 as a sort of glorified sacrifice while the police confiscated 
 opium and fan-tan layouts. If the police had no other pur 
 pose than that in mind, Chang Foo would simply pay a fine ; 
 the next night the place would be in full blast again ; and 
 Chang Foo, higher than ever in the confidence of the under 
 world s aristocracy, would reap his reward and that would 
 be all there was to it. 
 
 But was that all? The raid had followed significantly 
 close upon the heels of his entry into Chang Foo s. Larry
 
 318 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 the Bat began to move forward again. He dared not follow 
 the others, and, later on, when quiet was restored, issue out 
 into the street from any one of the various houses in which 
 he might temporarily have taken refuge. There was a 
 chance in that, a chance that the police might be more 
 zealous than usual, even if he particularly was not their 
 game and he could take no chance. Arrest for Larry the 
 Bat, even on suspicion, could have but one conclusion not 
 a pleasant one the disclosure that Larry the Bat was not 
 Larry the Bat at all, but Jimmie Dale, the millionaire club 
 man, and, to complete a fatal triplication, that Larry the 
 Bat and Jimmie Dale was the Gray Seal upon whose head 
 was fixed a price! 
 
 All was silence around him now, except that from over 
 head came occasionally the muffled tread of feet. He felt 
 his way along into a black, narrow passage, emerged into a 
 second cellar, swept the place with a single, circling gleam 
 from a pocket flashlight, passed a stairway that led upward, 
 reached the opposite wall, and, dropping on hands and knees, 
 crawled into what, innocently enough, appeared to be the 
 opening of a coal bin. 
 
 He knew Chang Foo s well as he knew the ins and outs 
 of every den and place he frequented, knew them as a man 
 knows such things when his life at any moment might hang 
 upon his knowledge. 
 
 He was in another passage now, and this, in a few steps, 
 brought him to a door. Here he halted, and stood for a 
 full five minutes, absolutely motionless, absolutely still, 
 listening. There was nothing not a sound. He tried the 
 door cautiously. It was locked. The slim, sensitive, taper 
 ing fingers of Jimmie Dale, unrecognisable now in the grimy 
 digits of Larry the Bat, felt tentatively over the lock. To 
 fingers that seemed in their tips to possess all the human 
 senses, that time and again in their delicate touch upon the 
 dial of a safe had mocked at human ingenuity and driven 
 the police into impotent frenzy, this was a pitiful thing. 
 From his pocket came a small steel instrument that was 
 quickly and deftly inserted in the keyhole. There was %
 
 BELOW THE DEAD LINE 319 
 
 click, the door swung open, and Jimmie Dale, alias Larry 
 the Bat, stepped outside into a back yard half a block away 
 from the entrance to Chang Foo s. 
 
 Again he listened. There did not appear to be any un- 
 usual excitement in the neighbourhood. From open win-* 
 dows above him and from adjoining houses came the 
 ordinary, commonplace sounds of voices talking and laugh 
 ing, even the queer, weird notes of a Chinese chant. Hs 
 stole noiselessly across the yard, out into the lane, and made 
 his way rapidly along to the cross street. 
 
 In a measure, now, he was safe; but one thing, a very 
 vital thing, remained to be done It was absolutely necessary 
 that he should know whether he was the quarry that ths 
 police had been after in the raid, if it was the police who had 
 been shadowing him all evening. If it was the police, there 
 was but one meaning to it Larry the Bat was known to 
 be the Gray Seal, and a problem perilous enough in any aspect 
 confronted him. Dare he risk the Sanctuary for the 
 clothes of Jimmie Dale? Or was it safer to burglarise, as 
 he had once done before, his own mansion on Riverside 
 Drive ? 
 
 His thoughts were running riot, and he frowned, angry 
 with himself. There was time enough to think of that 
 when he knew that it was the police against whom he had 
 to match his wits. 
 
 Well in the shadow of the buildings, he moved swiftly 
 along the side street until he came to the corner of the 
 street on which, halfway down the block, fronted Chang 
 Foo s tea-shop. A glance in that direction, and Jimmie 
 Dale drew a breath of relief. A patrol wagon was backed 
 up to the curb, and a half dozen officers were busy loading 
 it with what was evidently Chang Foo s far from meagre 
 stock of gambling appurtenances ; while Chang Foo him 
 self, together with Sam Wah and another attendant, were ii? 
 the grip of two other officers, waiting possibly for another 
 patrol wagon. There was a crowd, too, but the crowd was 
 at a respectful distance on the opposite side of the street. 
 
 Jimmie Dale still hugged the corner. A man swaggered
 
 820 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 out from a doorway, quite close to Chang Foo s, and came 
 on along the street. As the other reached the corner, 
 Jimmie Dale sidled forward. 
 
 " Ello, Chick ! " he said, out of the corner of his mouth. 
 "Wot sde lay?" 
 
 " Ello, Larry ! " returned the other. " Aw, nuthin ! De 
 nutcracker on Chang, dat s all." 
 
 " I t ought mabbe dey was lookin* for some guy dat was 
 in dere," observed Jimmie Dale. 
 
 " Nuthin doin ! " the other answered. " I was in dere 
 meself. De whole mob beat it clean, an de bulls never 
 batted an eye. Didn t youse pipe me make me get-away 
 outer Shanghai s a minute ago? De bulls never went 
 nowhere except into Chang s. Dere s a new lootenant in de 
 precinct inaugeratin himself, dat s all. S long, Larry I 
 gotta date." 
 
 " S long, Chick ! " responded Jimmie Dale and started 
 slowly back along the cross street. 
 
 It was not the police, then, who were interested in his 
 movements! Then who? He shook his head with a little, 
 savage, impotent gesture. One thing was clear: it was too 
 early to risk a return to the Sanctuary and attempt the 
 rehabilitation of Jimmie Dale. If any one was on the hunt 
 for Larry the Bat, the Sanctuary would be the last place to 
 be overlooked. 
 
 He turned the next corner, hesitated a moment in front of 
 a garishly lighted dance hall, and finally shuffled in through 
 the door, made his way across the floor, nodding here and 
 there to the elite of gangland, and, with a somewhat arrogant 
 air of proprietorship, sat down at a table in the corner. 
 Little better than a tramp in appearance, certainly the most 
 disreputable-looking object in the place, even the waiter who 
 approached him accorded him a certain curious deference 
 was not Larry the Bat the most celebrated dope fiend be 
 low the dead line? 
 
 " Gimme a mug o suds ! " ordered Jimmie Dale, and 
 spra wled royally back in his chair. 
 
 Under the rim of his sloacb. h*k Billed now far over his
 
 BELOW THE DEAD LINE 321 
 
 eyes, he searched the faces around him. If he had been 
 asked io pick the actors for a revel from the scum of the 
 underworld, he could not have improved upon the gather 
 ing. There were perhaps a hundred men and women in the 
 room, the majority dancing, and, with the exception of a 
 few sight-seeing slummers, they were men and women whose 
 acquaintance with the police was intimate but not cordial 
 far from cordial. 
 
 Jimmie Dale shrugged his shoulders, and sipped at the 
 glass that had been set before him. It was grimly ii ^nic that 
 he should be, not only there, but actually a factor and a part 
 of the underworld s intimate life! He, Jimmie Dale, a 
 wealthy man, a member of New York s exclusive clubs, a 
 member of New York s most exclusive society! It was 
 inconceivable. He smiled sardonically. Was it? Well, 
 then, it was none the less true. His life unquestionably was 
 one unique, apart from any other man s, but it was, for all 
 that, actual and real. 
 
 There had been three years of it now since she had 
 come into his life. Jimmie Dale slouched down a little in 
 his chair. The ice was thin, perilously thin, that he was 
 skating on now. Each letter, with its demand upon him to 
 match his wits . .gainst police or underworld, or against both 
 combined, perhaps, made that peril a little greater, a little 
 more imminent if that were possible, when already his 
 life was almost literally carried, daily, hourly, in his hand. 
 Not that he rebelled against it ; it was worth the price that 
 some day he expected he must pay the price of honour, 
 wealth, a name disgraced, ruin, death. Was he quixotic? 
 Immoderately so? He smiled gravely. Perhaps. But he 
 would do it all over again if the choice were his. There 
 were those who blessed the name of the Gray Seal, as well 
 as those who cursed it. And there was the Tocsin ! 
 
 Who was she? He did not know, but he knew that he 
 had come to love her, come to care for her, and that she had 
 come to mean everything in life to him. He had never seen 
 her, to know her face. He had never seen her face, but he 
 knew her voice ay, he had even held her for a moment
 
 822 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 the moment of wildest happiness he had ever known, in his 
 arms. That night when he had entered his library, his own 
 particular den in his own house, and in the darkness had 
 found her there found her finally through no effort of his 
 own, when he had searched so fruitlessly for years to find 
 her, using every resource at his command to find her ! And 
 she, because she had come of her own volition, relying upon 
 him, had held him in honour to let her go as she had come 
 without looking upon her face! Exquisite irony! But she 
 had made him a promise then that the work of the Gray 
 Seal was nearly over that soon there would be an end to 
 the mystery that surrounded her that he should know all 
 that he should know her. 
 
 He smiled again, but it was a twisted smile on the me 
 chanically misshapen lips of Larry the Bat. Nearly over! 
 Who knew ? That " nearly " might be too late ! Even to 
 night he had been shadowed, was skulking even now in 
 this place as a refuge. Who knew? Another hour, and 
 the newsboys might be shrieking their " Uxtra ! Uxtra ! 
 De Gray Seal caught ! De millionaire Jimmie Dale de Jekyli 
 an Hyde of real life ! " 
 
 Jimmie Dale straightened up suddenly in his seat. There 
 was a shout, an oath bawled out high above the riot of 
 noise, a chorus of feminine shrieks from across the room. 
 What was the matter with the underworld to-night? He 
 seemed fated to find nothing but centres of disturbance - 
 first a raid at Chang Foo s, and now this. What was the 
 matter here? They were stampeding toward him from the 
 other side of the room. Tviere was the roar of a revolver 
 shot another. Black Ike ! He caught an instant s glimpse 
 of the gunman s distorted face through the crowd. That 
 was it probably a row over some moll. 
 
 And then, as Jimmie Dale lunged up from his chair to his 
 feet to escape the rush, pandemonium itself seemed to break 
 loose. Yells, shots, screams, and oaths filled the air. The 
 crowd surged this way and that. Tables were overturned 
 and sent crashing to the floor. And then came sudden dark-
 
 BELOW THE DEAD LINE 323 
 
 Bess, as some one of the attendants in misguided excitability 
 switched off the lights. 
 
 The darkness but served to increase the panic, not allay 
 it. With a savage snap of his jaws, Jimmie Dale swung 
 from his table in the corner with the intention of making 
 his way out by a side door behind him it was a case of 
 the police again, and the patrolman outside would probably 
 
 be pulling a riot call by now. And the police He 
 
 stopped suddenly, as though he had been struck. An en 
 velope, thrust there out of the darkness, was in his hand; 
 and her voice, hers, the Tocsin s, was sounding in his ears : 
 
 " Jimmie ! Jimmie ! I ve been trying all evening to catch 
 you ! Quick ! Get to the Sanctuary and change your clothes. 
 There s not an instant to lose ! It s for my sake to-night ! * 
 
 And then a surging mob was around him on every side, 
 and, pushing, jostling, half lifting him at times from his 
 feet, carried him forward with its rush, and with him if) 
 its midst burst through the door and out into the street
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE CALL TO ARMS 
 
 JVT OT a sound as the key turned in the lock ; not a sound 
 as the door swung back on its carefully oiled hinges ; 
 not a sound as Larry the Bat slipped like a shadow into the 
 blackness of the room, closing the door behind him again. 
 With a tread as noiseless as a cat s, he was across the room 
 to satisfy himself that the shutters were tightly closed ; and 
 then the single gas jet flared up, murky, yellow, illumina 
 ting the miserable, squalid room the Sanctuary the home 
 of Larry the Bat. There was need for silence, need for cau 
 tion. In five minutes, ten at the outside, he must emerge 
 again as Jimmie Dale. 
 
 With a smile on his lips that mingled curiously chagrin 
 and self-commiseration, he took the letter from his pocket 
 and tore it open. It was she, then, who had been following 1 
 him all evening, and, like a blundering idiot, he had wasted 
 precious, perhaps irreparable, hours! What had she meant 
 by " It s for my sake to-night " ? The words had been ring 
 ing in his ears since the moment she had whispered them in 
 that panic-stricken crowd. Was it not always for her sake 
 that he answered these calls to arms? Was it not always 
 
 for her sake that he, as the Gray Seal, was The mental 
 
 soliloquy came to an abrupt end. He had subconsciously 
 read the first sentence of the letter, and now, with sudden 
 feverish eagerness and excitement, he was reading it to 
 the last word. 
 
 " DEAR PHILANTHROPIC CROOX : In an hour after you re- 
 ceive this, if all goes well, you shall know everything-* 
 everything. Who I am yes, and my name. It has 
 
 324
 
 THE CALL TO ARMS 32* 
 
 more than three years now, hasn t it? It has been in 
 comprehensible to you, but there has been no other way. I 
 dared not take the chance of discovery by any one ; I dared 
 not expose you to the risk of being known by me. Your life 
 would not have been worth a moment s purchase. Oh, Jim- 
 mie, am I only making the mystery more mystifying? But 
 to-night, I think, I hope, I pray that it is all at an end: 
 though against me, and against you to-night when you go to 
 help me, is the most powerful and pitiless organisation of 
 criminals that the world has ever known ; and the stake we 
 are playing for is a fortune of millions and my life. And 
 yet somehow I am afraid now, just because the end is so 
 near, and the victory seems so surely won. And so, Jimmie, 
 be careful; use all that wonderful cleverness of yours as 
 
 you have never used it before, and But there should be 
 
 no need for that, it is so simple a thing that I am going to 
 ask you to do. Why am I writing so illogically ! Nothing, 
 surely, can possibly happen. This is not like one of my 
 usual letters, is it? I am beside myself to-night with hope> 
 anxiety, fear, and excitement. 
 
 " Listen, then, Jimmie : Be at the northeast corner of 
 Sixth Avenue and Waverly Place at exactly half-past ten. 
 A taxicab will drive up, as though you had signalled it in 
 passing, and the chauffeur will say : " I ve another fare ir 
 half an hour, sir, but I can get you most anywhere in that 
 time." You will be smoking a cigarette. Toss it out into 
 the street, make any reply you like, and get into the cab. 
 Give the chauffeur that little ring of mine with the crest of 
 the bell and belfry and the motto, " Sonnez le Tocsin," that 
 you found the night old Isaac Pelina was murdered, and the 
 chauffeur will give you in exchange a sealed packet of 
 papers. He will drive you to your home, and I will tele 
 phone to you there. 
 
 " I need not tell you to destroy this. Keep the appointment 
 in your proper person as Jimmie Dale. Carry nothing 
 that might identify you as the Gray Seal if any accident 
 should happen. And, lastly, trust the pseudo chauffeur at 
 solutely."
 
 826 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 There was no signature. Her letters were never signed- 
 He stood for a moment staring at the closely written sheets 
 in his hand, a heightened colour in his cheeks, his lips pressed 
 tightly together and then his ringers automatically began to 
 tear the letter into pieces, and the pieces again into little 
 shreds. To-night ! It was to be to-night, the end of all this 
 mystery. To-night was to see the end of this dual life of 
 his, with its constant peril ! To-night the Gray Seal was to 
 exit from the stage forever! To-night, a wonderful climax 
 of the years, he was to see her! 
 
 His blood was quickened now, his heart pounding in a 
 i aster beat ; a mad elation, a fierce uplift was upon him. He 
 thrust the torn bits of paper into his pocket hurriedly, 
 stepped across the room to the corner, rolled back the oil 
 cloth, and lifted up the loose plank in the flooring, so in 
 nocently dustladen, as, more than once, to have eluded the 
 eyes of inquisite visitors in the shape of police and plain- 
 clothes men from headquarters. 
 
 From the space beneath he removed a neatly folded pile 
 of clothes, laid these on the bed, and began to undress. He 
 was working rapidly now. Tiny pieces of wax were re 
 moved from his nostrils, from under his lips, from behind 
 his ears ; water from a cracked pitcher poured into a battered 
 tin basin, and mixed with a few drops of some liquid from a 
 bottle which he procured from its hiding place under the 
 flooring, banished the make-up stain from his face, his neck, 
 his wrists, and hands as if by magic. It was a strange met- 
 amoiphosis that had taken place the coarse, brutal-fea 
 tured, blear-eyed, leering countenance of Larry the Bat was 
 gone, and in its place, clean-cut, square-jawed, clear-eyed, 
 was the face of Jimmie Dale. And where before had 
 slouched a slope-shouldered, misshapen, flabby creature, a 
 broad-shouldered form well over six feet in height now 
 stood erect, and under the clean white skin the muscles of 
 an atfllete, like knobs of steel, played back and forth with 
 movement of his body. 
 he streaked and broken mirror Jimmie Dale surveyed
 
 THE CALL TO ARMS 
 
 himself critically, methodically, and, with a nod of satisfac 
 tion, hastily donned the fashionably cut suit of tweeds upon 
 the bed. He rummaged then through the ragged garments 
 he had just discarded, transferred to his pockets a roll of 
 bills and his automatic, and paused hesitantly, staring at the 
 thin metal case, like a cigarette case, that he held in the palm 
 of his hand. He shrugged his shoulders a little whimsically ; 
 it seemed strange indeed that he was through with that ! He 
 snapped it open. Within, between sheets of oil paper, lay 
 the scores of little diamond-shaped, gray-coloured, adhesive 
 paper seals the insignia of the Gray Seal. Yes, it seemed 
 strange that he was never to use another! He closed the 
 case, gathered up the clothes of Larry the Bat, tucked the 
 case in among them, and shoved the bundle into the hole 
 under the flooring. All these things would have to be de 
 stroyed, but there was not time to-night ; to-morrow, or the 
 next day, would do for that. What would it be like to live 
 a normal life again, without the menace of danger lurking 
 on every hand, without that grim slogan of the underworld, 
 " Death to the Gray Seal ! " or that savage fiat of the police, 
 91 The Gray Seal, dead or alive but the Gray Seal ! " for 
 ever ringing in his ears? What would it be like, this new 
 life with her? 
 
 The thought was thrilling him again, bringing again that 
 eager, exultant uplift. In an hour, one hour, and the bar 
 riers of years would be swept away, and she would be in his 
 arms! 
 
 " It s for my sake to-night ! " His face grew suddenly 
 tense, as the words came back to him. That " hour " wasn t 
 over yet! It was no hysterical exaggeration that had 
 prompted her to call her enemies the most powerful and piti 
 less organisation of criminals that the world had ever known. 
 It was not the Tocsin s way to exaggerate. The words would 
 be literally true. The very life she had led for the three 
 years that had gone stood out now as a grim proof of her 
 assertion. 
 
 Jimmie Dale replaced the flooring, carefully brushed the 
 <*ust back into the cracks, spread the oilcloth into place
 
 328 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 and stood up* Who and what was this organisation ? Wha% 
 was between it and the Tocsin? What was this immense 
 fortune that was at stake? And what was this priceless 
 packet that was so crucial, that meant victory now, ay, and 
 her life, too, she had said? 
 
 The questions swept upon him in a sort of breathless 
 succession. Why had she not let him play a part in this? 
 True, she had told him why that she dared not expo, e him 
 to the risk. Risk ! Was there any risk that the Gray Seal 
 had not taken, and at her instance! He did not under 
 stand. He smiled a little uncertainly, as he reached up to 
 turn out the gas. There were a good many things that he did 
 not understand about the Tocsin! 
 
 The room was in darkness, and with the darkness Jimmie 
 Dale s mind centred on the work immediately before him. 
 To enter the tenement where he was known and had an ac 
 knowledged right as Larry the Bat was one thing ; for Jimmie 
 Dale to be discovered there was quite another. 
 
 He crossed the room, opened the door silently, stood for 
 a moment listening, then stepped out into the black, musty, 
 ill-smelling hallway, closing the door behind him. He 
 stooped and locked it. The querulous cry of a child reached 
 him from somewhere above a murmur of voices, muffled 
 by closed doors, from everywhere. How many families 
 were housed beneath that sordid roof he had never known, 
 only that there was miserable poverty there as well as vice 
 and crime, only that Larry the Bat, who possessed a room 
 all to himself, was as some lordly and super-being to these 
 fellow tenants who shared theirs with so many that there 
 was not air enough for all to breathe. 
 
 He had no doors to pass his was next to the staircase. 
 He began to descend. They could scream and shriek, those 
 stairs, like aged humans, twisted and rheumatic, at the least 
 ungentle touch. But there was no sound from them now. 
 There seemed something almost uncanny in the silent tread. 
 Stair after stair he descended, his entire weight thrown 
 gradually upon one foot before the other was lifted. The 
 strain upon the muscles, trained and hardened as they were;
 
 THE CALL TO ARMS 320 
 
 told. As he moved from the bottom step, he wiped little 
 beads of perspiration from his forehead. 
 
 The dcor, now, that gave on the alleyway ! He opened 
 it, slipped outside, darted across the narrow kne, stole 
 along where the shadows of the fence were blackest, paused, 
 listening, as he reached the end of the alleyway, to assure 
 himself that there was no near-by pedestrian and stepped 
 out into the street. 
 
 He kept on along the block, turned into the Bowery, and, 
 under the first lamp, consulted his watch. It was a quarter 
 past ten. He could make it easily in a leisurely walk. He 
 continued on up the Bowery, finally crossed to Broadway^ 
 and shortly afterward turned into Waverly Place. At the 
 corner of Fifth Avenue he consulted his watch again and 
 now he lighted a cigarette. Sixth Avenue was only a 
 block away. At precisely half-past ten, to the second, he 
 haJted on the designated corner, smoking nonchalantly. 
 
 A taxicab, coinciclentally coming from an uptown dire<x 
 tion, swung in to the curb. 
 
 "Taxi, sir? Yes, sir?" Then, with an admirable mm* 
 gling of eagerness to secure the fare and a fear that his con 
 f ession might cause him the loss of it : " I ve another fare 
 in half an hour, sir, but I can get you most anywhere in that 
 time." 
 
 Jimmie Dale s cigarette was tossed carelessly into the 
 street. 
 
 " St. James Club I " he said curtly, and stepped into the 
 cab. 
 
 The cab started forward, turned the corner, and headed 
 along Waverly Place toward Broadway. The chauffeur 
 twisted around in his seat in a matter-of-fact way, as though 
 to ask further directions. 
 
 " Have you anything for me ? " he inquired casually. 
 
 It lay where it always lay, that ring, between the folds 
 of that little white glove in his pocketbook. jimmie DaL 
 took it out now, and handed it silently to the chauffeur. 
 
 The other s face changed instantly composure was gone* 
 *nd a quick, strained look was in its place.
 
 830 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 I m afraid I ve been watched," he said tersely. " Look 
 behind you, will you, and tell me if you see anything?" 
 
 Jimmie Dale glanced backward through the little window 
 in the hood. 
 
 There s another taxi just turned in from Sixth Avenue," 
 he reported the next instant. 
 
 " Keep your eye on it ! " instructed the chauffeur shortly. 
 
 The sp^ed of the cab increased sensibly. 
 
 With a curious tightening of his lips, Jimmie Dale set 
 tled himself in his seat so that he could watch the cab behind. 
 There was trouble coming, intuitively he sensed that; and, 
 he reflected bitterly, he might have known ! It was too mar 
 vellous, too wonderful ever to come to pass that this one 
 hour, the thought of which had fired his blood and made him 
 glad beyond any gladness life had ever held for him before, 
 should bring its promised happiness. 
 
 " Where s the cab now ? " the chauffeur flung back over 
 his shoulder. 
 
 They had passed Fifth Avenue, and were nearing Broad 
 way. 
 
 " About the same distance behind," Jimmie Dale an 
 swered. 
 
 " That looks bad ! " the chauffeur gritted between hi* 
 teeth. " We ll have to make sure. I ll run down Lower 
 Broadway." 
 
 * If you think we re followed," suggested Jimmie Dale 
 quietly, " why not run uptown and give them the slip 
 somewhere where the traffic is thick? Lower Broadway 
 at this time of night is as empty and deserted as a country 
 road." 
 
 The chauffeur s sudden laugh was mirthless. 
 
 " My God, you don t know what you are talking about ! " 
 he burst out. "If they re following, all hell couldn t throw 
 them off the track. And I ve got to know, I ve got to be 
 sure before I dare make a move to-night. I couldn t tell 
 tip in the crowded districts if I was followed, could I? 
 They won t come out into the open until their hands are 
 forced,"
 
 THE CALL TO ARMS 331 
 
 The car swerved sharply, rounded the corner, and, speed 
 ing up faster and faster, began to tear down Lower Broad 
 way. 
 
 " Watch ! Watch! " cried the chauffeur. 
 
 There was no word between them for a moment; the* 
 Jimmie Dale spoke crisply: 
 
 " It s turned the corner ! It s coming this way ! " 
 
 The taxicab was i-ocking violently with the speed ; silent, 
 empty, Lower Broadway stretched iway ahead Apart from 
 an occasional street car, probably there would be nothing 
 between them and the Battery. Jimmie Dale glanced at his 
 companion s face as a light, flashing by, threw it into relief. 
 It was set and stern, even a little haggard; but, too, there 
 was something else there, something that appealed instantly 
 to Jimmie Dale a sort of bulldog grit that dominated it. 
 
 "If he holds our speed, we ll know! " the chauffeur was 
 shouting now to make himself heard over the roar of the car- 
 M Look again ! Where is it now ? " 
 
 Once more Jimmie Dale looked through the little rear 
 window. The cab had been a block behind them when it 
 had turned the corner, and he watched it now in a sort of 
 grim fascination. There was no possible doubt of it ! The 
 two bobbing, bouncing headlights were creeping steadily 
 nearer. And then a sort of unnatural calm settled upon 
 Jimmie Dale, and his hand went mechanically to his pocket 
 to feel his automatic there, as he turned again to the chauf 
 feur. 
 
 "If you ve got any more speed, you d better use it ! " h* 
 said significantly. 
 
 The man shot a quick look at him. 
 
 " They are following us ? You are sure? " 
 
 " Yes," said Jimmie Dale. 
 
 The chauffeur laughed again in that mirthless, savage 
 way. 
 
 " Lean over here, where I can talk to you ! " he rasped 
 out. " The game s up, as far as I am concerned, I guess ! 
 But there s a chance for you. They don t know you in 
 this."
 
 832 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 " Give her more , t peed or dodge into a cross street ! * 
 suggested Jimmie Dak coolly. " They haven t got us yet, by 
 a long way ! " 
 
 The other shook hrs head. 
 
 " It s not only that cab behind," he answered, through set 
 lips. " You don t know what we re up against. If they re 
 really after us, there s a trap laid in every section of this 
 city the devils! It s ths package they want. Thank God 
 for the presentiment that made me leave it behind! I was 
 going back for it, you understand, if I was satisfied that we 
 weren t followed. Listen! There s a chance for you 
 there s none for me. Thst package remember this! no 
 one else knows where it is. and it s life and death to the one 
 
 who sent you here. It s in Vtox 428 at My God, look! 
 
 Look there ! " he yelled, and, with a wrench at the wheel, 
 sent the taxi lurching and staggering for the car tracks 
 in the centre of the street. 
 
 The scene, fast as thought itself, was photographing it 
 self in every detail upon Jimmie Dale s brain. From the 
 cross street ahead, one from each corner, two motor cars 
 had nosed out into Broadway, blocking the road on both 
 sides. And now the car on the left-hand side was moving 
 forward across the tracks to counteract the chauffeur s 
 move, deliberately insuring a collision. There was no 
 chance, no further room to turn, no time to stop the man 
 driving the other car jumped for safety they would be into 
 it in an instant. 
 
 " Box 428 ! " Jimmie pleaded fiercely. " Go on, man ! 
 Go on! Finish!" 
 
 " Yes ! " cried the chauffeur. " John Johansson, at * 
 
 But Jimmie Dale heard no more. There was the crash 
 of impact as the taxicab plowed into the car that had been 
 so craftily manoeuvred in front of it, and Jimmie Dale, lifted 
 from his feet, was hurled violently forward with the shock, 
 and all went black before his eyes.
 
 CHAPTER IB 
 
 THE CRIME CLUB 
 
 what length of time he had remained unconscious; 
 Jimmie Dale had not the slightest idea. He regained 
 his senses to find himself lying on a couch in a strange room 
 that had a most exquisitely brass-wrought dome light in the 
 ceiling. That was what attracted his attention, because the 
 light hurt his eyes, and his head was already throbbing as 
 though a thousand devils were beating a diabolical tattoo 
 up<?n it. 
 
 He closed his eyes against the light. Where was he? 
 What had happened ? Oh, yes, he remembered now ! That 
 smash on Lower Broadway ! He had been hurt. He moved 
 first one limb and then aonther tentatively, and was relieved 
 to find that, though his body ached as if it had been severely 
 shaken, and his head was bad, he had apparently escapee? 
 without serious injury. 
 
 Where was he ? In a hospital ? His fingers, resting at hik 
 side upon the couch, supplied him with the information that 
 it was a very expensive couch, upholstered in finest leather. 
 If he were in a hospital, he would be in a cot. 
 
 He opened his eyes again to glance curiously around him. 
 The room was quite in keeping with the artistic lighting fix 
 ture and the refined, if expensive, taste that was responsible 
 for the couch. A heavy velvet rug of rich, dark green was 
 bordered by a polished hardwood floor ; panellings of dark- 
 green frieze and beautifully grained woodwork made the 
 lower walls ; while above, on a background of some soft- 
 toned paper, hung a few, and evidently choice, oil paintings. 
 There was a big, inviting lounging chair ; a massive writing 
 table, or more properly, a desk of walnut; and behind thr. 
 
 333
 
 834 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 desk, his back half turned, apparently intent upon a book; 
 sat a man in immaculate evening dress. 
 
 Jimmie Dale closed his eyes again. There was something 
 reassuring about it all, comfortably reassuring. Though 
 why there should be any occasion for a feeling of reassur 
 ance at all, he could not for the moment make out. And 
 then, in a sudden flash, the details of the night came back to 
 him. The Tocsin s letter the package he was to get the 
 taxicab the chauffeur, who was not a chauffeur the chase 
 the trap. He lay perfectly still. It was the professional 
 Jimmie Dale now whose brain, in spite of the throbbing, 
 brutally aching head, was at work, keen, alert. 
 
 The chauffeur! What had happened to him? Had the 
 man been killed in the auto smash; or, less fortunate than 
 himself, fallen into the hands of those whose power he 
 seemed both to fear and rate so highly? And that pack 
 age! Box what was the number? yes, 428. What dk* 
 that mean? What box? Where was it? Who was John 
 Johansson? He hadn t heard any more than that; the 
 smash had come then. And lastly, he was back again to the 
 same question he had begun with : Where was he now him 
 self ? It looked as though some good Samaritan had picked 
 him up. Who was this gentleman so quietly reading there 
 at the desk? 
 
 Jimmie Dale opened his eyes for the third time. How still, 
 how absolutely silent the room was ! He studied the man s 
 back speculatively for a moment, then his gaze travelled 
 on past the man to the wall, rivet:.d there, and his fingers, 
 without movement of his arm, pressed against the outside 
 of his coat pocket. He thought as much! His automatic 
 was gone ! 
 
 Not a muscle of Jimmie Dale s face moved. His eyes 
 shifted to a picture on the wall. The man was watching him 
 not reading! Just above the level of the desk, a small 
 mirror held the couch in focus but, equally, it held the man 
 in focus, and Jimmie Dale had seen the other s eyes, through 
 a black mask that covered the face to the top of the uppe* 
 Jtp, fixed intently upon him.
 
 THE CRIME CLUB 330 
 
 There was a chill now where before there had been re 
 assurance, something ominous in the very quiet and refine 
 ment of the room; and Jimmie Dale smiled inwardly in 
 bitter irony his good Samaritan wore a mask! His self- 
 congratulations Kad come too soon. Whatever had happened 
 to the chauffeur, it was evident enough that he himself was 
 caught! What was it the chauffeur had said? Something 
 about a chance through being unknown. Was it to be a 
 battle of wits, then? God, if his head did not ache so fright 
 fully! It was hard to think with the brain half sick with 
 pain. 
 
 Those two eyes shining in that mirror ! There seemed 
 something horribly spectre-like about it. He did not look 
 again, but he knew they were there. It was like a cat watch 
 ing a mouse. Why did not the man speak, or move, or do 
 
 something, and He turned his head slowly; the man 
 
 was laughing in a low, amused way. 
 
 " You appear to be taken with that picture," observed a 
 pleasant voice. " Perhaps you recognise it from there ? It 
 is a Corot." 
 
 Jimmie Dale, with a well-simulated start, sat up and, with 
 another quite as well simulated, stared at the masked man. 
 The other had laid down his book, and swung around in hi3 
 chair to face the couch. Jimmie Dale stood up a little 
 jhakily. 
 
 " Look here ! " he said awkwardly. " I I don t quite un 
 derstand. I remember that my taxi got into a smash-up, and 
 I suppose I have to thank you for the assistance you must 
 have rendered me ; only, as I say " he looked in a puzzled 
 way around the room, and in an even more perplexed way 
 at the mask on the other s face " I must confess I am at a 
 loss to understand quite the meaning of this." 
 
 " Suppose that instead of trying to understand you simply 
 accept things as you find them." The voice was soft, but 
 there was a finality in it that its blandness only served to 
 make the more suggestive. 
 
 Jimmie Dale drew himself up, and bowed coldly. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," he said. " I did not mean to *r
 
 336 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 trude. I have only to thank you again, then, and bid you 
 good-night." 
 
 The lips beneath the mask parted slightly in a politely 
 deprecating smile. 
 
 " There is no hurry," said the man, a sudden sharpness 
 creeping into his tones. " I am sorry that the rule I apply 
 to you does not work both ways. For instance, / might be 
 quite at a loss to account feu* your presence in that taxi- 
 cab." 
 
 Jimmie Dale s smile was equally polite, equally depre 
 cating. 
 
 " I fail to see how it could be of the slightest possible in 
 terest to you," he replied. " However, I have no objection 
 to telling you. I hailed the taxi at the corner of Sixth Ave 
 nue and Waverly Place, told the chauffeur to drive me to the 
 St. James Club, and " 
 
 " The St. James Club," broke in the other coldly, " is, I 
 believe, north, not south of Waverly Place and on Broad 
 way not at all." 
 
 Jimmie Dale stared at the other for an instant in patient 
 annoyance. 
 
 " I am quite well aware of that," he said stiffly. " Never 
 theless I told the man to drive me to the St. James Club. 
 We came across Waverly Place, but on reaching Broad 
 way, instead of turning uptown, he suddenly whirled in the 
 other direction and sent the car flying at full speed down 
 Lower Broadway. I shouted at the man. I don t know 
 yet whether he was drunk or crazy or" Jimmie Dale s, 
 eyes fixed disdainfully on the other s mask" whether there 
 might not, after all, have been method in his madness. I 
 can only say that before we had gone more than two or 
 three blocks, a wild effort on his part to avoid a collision 
 with an auto swinging out from a side street resulted in^ an 
 even more disastrous smash with another on the other side, 
 and I was knocked senseless." 
 
 " Victim, I presume, is the idea you desire to convey," 
 observed the jother evenly. " You were quite the victim of 
 circumstances, as it were!"
 
 THE CRIME CLUB 337 
 
 Jimmie Dale s eyebrows lifted slightly. 
 
 " It would appear to be fairly obvious, I should say. * 
 
 " Very clever! " commented the man. " Bat now suppose 
 we remove the buttons from the foils!" His voice rasped 
 suddenly. " You are quite as well aware as I am that what 
 has happened to-night was not an accident. Nor in case 
 the possibility may have occurred to you are the police 
 any the wiser, save for the existence of two wrecked cars on 
 Lower Broadway, and another which escaped, and for which 
 doubtless they are still searching assiduously. The owner 
 ship of the taxicab you so inadvertently entered they 
 will have no difficulty in establishing you, perhaps, how 
 ever, are in a better position than I am to appreciate the fact 
 that the establishment of its ownership will lead them no 
 where. As I understand it, the man who drove you to-night 
 obtained the loan of the cab from one of the company s 
 chauffeur s in return for a hundred-dollar bill. Am I 
 right?" 
 
 " In view of what has happened," admitted Jimmie Dale 
 simply, ** I should not be surprised." 
 
 There was a sort of sardonic admiration in the other s 
 laugh. 
 
 " As for the other car," he went on, " I can assure you 
 that its ownership will never be known. When the nearest 
 patrolman rushed up, there were no survivors of the disas 
 ter, save those in the third car which he was powerless to 
 stop which accounts for your presence here, You will 
 admit that I have been quite frank." 
 
 " Oh, quite ! " said Jimmie Dale, a little wearily. " But 
 would you mind telling me what all this is leading to? " 
 
 The man had been leaning forward in his chair, one hand, 
 palm downward, resting lightly on the desk. He shifted his 
 hand now suddenly to the arm of his chair. 
 
 " This! " he said, and on the desk where his hand had been 
 lay the Tocsin s gold signet ring. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s face expressed mild curiosity. He could 
 fad the other s eyes boring into him. 
 
 **Wc were speaking of ownership,** said the man, a
 
 338 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 low, menacing tone. " I want to know where the woman 
 who owns this ring can be found to-night." 
 
 There was no play, no trifling here ; the man was in deadly 
 earnest. But it seemed to Jimmie Dale, even with the 
 sense of peril more imminent with every instant, that he 
 could have laughed outright in savage mockery at the irony 
 of the question. Where was she? Even zuho was she ? And 
 this was the hour in which he was to have known ! 
 
 " May I look at it ? " he requested calmly. 
 
 The other nodded, but his eyes never left Jimmie Dale. 
 
 " It will give you an extra moment or so to frame your 
 answer," he said sarcastically. 
 
 Jimmie Dale ignored the thrust, picked up the ring, ex 
 amined it deliberately, and set it back again on the table. 
 
 " Since I do not know who owns it," he said, " I cannot 
 answer your question." 
 
 " No ! Well, then, there is still another matter a little 
 package that was in the taxicab with you. Where is that?" 
 
 " See here ! " said Jimmie Dale irritably. " This has 
 gone far enough ! I have seen no package, large or small, 
 or of any description whatever. You are evidently mistak 
 ing me for some one else. You have only to telephone to 
 the St. James Club." He reached toward his pocket for his 
 cardcase. " My name is " 
 
 " Dale," supplied the other curtly. " Don t bother about 
 the card, Mr. Dale. We have already taken the liberty of 
 searching you." He rose abruptly from his chair. " I am 
 afraid you do not quite realise your position, Mr. Dale," 
 he said, with an ominous smile. " Let me make it clear. I 
 do not wish to be theatrical about this, but we do not tem 
 porise here. You will either answer both of those questions 
 to my satisfaction, or you will never leave this place alive." 
 
 Jimmie Dale s face hardened. His eyes met the other s 
 steadily. 
 
 " Ah, I think I begin to see ! " he said caustically. " When 
 I have been thoroughly frightened I shall be offered my 
 freedom at a price. A sort of up-to-date game of holdup! 
 Jibe penalty of being a wealthy man! If you had named
 
 THE CRIME CLUB 339 
 
 your figure to begin with, we would have saved a lot of idle 
 talk, and you would have had my answer the sooner : Noth- 
 ing!" 
 
 " Do you know," said the other, in a grimly musing way, 
 "there has always been one man, but only one until now, 
 that I have wished I might add to my present associates. 
 I refer to the so-called Gray Seal. To-night there are two. 
 I pay you the compliment of being the other. But " he was 
 smiling ominously again " we are wasting time, Mr. Dale. 
 I am willing to expose my hand to the extent of admitting 
 that the information you are withholding is infinitely more 
 valuable to me than the mere wreaking of reprisal upon you 
 for a refusal to talk. Therefore, if you will answer, I 
 pledge you my word you will be free to leave here within 
 five minutes. If you refuse, you are already aware of the 
 alternative. Well, Mr. Dale?" 
 
 Who was this man ? Jimmie Dale was studying the other s 
 chin, the lips, the white, even teeth, the jet-black hair. 
 Some day the tables might be turned. Could he recognise 
 again this cool, imperturbable ruffian who so callously 
 threatened him with murder? 
 
 " Well, Mr. Dale? I am waiting ! " 
 
 " I am not a magician," said Jimmie Dale contemptuously. 
 I could not answer your questions if I wanted to." 
 
 The other s hand slid instantly to a row of electric buttons 
 on the desk. 
 
 " Very well, Mr. Dale ! " he said quietly. " You do not 
 believe, I see, that I would dare to carry my threat into 
 execution ; you perhaps even doubt my power. I shall take 
 the trouble to convince you I imagine it will stimulate 
 your memory." 
 
 The door opened. Two men were standing on the thresh 
 old, both in evening dress, both masked. The man behind 
 the desk came forward, took Jimmie Dale s arm almost 
 courteously, and led him from the room out into a corridor, 
 where he halted abruptly. 
 
 " I want to call your attention first, Mr. Dale, to the fact 
 that as far as you are concerned you neither have now, nor
 
 840 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 ever will have, any idea whether you are in the heart of 
 New York or fifty miles away from it. Now, listen! D* 
 you hear anything?" 
 
 There was nothing. Only the strange silence of that other 
 room was intensified now. There was not a sound ; stillness 
 such as it seemed to Jimmie Dale he had never experienced 
 before was around him. 
 
 " You may possibly infer from the silence that you are 
 not in the city," suggested the other, after a moment s pause. 
 " I leave you to your own conclusions in that respect. The 
 cause, however, of the silence is internal, not external; 
 we had sound-proof principles in mind to a perhaps ex 
 aggerated degree when this building was constructed. If 
 you care to do so, you have my permission to shout, say, 
 for help, to your heart s content. We shall make no effort 
 to stop you." 
 
 Jimmie Dale shrugged his shoulders. He was staring 
 down a brilliantly lighted, richly carpeted corridor. There 
 were doors on one side, windows on the other, the windows 
 all hung with heavy, closely drawn portieres. The corridor 
 was certainly not on the ground floor, but whether it was 
 on the second or third, or even above that again, he had no 
 means of knowing. From appearances, though, the place 
 seemed more like a large, private mansion than anything else. 
 
 " Just one word more before we proceed," continued 
 the other. " I do not wish you to labour under any illusion. 
 Here we are frankly criminals. This is our home. It should 
 have some effect in impressing you with the power and re 
 source at our command, and also with the class of men 
 with whom you are dealing. There is not one among us 
 whose education is not fully equal to your own ; not one, 
 indeed, but who is chosen, granting first his criminal ten 
 dencies, because he is a specialist in his own particular field 
 in commerce, in the government diplomatic service, in 
 the professions of law and medicine, in the ranks of pure 
 science. We are bordering on the fantastical, are we not? 
 Dreaming, you will probably say, of the Utopian in crim*
 
 THE CRIME CLUB 341 
 
 organisation. Quite so, Mr. Dale. I only ask you to con 
 sider the possibilities if what I say is true. Now let us 
 proceed. I am going to take you into three rooms the three 
 whose doors you see ahead of you. You will notice that, 
 including the one you have just left, there are four on this 
 corridor. I do not wish to strain your credulity, or play 
 tricks upon you ; so I am going to ask you to fix an ap 
 proximate idea of the length of the corridor in your mind, 
 as it will perhaps enable you to account more readily for 
 what may appear to be a discrepancy in the corresponding 
 size of the rooms." 
 
 One of the men opened the door ahead. Jimmie Dale, 
 at a sign from his conductor, moved forward and entered. 
 Just what he had expected to find he could not have told ; 
 his brain was whirling, partly from his aching head, partly 
 from his desperate effort to conceive some way of escape 
 from the peril which, for all his nonchalance, he knew only 
 too well was the gravest he had ever faced ; but what he 
 saw was simply a cozily furnished bedroom. There was 
 nothing peculiar about it; nothing out of the way, except 
 perhaps that it was rather narrow. 
 
 And then suddenly, rubbing his eyes involuntarily, he 
 was staring in a dazed way before him. The whole right- 
 hand side of the wall was sinking without a sound into the 
 floor, increasing the width of the room by some five or six 
 feet and in this space was disclosed what appeared to be 
 a sort of chemical laboratory, elaborately equipped, extend 
 ing the entire length of the room. 
 
 " The wall is purely a matter of mechanical construc 
 tion, operated hydraulically." The man was speaking softly 
 at Jimmie Dale s side. " The room beneath is built to corre 
 spond ; the base, ceiling, and wall mouldings here do not have 
 to be very ingenious to effect a disguise. I might say, how 
 ever, that few visitors, other than yourself, have ever seen 
 anything here but a bedroom." He waved his hand toward 
 the retorts, the racks of test tubes, the hundred and one 
 articles that strewed the laboratory bench. "As for this,
 
 342 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 its purpose is twofold. We, as well, as the police, have ofte* 
 need of analysis. We make it. If we require a drug, a 
 poison, say, we compound it from its various ingredients, 
 or, as the case may be, distil it, perhaps it is, you will 
 agree, somewhat more difficult to trace to its source if pro 
 cured that way. And speaking of poisons " he stepped 
 forward, and lifted a glass-stoppered bottle containing a 
 colourless liquid from a shelf " in a modest way we have 
 even done some original research work here. This, for in* 
 stance, is as Utopian from cur standpoint as the formation 
 and personnel of the organisation I have briefly outlined 
 to you. It possesses very essential qualities. It is almost 
 instantaneous in its action, requires a very small quantity, 
 and defies detection even by autopsy." He uncorked the 
 bottle, and dipped in a long glass rod. " Will you watch 
 the experiment ? " he invited, with a sort of ghastly pleas 
 antry. " I do not want you to accept anything on trust." 
 
 With a start, Jimmie Dale swung around. He had heard 
 no sound, but another man was at his elbow now and, 
 struggling in the man s hand, was a little white rabbit. 
 
 It was over in an instant. A single drop in the rabbit s 
 mouth, and the animal had stiffened out, a lifeless thing. 
 
 " It is quite as effective on the human organism," con 
 tinued the other, " only, instead of one drop, three are re 
 quired. If I make it ten " he was carefully measuring 
 the liquid into two wineglasses " it is only that even you 
 may be satisfied that the quantity is fatal." He filled up 
 the glasses with what was apparently wine of some descrip 
 tion, which he poured from a decanter, and held out the 
 glasses in front of him. 
 
 And again Jimmie Dale started, again he had heard no 
 one enter, and yet two men had stepped forward from 
 behind him and had taken the glasses from their leader s 
 hands. He glanced around him, counting quickly they were 
 surely the two who had entered with him from the corridor. 
 No! Including the leader, there were now six men, all in 
 evening dress, all masked, in the room with him. 
 
 A wave of the leader s hand, and the two men
 
 THE CRIME CLUB 343 
 
 the glasses left the room. The man turned to Jimmie Dale 
 again. 
 
 " Shall we proceed to the second room, Mr. Dale ? " he 
 asked politely. " I think it is now prepared for us I do 
 not wish to bore you with a repetition of magical sliding 
 walls." 
 
 There was something now that numbed the ache in Jim 
 mie Dale s brain a sense of some deadly, remorseless thing 
 that seemed to be constantly creeping closer to him, clutch 
 ing at him to smother him, to choke him. There was some 
 thing absolutely fiendish, terrifying, in the veneer of culture 
 around him. 
 
 They had entered the second room. This, like the other, 
 was a pseudo-bedroom ; but here the movable wall was 
 already down. Ranged along the right-hand side were a 
 i^reat number of cabinets that slid in and out, mwch after 
 !:he style and fashion used by clothing dealers to stock and 
 display their wares. These cabinets were now all open, 
 displaying hundreds of costumes of all kinds and descrip 
 tions, and evidently complete to the minutest detail. The 
 cabinets were flanked by full-length mirrors at each end of 
 the room, and on little tables before the mirrors was an 
 assortment, that none better than Jimmie Dale himself 
 could appreciate, of make-up accessories. 
 
 The man smiled apologetically. 
 
 " I am afraid this is rather uninteresting," he said. " I 
 have shown it to you simply that you may understand that 
 we are alive to the importance of detail. Disguise, that is 
 daily vital to us, is an art that depends essentially on detail. 
 T venture to say we could impersonate any character or type 
 or nationality or class in the United States at a moment s 
 notice. But " he took Jimmie Dale s arm again and con 
 ducted him out into the corridor, while the two men who 
 were evidently acting the role of guards followed closely 
 behind " there is still the third room here." He halted 
 Jimmie Dale before the door. " I have asked you to answer 
 two questions, Mr. Dale," he said softly. " I ask you now; 
 to remember the alternative."
 
 344 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 They still stccxl before the door. There was that tm- 
 canny silence again it seemed to Jimmie Dale to last in 
 terminably. Neither jf the three men surrounding him 
 moved nor spoke. Then the door before him was opened 
 on an unlighted room, and he was led across the threshold. 
 He heard the door close behind him. The lights came on. 
 And th^n it seemed as though he could not move, as though 
 he were rooted to the spot -and the colour ebbed from his 
 face. Three figures were before him: the two men who 
 had carried the glasses from the first room, and the chauffeur 
 who had driven him in the taxicab. The two men still 
 held the glasses the chauffeur was bound hand and foot 
 in a chair One of the glasses was empty; the other was 
 still significantly full. 
 
 Jimmie Dale, with a violent effort at self-control, leaned 
 forward. 
 
 The man in the chair was dead
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE INNOCENT BYSTANDER 
 
 r PHERE was not a s und Thc.t stillness, weird, unnerv- 
 ing, that permeated, a r it were, everywhere through 
 that mysterious house, was, if that were possible, accen 
 tuated n w. The four masked men in evening dress, five 
 including their leader, for the man who had appeared in 
 that other room with the rabbit was not here, were as silent, 
 as motionless, as the dead man who was lashed there in the 
 chair. And to Jimmie Dale it seemed at first as though his 
 brain, stunned and stupefied at the shock, refused its func 
 tions, and left him groping blindly, vaguely, with only a sort 
 of dull, subconscious realisation of menace and a deadly 
 peril, imminent, hanging over him. 
 
 He tried to rouse himself mentally, to prod his brain to 
 action, to pit it in a fight for life against these self-confessed 
 criminals and murderers with their mask of culture, who 
 surrounded him now. Was there a way out? What was 
 it the Tocsin had said "the most powerful and pitiles? 
 organisation of criminals the world has ever known the 
 stake a fortune of millions her life ! " There had, indeed 
 been no overemphasir in the words she had u^d! They 
 had taken pains themselves to make that ominously clear, 
 these men ! Every detail of the strange house, with its 
 luxurious furnishings, its cleverly contrived appointments, 
 breathed a horribly suggestive degree of pow .r, a deadly 
 purpose, and an organisation swayed by a master mind; 
 and, grim evidence of the merciless, inexorable length to 
 which they would go, was the ghastly white face of the 
 dead chauffeur, bound hand and foot, in the chair before 
 himl 
 
 345
 
 346 THE ADVENTURES Oi? 1 JIMMIE DALE 
 
 That empty glass in the hand of one of the men! He 
 could not take his eyes from it except as his eyes were 
 drawn magnetically to that full glass in the hand of one 
 of the others. What height of sardonic irony ! He was to 
 drink that other glass, to die because he refused to answer 
 questions that for years, with every resource at his com 
 mand, risking his liberty, his wealth, his name, his life, with 
 everything that he cared for thrown into the scales, he had 
 struggled to solve and failed! 
 
 And then the leader spoke. 
 
 " Mr. Dale," he said, with cold significance, " I regret 
 to admit that your pseudo taxicab driver was so ill-advised 
 as to refuse to answer the same questions that I have put 
 to you." 
 
 Five to one! That was the only way out and it was 
 hopeless. It was the only way out, because, convinced that 
 he could answer those questions if he wanted to, these men 
 Were in deadly earnest: it was hopeless, because they were 
 five to one! And probably there were as many more, 
 iwice or three times as many more within call. But what 
 lid it matter how many more there were! He could fight 
 until he was overpowered, that was all he could do, and the 
 five could accomplish that. Still, if he could knock the full 
 glass out of that man s hand, and gain the door, then per 
 haps he turned quickly, as the door opened. It was as 
 though they had read his thoughts. A number of men were 
 grouped outside in the corridor, then the door closed again 
 with a cordon ranged against it inside the room ; and at the 
 same instant his arms and wrists were caught in a powerful 
 grasp by the two men immediately behind him, who all 
 along had enacted the role of guards. 
 
 Again the leader spoke. 
 
 " I will repeat the questions," he said sharply. " Where 
 is the woman whose ring was found on that man there in 
 the chair? And where is the package that you two men 
 Had with you in the taxicab to-night?" 
 
 Jimmie Dale glanced from the tall, straight, immaculately 
 "ilothed figure of the speaker, from the threatening smile
 
 THE INNOCENT BYSTANDER 347 
 
 on the set lips that just showed under the edge of the mask, 
 to the dead man in the chair. He had faced the prospect 
 of death before many times, but it had come with the heat 
 of passion accompanying it, it had come quickly, abruptly, 
 with every faculty called into action to combat it, without 
 time to dwell upon it, to sift, weigh, or measure its meaning, 
 and if there had been fear it had been subordinate to other 
 emotions. But it was different now. He could not, of 
 course, answer those questions ; nor, he was doggedly con 
 scious, would he have answered them if he could and there 
 was no middle course. 
 
 Death, within the next few moments, stared him in the 
 face; and it seemed curiously irrelevant that, in a sort of 
 unnatural calmness, he should be attempting to analyse 
 his feelings and emotions concerning it. All his life it had 
 seemed to him that the acme of human mental torture was 
 the cell of a condemned criminal, with the horror of its 
 hopelessness, with the time to dwell upon it ; and that the 
 acme of that torture itself must be that awful moment im 
 mediately preceding execution, when anticipation at last was 
 to merge into soul-sickening reality. 
 
 Strange that thought should come! Strange that he 
 should be framing a brain picture of such a scene, vivid, 
 minute in detail! No not strange. He was picturing 
 himself. The analogy was not perfect, it was true, he had 
 not had the months, weeks, days and hours of suspense; 
 but it was perfect enough to bring home to him with ap 
 palling force the realisation of his position. He was stand 
 ing as a condemned man might stand in those last, final 
 moments, those moments which he had imagined must be the 
 most terrible that could exist in life ; but that dismay of soul, 
 the horror, the terror were not his there was, instead, a 
 smouldering fury, a passionate amazement that it was his 
 own life that was threatened. It seemed impossible that it 
 could be his voice that was speaking now in such quiet, 
 measured tones. 
 
 " Is it worth while, will it convince you now, any more 
 than before, to repeat that there is some mistake here? t
 
 348 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 am no more able to answer your questions than you are 
 yourselves. I never saw that man in the chair there in my 
 life until the moment that I hailed him in his cab to-night. 
 I do not know who the woman is to whom that ring be 
 longs, much less do I know where she is. And if there 
 was a package of any sort in the taxicab, as you state, I 
 never saw it." 
 
 The lips under the mask curved into a lupine smile. 
 
 " Think well, Mr. Dale ! " The man s voice was low, 
 menacing. " Ethically, if you so choose to consider it, your 
 refusal may be the act of a brave man; practically, it is 
 the act of a fool. Now your answer ! " 
 
 " I have answered you," said Jimmie Dale and, relax 
 ing the muscles in his arms, let them hang limply for an 
 instant in the grip of the two men behind him. " I have 
 no other answer." 
 
 It was only a sign, a motion of the leader s hand but 
 with it, quick as a lightning flash, Jimmie Dale was in ac 
 tion. The limp arms tautened into steel as he wrenched them 
 loose, and, whirling around, he whipped his fist to the chin 
 of one of the two guards. 
 
 In an instant, with the blow, as the man staggered back 
 ward, the room was in pandemonium. There was a rush 
 from the door, and two, three, four leaping forms hurled 
 themselves upon Jimmie Dale. He shook them off and 
 they came again. There was no chance ultimately, he knew 
 that ; it was only the elemental within him that rose in fierce 
 revolt at the thought of tame submission, that bade him sell 
 his life as dearly as he could. Panting, gasping for breath, 
 dragging them by sheer strength as they clung to him, he 
 got his back to the wall, fighting with the savage fury and 
 abandon of a wild cat. 
 
 But it could not last. Where one man went down be 
 fore him, two remorselessly appeared the room seemed 
 filled with men they poured in through the door he 
 laughed at them in a half-demented way more and more of 
 them came there was no play for his arms, no room to 
 fight they seemed so close around him, so many of them
 
 THE INNOCENT BYSTANDER 349 
 
 upon him, that he could not breathe and he was bending, 
 being crushed down as by an intolerable weight. And then 
 his feet were jerked from beneath him, he crashed to the 
 floor, and, in another moment, bound hand and foot, he was 
 tied into a chair beside that other chair whose grim occupant 
 sat in such ghastly apathy of the scene. 
 
 The room cleared instantly of all but the original five. 
 His head was drawn suddenly, violently backward, and 
 clamped in that position; and a metal instrument, forced 
 into his mouth, while his lips bled in their resistance, pried 
 his jaws apart and held them open. 
 
 " One drop ! " the leader ordered curtly. 
 
 The man with the full glass bent over him, and dipped a 
 glass rod into the liquid. The drop glistened a ruby red on 
 the end of the rod and fell with a sharp, acrid, burning 
 sensation upon Jimmie Dale s tongue. 
 
 For a moment Jimmie Dale s animation, mental and phys 
 ical, seemed swept away from him in, as it were, a hiatus 
 of hideous suspense. What was it to be like this passing? 
 Why did it not act at once, as it had acted on the rabbit 
 they had showed him in the other room? Yes, he remem 
 bered ! It took more than one drop for a man ; and besides, 
 this was diluted. One drop had no effect on a man ; it re 
 quired Good God, one drop even of this was enough! 
 
 He strained forward in the chair until the sweat in great 
 heads sprang from his forehead, strained and fought and 
 tore at his bonds in a paroxysm of madness to free him 
 self while there still remained a little strength. There was 
 something filming before his eyes, a numbed feeling was 
 creeping through his limbs, robbing them, sapping them of 
 their vitality and power. He felt himself slipping away into 
 a state of utter weakness, and his brain began to grow con 
 fused. 
 
 A voice seemed to float in the air near him : " For the 
 last time will you answer ? " 
 
 With a supreme effort, Jimmie Dale strove to rally his 
 tottering senses. Did they not understand the stupendous 
 mockery of their questions ? Did they not understand that
 
 350 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 he did not know? He had told them so perhaps he had 
 better tell them so again. 
 
 " I " He tried to speak, and found the words thicV 
 
 upon his tongue. " I do not know." 
 
 The glass itself was thrust abruptly between his lips, 
 Some of the contents spilled and trickled upon his chin^ 
 and then a flood of it, burning, fiery, poured down his throat. 
 A flood of it and it needed but three drops and there had 
 been ten in the glass ! 
 
 So this was death a hazy, nebulous thing! There wat 
 no pain. It was like like nothingness. And out of the 
 nothingness she came. Strange that she should cornel 
 Alone she had fought these fiends and outwitted them foi 
 how long was it ? Three years ! She would be more than 
 ever alone now. Pray God she did not finally fall inte 
 their clutches ! 
 
 How it burned now, that fatal draught they had forced 
 down his throat, and how it gripped at him and seemed tc 
 eat and bore its way into the very tissues ! It was the end, 
 and no! It was stimulating him! Strength seemed to 
 be returning to his limbs ; it seemed as though he were 
 being carried, as though the bonds about him were being 
 loosened ; and now his brain seemed to be growing clearer. 
 
 He roused up with a startled exclamation. He was back 
 in the same room in which he had first returned to con 
 sciousness after the accident. He was on the same couch. 
 The same masked figure was at the same desk. Had he 
 been dreaming? Was this then only some horrible, ghastly 
 nightmare through which he had passed ? 
 
 No, it had been real enough; his clothes, rent and torn, 
 and the blood upon his hands, where the skin had been 
 scraped from his knuckles in the fight, bore evidence to that. 
 He must then have lost consciousness for a while, though 
 it seemed to him that at no moment, hazy, irrational though 
 his brain might have been, had he become entirely oblivious 
 to what was taking place around him. And yet it must have 
 been so! 
 
 The eyes from behind the mask were fixed steadily upon
 
 THE INNOCENT BYSTANDER 351 
 
 Wm, and below the mask there was the hard, unpleasant 
 set to the lips that Jimmie Dale had grown accustomed to 
 expect. 
 
 The man spoke abruptly. 
 
 " That you find yourself alive, Mr. Dale," he said grimly, 
 ** is no confession of weakness upon the part of those with, 
 whom you have had to deal here. To bear witness to that 
 there is one who is not alive, as you have seen. That man 
 we knew. With you it was somewhat different. Your pres 
 ence in the taxicab was only suspicious. There was always 
 the possibility that you might be one of those ubiquitous in 
 nocent bystanders. Your name, your position, the improb 
 ability that you could have anything in common with shall 
 we say, the matter that so deeply interests us? was all in 
 your favour. However, presumption and probability are 
 the tools of fools. We do not depend upon them we apply 
 the test. And having applied the test, we are convinced 
 that you have told the truth that is all." 
 
 He rose from his chair brusquely. " I shaii not apologise 
 to you for what has happened. I doubt very much if you 
 are in a frame of mind to accept anything of the sort. I 
 imagine, rather, that you are promising yourself that we 
 shall pay, and pay dearly, for this that, among other things, 
 we shall answer for the murder of that man in the other 
 room. All this will be quite within your province, Mr. 
 Dale and quite fruitless. To-morrow morning the story 
 that you are preparing to tell now would sound incredible 
 even in your own ears ; furthermore, as we shall take pains 
 to see that you leave this place with as little knowledge of 
 its location as you obtained when you arrived, your story, 
 even if believed, would do little service to you and less harm 
 
 to us. I think of nothing more, Mr. Dale, except " 
 
 There was a whimsical smile on the lips now. " Ah, yes, 
 the matter of your clothes. We can, and shall be glad to 
 make reparation to you to the slight extent of offering you a 
 new suit before you go." 
 
 Jimmie Dale scowled. Sick, shaken, and weak as he was.
 
 852 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 the cool, imperturbable impudence of the man was fask 
 growing unbearable. 
 
 The man laughed. " I am sure you will not refuse, Mr. 
 Dale since we insist. The condition of the clothes you 
 have on at present might I say might in a measure 
 support your story with some degree of tangible evidence- 
 It is not at all likely, of course ; but we prefer to discount 
 even so remote a possibility. When you have changed, you 
 will be motored back to your home. I b d you g^od-night, 
 Mr. Dale." 
 
 Jimmie Dale rubbed his eyes. The man was gone 
 through a door at the rear of the desk, a door that he had 
 not noticed before, that was not even in evidence now, that 
 was simply a movable section of the wall panelling and 
 for an instant Jimmie Dale experienced a sense of sicken 
 ing impotence. It was as though he stood defenceless, un 
 armed, and utterly at the mercy of some venomous power 
 that could crush what it would remorselessly and at will in 
 its might. 
 
 The place was a veritable maze, a lair of hellish cleverness. 
 He had no illusions now, he laboured under no false estimate 
 of either the ingenuity or the resources of this inhuman 
 nest of vultures to whom murder was no more than a matter 
 of detail. And it was against these men that henceforth he 
 was to match his wits! There could be no truce, no ar 
 mistice. It was their lives, or hers, or his! Well, he was 
 alive now, the first round was over, and so far he had won. 
 His brows furrowed suddenly. Had he? He was not so 
 sure, after all. He was conscious of a disquieting, pre 
 monitory intuition that, in some way which he could not 
 explain, the honours were not entirely his. 
 
 He was apparently the " apparently " was a mental res 
 ervation quite alone in the room. He got up from the 
 couch and walked shakily across the floor to the desk. A 
 revolver lay invitingly upon the blotting pad. It was his 
 own, the one they had taken from him after the accident 
 Jimmie Dale picked it up, examined it and smiled a little 
 sarcastically at himself for his trouble. It was unloaded.
 
 THE INNOCENT BYSTANDER 353 
 
 of course. He was twirling it in his hand, as a man, masked 
 as every one in the house was masked, and carrying a neatly 
 folded suit over his arm, entered from the corridor. 
 
 " The car is ready as soon as you are dressed," announced 
 the other briefly. He . aul chs >:lot ies upon the couch and 
 settled himself significantly in a chair. 
 
 Jimmie Dale hesitated. Then, with a shrug of his 
 shoulders, recrossed the room, arid began to remove his 
 torn garmenis. What was the use! They would certainly 
 have their own way in the end. It wasn t worth another 
 fight, and there was nothing to be gained by a refusal ex 
 cept to offer a sop to his own exasperation. 
 
 He dressed quickly, in what proved to be an exceedingly 
 well-fitting suit; and finally turned tentatively to the man 
 in the chair. 
 
 The other stood up, and produced a heavy black silk, 
 scarf. 
 
 "If you have no objections," he said curtly, " I ll tie thir 
 over your eyes." 
 
 Again Jimmie Dale shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " I am glad enough to get out on any conditions," he an- 
 Stt ered caustically. 
 
 " Fortunate would be the better word," rejoined the 
 other meaningly and, deftly knotting the scarf, led Jim 
 mie Dale blindfolded from the room..
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 ON GUARD 
 
 1117" A3 he in the city ? In a suburban town ? On a country 
 road ? It seemed childishly absurd that he could not 
 at least differentiate to that extent ; and yet, from the moment 
 he had been placed in the automobile in which he now found 
 himself, he was forced to admit that he could not tell. He 
 had started out with the belief that, knowing New York 
 and its surroundings as minutely as he knew them, it would 
 be impossible, do what they would to prevent it, that at the 
 end of the journey he should be without a clew, and a very 
 good clew at that, to the location of what he now called, 
 appropriately enough it seemed, the Crime Club. 
 
 But he had never ridden blindfolded in a car before! He 
 could see absolutely nothing. And if that increased or ac 
 centuated his sense of hearing, it helped little the roar of 
 the racing car beat upon his eardrums the more heavily, 
 that was all. He could tell, of course, the nature of the 
 roadbed. They were running on an asphalt road, that was 
 obvious enough ; but city streets and suburban streets and 
 hundreds of miles of country road around New York were 
 of asphalt! 
 
 Traffic ? He was quite sure, for he had strained his ears 
 in an effort to detect it, that there was little or no traffic; 
 but then, it must be one or two o clock in the morning, and 
 at that hour the city streets, certainly those that would be 
 chosen by these men, would be quite as deserted as any 
 country road ! And as for a sense of direction, he had none 
 whatever even if the car had not been persistently swerv- 
 ing and changing its course every little while. If he had 
 been able to form even an approximate idea of the compass 
 
 354
 
 ON GUARD 355 
 
 direction in which they had started, he might possibly have 
 been able in a general way to counteract this further effort 
 of theirs to confuse him ; but without the initial direction 
 he was essentially befogged. 
 
 With these conclusions finally thrust home upon him, 
 Jimmie Dale philosophically subordinated the matter in his 
 mind, and, leaning back, composed himself as comfortably 
 as he could upon his seat. There was a man beside him, 
 and he could feel the legs of two men on the seat facing him. 
 These, with the driver, would make four. He was still 
 well guarded ! The car itself was a closed car not hooded, 
 the sense of touch told him therefore a limousine of some 
 description. These facts, in a sense inconsequential, were 
 absorbed subconsciously; and then Jimmie Dale s brain, re 
 morselessly active, in spite of the pain from his throbbing 
 head, was at work again. 
 
 It seemed as though a year had passed since, in the earl? 
 evening, as Larry the Bat, he had burrowed so ironically 
 for refuge in Chang Foo s den from her! It seemed like 
 some mocking unreality, some visionary dream that, so short 
 a while before, he had read those words of hers that had 
 sent the blood coursing and leaping through his veins in mad 
 exultation at the thought that the culmination of the year* 
 had come, that all he longed for, hoped for, that all his soul 
 cried out for was to be his " in an hour." An hour and 
 he was to have seen her, the woman whose face he had 
 never seen, the woman whom he loved! And the hour in 
 stead, the hours since then, had brought a nightmare of 
 events so incredible as to seem but phantoms of the imagina 
 tion. 
 
 Phantoms! He sat up suddenly with a jerk. The face 
 of the dead chauffeur, the limp form lashed in that chair, 
 the horrible picture in its entirety, every detail standing 
 out in ghastly relief, took form before him. God knew there 
 was no phantom there! 
 
 The man beside him, at the sudden start, lifted a hand 
 and felt hurriedly over the bandage across Jimmie Dale * 
 eyes.
 
 856 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALfc 
 
 Jimmie Dale was scarcely conscious of the act. With 
 that face before him, with the scene reenacting itself in 
 his mind again, had come another thought, staggering him 
 for a moment with the new menace that it brought. He had 
 had neither time nor opportunity to think before; it had 
 been all horror, all shock when he had entered that room. 
 But now, like an inspiration, he saw it all from another 
 angle. There was a glaring fallacy in the game these men 
 had played for his benefit to-night a fallacy which they 
 had counted on glossing over, as it had, indeed, been glossed 
 over, by the sudden shock with which they had forced that 
 scene upon him ; or, failing in that, they had count ^d on the 
 fact that his, or any other man s nerve would have failed 
 when it came to open defiance based on a supposition which 
 might, after all, be wrong, and, being wrong, meant death. 
 
 But it was not supposition. Either he was right now, or 
 these men were childish, immature fools and, whatever 
 else they might be, they were not that! Not a single drop 
 of poison had passed the chauffeur s lips. The man had not 
 been murdered in that room. He had not, in a sense, been 
 murdered at all. The man, absolutely, unquestionably, with 
 out a loophole for doubt, had either been killed outright 
 in the automobile accident, or had died immediately after 
 ward, probably without regaining consciousness, certainly 
 without supplying any of the information that was so de 
 terminedly sought. 
 
 Yes, he saw it now ! Their backs were against the wall 
 they were at their wits end, these men! The knowledge 
 that the chauffeur possessed, that they knew he possessed, 
 was evidently life and death to them. To kill the man be 
 fore they had wormed out of him what they wanted to know, 
 or, at least, until, by holding him a prisoner, they had ex 
 hausted every means at their command to make him speak, 
 was the last thing they would do! 
 
 Jimmie Dale sat for a long time quite motionless. The 
 car was speeding at a terrific rate along a straight stretch 
 of road. He could almost have sworn, guided by some 
 intuitive sense, that they were in the country. Well, eve*
 
 ON GUARD 357 
 
 If it were so, what did that ptc ; . e ! They might have started 
 from New York itself only to return to it when they had 
 satisfied themselves that he was sufficiently duped. Or they 
 might have started legitimately from outside New York, 
 and be going toward the city now. Since the ultimate desti-, 
 nation was New York, and they had made no attempt to hide 
 that from him, it was useless to speculate for at best it 
 could be only speculation. He had decided that once before ! 
 The man at his side felt again over the scarf to see that it 
 was in place. 
 
 Curiously now Jimmie Dale recalled the inward monitor 
 that had warned him the honours had not all been his in this 
 first round with the Crime Club to-night. If they had de 
 liberately murdered the chauffeur because of a refusal to 
 answer, they would equally have done the same to him. 
 Fool that he had been not to have seen that before ! And 
 yet would it have made any difference ? He shook his head. 
 He could not have acted to any better advantage than he 
 had done. He could not his lips curled in grim derision 
 have been any more convincing. 
 
 Convincing ! It was all clear enough now ! If the chauf 
 feur had suffered death rather than talk, even admitting 
 the fact that they had more grounds for suspecting the 
 chauffeur s complicity, would his, Jimmie Dale s, mere 
 denial, his choice, too, of death, have been any the more con 
 vincing, or have saved his life where it had not saved the 
 other s? A certain added respect for these men, against 
 whom, until the end now, his victory or theirs, he realised 
 he was fighting for his life, came over him as he recognised 
 the touch of a master hand. They did not know where to 
 find the Tocsin ; the package that she had said was vital to 
 them was still beyond their reach ; the chauffeur was dead ; 
 and he, Jimmie Dale, alone remained a clew that they had 
 still to prove valid or invalid it was true, but the only clew 
 in their possession. And, gaining nothing from him by a 
 show of force, to throw him off his guard, they had let him 
 go meaning him to believe they were convinced he knew 
 nothing, and that the episode, the adventure of the night,
 
 358 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 was, as far as they were concerned, ended, finished, and 
 done with ! 
 
 Time passed, a very long time, as he sat there. It might 
 have been an hour he could only hazard a guess. Not 
 one of the men in the car had spoken a word. But to Jim- 
 mie Dale, the car itself, the ride, its duration, these three 
 strange companions, were for the time being extraneous. 
 Even that sick giddiness in his head had, at least temporarily, 
 gone from him. 
 
 And so, all unsuspectingly, he was to lead them to the 
 Tocsin and fall into the trap himself ! His hands, thrust 
 deep in his pockets, were tightly clenched. They were 
 clever enough, ingenious enough, powerful enough to watch 
 him henceforth at every turn and from now on, day and 
 night, they were to be reckoned with. Suppose that in some 
 way, as it might well have happened, for it was now vitally 
 necessary that she should communicate with him and he 
 with her, he had played blindly into their hands, and through 
 him she should have fallen into their power! It brought 
 a sickening chill, a sort of hideous panic to Jimmie Dale 
 and then fury, anger, in a torrent, surged upon him, and 
 there came a merciless desire to crush, to strangle, to stamp 
 out this inhuman band of criminals that, with intolerable 
 effrontery to the laws of God and man, were so elaborately 
 and scientifically equipped for their monstrous purposes ! 
 
 And then Jimmie Dale, in the darkness, smiled again 
 grimly as the leader s reference to the Gray Seal recurred 
 to him. Well, perhaps, who knew, they would have reason 
 more than they dreamed of to wish the Gray Seal enrolled 
 in their own ranks! It was strange, curious! He had 
 thought all that was ended. Only a few short hours before 
 he had hidden away all, everything that was incident to the 
 life of the Gray Seal, the clothes of Larry the Bat, that 
 little metal case with the gray-coloured, adhesive seals, a 
 dozen other things, believing that it only remained for him 
 to return and destroy them at his leisure as a finishing touch 
 to the Gray Seal s career and now, instead, he was face to 
 face with the gravest and most dangerous problem that she 
 had ever called upon him to undertake !
 
 ON GUARD 359 
 
 Well, at least, the odds were not all in the Crime Gub s 
 favour. Where they now certainly believed him to be en 
 tirely off his guard, he was thoroughly on his guard ; and 
 where they might suspect him, watch him, they would sus 
 pect and watch only the character, the person of Jimmie 
 Dale, and count not at all upon either Larry the Bat or 
 the Gray Seal. 
 
 A sort of savage elation fell upon Jimmie Dale. His 
 brain, that had been stagnant, confused, physically sick with 
 pain and suffering, was working now with its old-time vigour 
 and ease, mapping, planning, scheming the way ahead. To 
 strike, and strike quickly to strike first! It must be his 
 tnove next not theirs ! And he must act to-night at once, 
 the moment he was given this pretence to liberty that they 
 had in store for him, before they had an opportunity of 
 closing down around him with a network of spies that he 
 could not elude. By morning, Jimmie Dale would be Larry 
 the Bat, and inhabiting the Sanctuary again. And a tip 
 to Jason, his old butler, to the effect, say, that he had gone 
 away for a trip, would account for his disappearance satis 
 factorily enough ; it would not necessarily arouse their 
 suspicions when they eventually discovered he was gone, 
 for against that was always the possible, and quite likely, 
 presumption that, where they had succeeded in nothing else, 
 they had at least succeeded in frightening him thoroughly 
 and to the extent of imbuing him with a hasty desire to put 
 a safe distance between himself and them. 
 
 And now, with his mind made up to his course of action, 
 an intense impatience to put his plan into effect, an irrita 
 tion at the useless twistings and turnings of the car that 
 had latterly become more frequent, took hold upon him. 
 How much longer was this to last ! They must have been 
 fully an hour and a half on the road already, and ah, 
 the car was stopping now ! 
 
 He straightened up in his seat as the machine came to a 
 halt but the man at his side laid a restraining hand upon 
 him. The car door opened, and one of the men got out. 
 Emmie Dale caught an indistinct murmur of voices from
 
 860 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 without, then the man returned to his seat, and the car went 
 on again. 
 
 Another half hour passed, that, curbing his irritation and 
 impatience, was rilled with the conjectures and questions that 
 anew came crowding in upon his mind. Why had the car 
 made that stop? It was rather curious. It was certainly 
 a prearranged meeting place. Why? And these clothes 
 that he now wore why had they made him change? His 
 own had not been very badly torn. The reason given him 
 was, on the face of it now, in view of what he now knew, 
 mere pretence. What was the ulterior motive behind that 
 pretence? What did this package, that had already cost 
 a man his life to-night, contain? Who was the chauffeur? 
 What was this death feud between the Tocsin and these 
 men? Did she know where the Crime Club was? Who 
 and where was John Johansson? What was this box that 
 was numbered 428? Could she supply the links that would 
 forge the chain into an unbroken whole? 
 
 And then for the second time the car slowed down and 
 this time the man on the seat beside Jimmie Dak reached 
 up and untied the scarf. 
 
 " You get out here," *aid the man tersely.
 
 H 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE TRAP 
 
 "AD it not been for the stop the car had previously made, 
 for the possibility that he might have obtained a. 
 glimpse outside when the door had been opened, the scarf 
 over his eyes would have been superfluous ; for now, with it 
 removed, he could scarcely distinguish the forms of vhe three 
 men around him, since the window curtains of the car were 
 tightly drawn. Nor was he given the opportunity to do 
 more, even had it been possible. The car stopped, the door 
 was opened, he was pushed toward it and even as he 
 reached the ground, the door was closed behind him, and 
 ute car was speeding on again. But where he could not see 
 before, it took now but a glance to obtain his bearings- 
 he was standing on a corner on Riverside Drive, within 
 a few doors of his own house. 
 
 Jimmie Dale stood still for a moment, watching the car 
 as it disappeared rapidly up the Drive. And with a sort of 
 grim facetiousness his brain began to correlate time and 
 distance. Where had he come from? Where was this 
 Crime Club? They had been, as nearly as he could esti 
 mate, twc hours in making the journey ; and, as nearly as 
 he could estimate, in truir turnings and twistings had covered 
 at least twice the distance that would be represented by a 
 direct route. Granting, then, an average speed of forty 
 miles an hour, which was overgenerous to be on the safe 
 side, and the fact that they certainly had not crossed the 
 Hudson, which now lay before him, flanking the Drive, the 
 Crime Club was somewhere within the area of a semicircle, 
 whose centre was the corner on which he now stood, and 
 whose radius was forty miles or forty yards! He forced 
 
 361
 
 362 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 a laugh. It was just that, no more, no less he was as likely 
 to have started on his ride from within a biscuit throw of 
 where he now stood, as to have started on it from miles 
 away! 
 
 But he aroused himself with ? start he was wasting 
 time! It must be very late, near morning, and he would 
 have need for every moment that was left between now and 
 daylight. He turned, walked quickly to his house, mounted 
 the steps, and with his latch-key they had at least permitted 
 him to retain the contents of his pockets when they had forced 
 him to change his clothes opened the front door softly,, 
 and, stepping inside, closed the door as silently as he had 
 opened it. 
 
 He paused for an instant to listen. There was not a sound. 
 The servants, naturally, would have been in bed hours ago. 
 Even old Jason Jimmie Dale smiled, half whimsically, half 
 affectionately whose paternal custom it was to sit up for 
 his Master Jim, who, as he was fond of saying, he had 
 dandled as a baby on his knee, had evidently given it up as 
 a bad job on this occasion and had turned in himself. Jason, 
 however, had left the light burning here in the big reception 
 hall. 
 
 Jimmie Dale stepped to the switch and turned off the 
 light ; then stood hesitant in the darkness. Was there any 
 thing to be gained by rousing Jason now and telling him what 
 he intended to do to instruct him to answer any inquiries 
 by the statement that " Mr. Dale had gone away for a 
 trip " ? He could trust Jason ; Jason already knew much- 
 more than one of those mysterious letters of the Tocsin s 
 had passed through Jason s hands. 
 
 Jimmie Dale shook his head. No ; he could communicate 
 with Jason from downtown in the morning. He had half 
 expected to find Jason up, and, in that case, would have 
 taken the other, as far as necessary, into his confidence ; but 
 it was not a matter that pressed for the moment. He could 
 get into touch with Jason at any time readily enough. Was 
 there anything else before he went? He would not be able 
 to get back as easily as he got out! Mowy! He shoot
 
 THE TRAP 363 
 
 his head again a little grimly this time. He had been 
 caught once before as Larry the Bat without funds ! There 
 was plenty of money now hidden in the Sanctuary, enough 
 for any emergency, enough to last him indefinitely. 
 
 He stepped forward along the hall, his tread noiseless on 
 the rich, heavy rug, passed into the rear of the house, 
 descended the back stairs, and reached the cellar. It was 
 below the level of the ground, of course; but a narrow 
 window here, though quite large enough to permit of egress, 
 gave on the driveway at the side of the house that led to 
 the garage in the rear. 
 
 Cautiously now, for the cement flooring was, in the still 
 ness, little less than a sounding board, Jimmie Dale reached 
 the wall and felt along it to the window, the lower edge of 
 whose sill was just slightly below the level of his shoulder. 
 It opened inward, if he remembered correctly. His fingers 
 were feeling for the fastenings. It was too dark to see a 
 thing. He muttered in annoyance. Where were the fasten 
 ings ! At the sides, or at the bottom ? His hand began to 
 make a circuit of the sill and then suddenly, with a low t 
 sharp cry, he leaned forward ! 
 
 W hat did this mean? Wires! No wires had ever been 
 there before ! His fingers were working now with feverish 
 haste, telegraphing their message to his brain. The wires 
 ran through the sill close to the corner of the wall tiny 
 fragments of wood, as from an auger, were still on the sill 
 and here was a small particle of wire insulation that, those 
 sensitive finger tips proclaimed, was fresh. 
 
 A cold thrill ran through Jimmie Dale ; and there came 
 again that sickening sense of impotency in the face of the 
 malignant, devilish cunning arrayed against him, that once 
 before be had experienced, that night. He had thought to 
 forestall them and he had been forestalled himself ! This 
 could only have been done they had had no interest in him 
 before thett- while they held him at the Crime Club, while 
 he was spending that two hours in the car ! Was that why 
 they had takeo so long in coming? Was that why the car 
 had stop>d thM time that those with him might be told
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 that the work here had been completed, and he need nejs 
 longer be kept away? 
 
 He edged away from the window, and, as cautiously as he 
 had come, retraced his steps across the cellar and up the 
 stairs and then, the possibility of being heard from with 
 out gone, he broke into a run. There was no need to wonder 
 long what those wires meant. They could mean only one 
 of two things and the Crime Club would have little concern 
 in his electric light! They had tapped his telephone. The 
 mains, he knew, ran into the cellar from the underground 
 service in the street. He was racing like a madman now. 
 How long ago, how many hours ago, had they done that! 
 Great Scott, she was to have telephoned ! Had she done so ? 
 Was the game, all, everything, she herself, at their mercy 
 already? If she had telephoned, Jason would have left a 
 message on his desk he would look there first afterward 
 he would waken Jason. 
 
 He gained the door of his den on the first landing, a. room 
 that ran the entire length of one side of the house from 
 front to rear, burst in, switched on the light and stood 
 stock-still in amazement. 
 
 " Jason ! " he cried out. 
 
 The old butler, fully dressed, rubbing and blinking his 
 eyes at the light, and with a startled cry, rose up from the 
 depths of a lounging chair. 
 
 " Jason ! " exclaim* jd Jimmie Dale again. 
 
 " I beg pardon, sir, Master Jim," stammered the man, 
 " I I must have fallen asleep, sir." 
 
 " Jason, what are you doing here ? " Jimmie Dale de 
 manded sharply. 
 
 " Well, sir," said Jason, still fumbling for his words, " it 
 Jt was the telephone, sir." 
 
 " The telephone !" 
 
 " Yes, sir. A woman, begging your pardon, Master Jim, 
 a lady, sir, has been telephoning every hour or so, and 
 she " 
 
 " Yes!" Jimmie Dale had jumped across the room and 
 had caught the other fiercely by the shoulder. " Yes yes ! 
 What did she say ? Quick, man I "
 
 THE TRAP 365 
 
 "Good Lord, Master Jim!" faltered Jason. " I 
 jhe " 
 
 " Jason," said Jimmie Dale, suddenly as cold as ice, " what 
 did she say ? Think, man ! Every word ! " 
 
 " She didn t say anything, Master Jim. Nothing at all, 
 sir except to keep asking each time if she could speak to 
 you." 
 
 " Nothing else, Jason ? " 
 
 i No, sir." 
 
 " You are sure? " 
 
 " I m sure, Master Jim. Not another thing but that, sir, 
 just as I ve told you." 
 
 " Thank God ! " said Jimmie Dale, in a low voice. 
 
 * Yes, sir," said Jason mechanically. 
 
 " How long ago was it since she telephoned last ? " asked 
 Jimmie Dale quickly. 
 
 " Well, sir, I couldn t rightly say. You see, as I said, 
 Master Jim, I must have gone to sleep, but " 
 
 They were staring tensely into each other s face. The 
 telephone on the desk was ringing vibrantly, clamourously, 
 through the stillness of the room. 
 
 Jason, white, frightened, bewildered, touched his lips with 
 the tip of his tongue. 
 
 " That ll be her again, sir," he said hoarsely. 
 
 " Wait ! " said Jimmie Dale tersely. 
 
 He was trying to think, to think faster than he had ever 
 thought before. He could not tell Jason to say that he had 
 not yet come in they knew he was in, it would be but show 
 ing his hand to that " some one " who would be listening 
 now on the wire. He dared not speak to her, or, above all, 
 allow her to expose herself by a single inadvertent word. 
 He dared not speak to her and she was here now, calling 
 him! He could not speak to her and it was life and death 
 almost that she should know what had happened; life and 
 death almost for both of them that he should know all and 
 everything she could tell him. True, it would take but a 
 minute to run to the cellar and cut those wires, while Jason 
 held her on the pretence of calling him, Jimmie Dale, to the
 
 366 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 phone; only a minute to cut those wires and in so 
 doing advertise to these fiends the fact that he had dis 
 covered their trick ; admit, as though in so many words, 
 that their suspicions of him were justified ; lay himself open 
 to some new move that he could not hope to foresee; and, 
 paramount to all else, rob her and himself of this master 
 trump the Crime Club had placed in his hands, by means of 
 which there was a chance that he could hoist them with their 
 own petard ! 
 
 The telephone rang again imperatively, persistently. 
 
 "Listen, Jason." Jimmie Dale was speaking rapidly, 
 earnestly. " Say that I ve come in and have gone to bed 
 in a vile humour. That you told me a lady had been calling, 
 but that I said if she called again I wasn t to be disturbed if 
 it was the Queen of Sheba herself that I wouldn t answer 
 any phone to-night for anybody. Do you understand ? No 
 argument with her just that. Now, answer!" 
 
 Jason lifted the reciever from the hook. 
 
 " Yes hello ! " he said. " Yes, ma am, Mr. Dale has com 
 in, but he has retired. . . . Yes, I told him; but, begging 
 your pardon, ma am, he was in what I might say was a bit of 
 a temper, and said he wasn t to be disturbed by any one." 
 
 Jimmie Dale snatched the receiver from Jason, and put it 
 to his own ear. 
 
 " Kindly tell Mr. Dale that unless he comes to the phone 
 now," a feminine voice, her voice, in well-simulated indigna 
 tion, was saying, " it will be a very long day before I shall 
 trouble myself to " 
 
 Jimmie Dale clapped his hand firmly over the mouthpiece 
 of the instrument. Thank God for that clever brain of hers ! 
 She understood ! 
 
 " Repeat what you said before, Jason," he instructed hur 
 riedly. " Then say Good-night. " 
 
 He removed his hand from the mouthpiece. 
 
 " It s quite useless, ma am," said Jason apologetically. " In 
 the rare temper he was in, he wouldn t come, to use his own 
 words, ma am, not for the Queen of Sheba herself, ma am. 
 Good-night, ma am."
 
 THE TRAP 367 
 
 Jimmie Dale hung the receiver back on the hook and 
 with his hand flirted away a bead of moisture that had 
 sprung to his forehead. 
 
 " Good Lord, Master Jim, what s wrong, sir? What s 
 happened, sir? And and those clothes, Master Jim, sir! 
 They aren t the ones you went out in, sir they aren t yours 
 at all, sir ! " Jason ventured anxiously. 
 
 " Jason," said Jimmie Dale, " switch off the light, and go 
 to the front window and look out. Keep well behind the 
 curtains. Don t show yourself. Tell me if you see any 
 thing." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Jason obediently. 
 
 The light went out. Jimmie Dale moved to the rear of 
 the room to the window overlooking the garage and yard, 
 
 " I don t see anything, sir," Jason called. 
 
 " Watch ! " Jimmie Dale answered. 
 
 A minute passed two three. Jimmie Dale was staring 
 down into the black of the yard. She understood! She 
 knew, of course, before she phoned that something had gone 
 wrong to-night. She knew that only peril of the gravest 
 moment would have kept him from the phone and her. 
 She knew now, as a logical conclusion, that it was dangerous 
 to attempt to communicate with him at his home. Those 
 wires ! Where did they lead to ? Not far away that would 
 be almost a mechanical impossibility. Was it into the Crime 
 Club itself near at hand? Or the basement, say, of that 
 apartment house across the driveway ? Or where ? 
 
 And then Jimmie Dale spoke again: 
 
 " Do you see anything, Jason ? " 
 
 " I m not sure, sir," Jason answered hesitantly. * 1 
 thought I saw a man move behind a tree out there across 
 the road a minute ago, sir. Yes, sir there he is again ! " 
 
 There was a thin, mirthless smile on Jimmie Dale s lips 
 
 Below, in the shadow of the garage, a dark form, like a 
 deeper shadow, stirred and was still again. 
 
 " What time is it, Jason ? " Jimmie Dale asked presently* 
 
 " It ll be about half-past four, sir."
 
 86 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 " Go to bed, Jason." 
 
 "Yes, sir; but" Jason s voice, low, troubled, came 
 through the darkness from the upper end of the room* 
 "Master Jim, sir, I " 
 
 " Go to bed, Jason and not a word of this." 
 
 " Yes, sir. Good-night, Master Jim." 
 
 " Good-night, Jason." 
 
 Jimmie Dale groped his way to the big lounging chair 
 In which he had found Jason asleep, and flung himself into 
 it. They had struck quickly, these ingenious, dress-suited 
 murderers of the Crime Club! The house was already 
 watched, would be watched now untiringly, unceasingly; 
 not a movement of his henceforth but would be under their 
 eyes ! 
 
 Kis hands, resting on the arms of the chair, closed slowly 
 until they became tight-clenched, knotted fists. What wa3 
 he to do? It was not only the Crime Club, it was not only 
 the Tocsin and her peril there was the underworld snap 
 ping and snarling at his heels, there was the police, dogged 
 and sullen, ever on the trail of the Gray Seal! His life, 
 even before this, in his fight against the underworld and the 
 police, had depended upon his freedom of action and now, 
 at one and the same time, that freedom was cut away from 
 beneath his feet, as it were, and a third foe, equally as deadly 
 as the others, was added to the list ! 
 
 For months, to preserve and sustain the character of Larry 
 the Bat, he had been forced to assume the role almost daily ; 
 for, in that sordid empire below the dead line, whose one 
 common bond and aim was the Gray Seal s death, where 
 suspicion, one of the other, was rampant and extravagant, 
 where each might be the one against whom all swore their 
 vengeance, Larry the Bat could not mysteriously disappear 
 from his accustomed haunts without inviting suspicion in 
 an active and practical form an inquisitorial visit to his 
 squalid lodgings, the Sanctuary and the end of Larry the 
 Bat! 
 
 If, as he had thought only a few hours before, he waff
 
 THE TRAP 369 
 
 through forever with his dual life, that would not have mat 
 tered, the underworld would have been welcome to make 
 what it chose of it but now the preservation of the char 
 acter of Larry the Bat was more vital and necessary to him 
 than it had ever been before. It as a means of defense 
 and offense against these men who lurked now outside his 
 doors. It was the sole means now of communication with 
 her; for, warned both by Jason s words, and what must be 
 an obvious fact to her, that their plans had miscarried, that 
 it was dangerous to communicate with him as Jimmie Dale, 
 she would expect him, count on him to make that move. 
 There would be no longer either reason or attempt on her 
 part to maintain the mystery with which she had heretofore 
 surrounded herself, the crisis had come, she would be watch 
 ing, waiting, hoping, seeking for him more anxiously and 
 with far more at stake than he had ever sought for her 
 until now! 
 
 He got up impulsively from his chair, and, in the black 
 ness, began to pace the room. The next move was clear, 
 pitifully clear; it had been clear from the first, it had been 
 clear even in that ride in the car it was so clear that it 
 seemed veritably to mock him as he prodded his brains for 
 some means of putting it into execution. He must get to 
 the Sanctuary, become Larry the B?t--*iut how? How! 
 The question seemed at last to become xoonant, to ring 
 through the room with the weight of doom upon it. 
 
 Schemes, plans, ideas came, bringing a momentary uplift 
 only to be discarded the next instant with a sort of bitter, 
 desperate regret. These men were not men of mere ordi 
 nary intelligence ; their cleverness, their power, the amazing 
 scope of their organisation, all bore grim witness to the fact 
 that they would be blinded not at all by any paltry ruse. 
 
 He could walk out of the house in the morning as Jim 
 mie Dale without apparent hindrance that was obvious 
 enough. And so long as he pursued the usual avocations 
 of Jimmie Dale, he would not be interfered with only 
 watched. It was useless to consider that plan for a moment.
 
 370 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALtt 
 
 It would not help him to reach the Sanctuary without lead 
 ing them there behind him! True, there was always the 
 chance that he might shake them off his trail, but he could 
 hardly hope to accomplish anything like that without their 
 knowing that it was done deliberately and that he dared 
 not risk. The strongest weapon in his hands now was his 
 secret knowledge that he was being watched. 
 
 That telephone there, for instance, that most curiously kept 
 on insisting in his mind that it, and it alone was the way out, 
 was the last thing he could place in jeopardy. Besides, 
 there was another reason why such a plan would not do ; for, 
 granting even that he succeeded in eluding them on the way t 
 and managed to reach the Sanctuary, his freedom of action 
 would be so restricted and limited as to be practically worth 
 less he would have to return to his home here again within 
 a reasonable time as Jimmie Dale, within a few hours at 
 most or again they would be in possession of the fact that 
 he had discovered their surveillance. 
 
 That, it was true, had been his original plan when he had 
 entered the house half an hour previously, but it was an en 
 tirely different matter now. Then, he had counted on 
 getting away without their knowing it, before they, as he 
 had fondly thought, would have had a chance to establish 
 their espionage, and when they would have had no reason 
 to suspect, for a time at least, that he was not still within 
 the house, when they would have been watching, as it were, 
 an empty cage. 
 
 He stopped in his walk, and, after a moment, dropped 
 down into the lounging chair again. That was it, of course. 
 An empty cage! If he could escape from the house! Not 
 so much without their seeing him ; that was more or less 
 3. mechanical detail. But escape and leave them in posses 
 sion of a sort of guarantee or assurance that he was still 
 there ! That would give him the freedom of action that he 
 must have. He smiled with bitter irony. That solved 
 the problem! That was all there was to it just that! It 
 was very simple, exceedingly simple; it was only impos 
 sible I
 
 THE TRAP 871 
 
 The smile left his lips, and once more his hanua clenched 
 fiercely. No; it was not impossible! It must be done if 
 he was to win through, if he was even to save himself ! It 
 must be done or jaV her t Tt rould be done ; there was a 
 way if he could only sec iti
 
 CHAFf ER VU 
 
 THE " HOUR ** 
 
 AS the minutes passed, many of them, Jimmie Dale sat 
 *"* there motionless, staring before him at the desk that 
 was faintly outlined in the unlighted room. Then some 
 where in the house a clock struck the hour. Five o clock! 
 He raised his head. Yes! It could be done ! There was a 
 way ! He had the germ of it now. And now the plan be 
 gan to grow, to take form and shape in his mind, to dove, 
 tail, to knit the integral parts into a comprehensive whole. 
 There was a way but he must have assistance. Jason- 
 yes, assuredly. Benson, his chauffeur yes, equally as trust 
 worthy as Jason. Benson was devoted to him ; and moreover 
 Benson was young, alert, daring, cool. He had had more 
 than one occasion to test Benson s resourcefulness and 
 nerve ! 
 
 Jimmie Dale rose abruptly, went to the rear window, and, 
 parting the curtains cautiously, stood peering down into the 
 courtyard. Yes, it was feasible; even a little more than 
 feasible. The garage fronted the driveway, of course, to 
 give free entrance and egress to the cars, but where the wall 
 of the garage and the rear wall of the house overlapped, as 
 it were, the space between them was not much more than 
 ten yards : and here the shadows of the two walls, mingling, 
 lay like a black, impenetrable pathway not like that other 
 shadow he had seen moving at the side of the garage, and 
 that, if not for the moment discernible, was none the less 
 surely still lurking there ! 
 
 Satisfied, Jimmie Dale swung briskly from the window, 
 and, going now to his bedroom across the hall, undressed 
 and went to bed but not to sleep. There would be time 
 
 372
 
 THE "HOUR" 373 
 
 enough to sleep, all day, if he wished ; now, there were still 
 the little details to be thought out that, more than anything 
 else, could make or wreck his plans. A point overdone, the 
 faintest suggestion of a false note where men of the calibre 
 of those against whom he was now fighting for his life were 
 concerned, would not only make his scheme abortive, but 
 would place him utterly at their mercy. 
 
 It was nine o clock when he rang for Jason. 
 
 " Jason," he said abruptly, as the other entered, " I want 
 you to telephone for Doctor Merlin " 
 
 " The doctor, sir ! " exclaimed the old man anxiously. 
 ** You re you re not ill, Master Jim, sir ? " 
 
 " Do I look ill, Jason ? " inquired Jimmie Dale gravely. 
 
 " Well, sir," admitted Jason, in concern ; " a bit done up, 
 sir, perhaps. A little pale, sir ; though I m sure " 
 
 " I m glad to hear it," said Jimmie Dale, sitting up io 
 bed. " The worse I look, the better ! " 
 
 " I I beg pardon, sir?" stammered Jason. 
 
 " Jason," said Jimmie Dale, gravely again, " you have had 
 reason to know that on several occasions my life has been 
 threatened. It is threatened now. You know from last 
 night that this house is now watched. You may, cr you may 
 not have surmised that our telephone wires have beer 
 tapped." 
 
 " Tapped, sir! " Jason s face had gone a little gray. 
 
 " Yes ; a party line, so to speak," said Jimmie Dale 
 grimly. " Do you understand ? You must be careful to 
 say no more, no less than exactly what I tell you to say. 
 Now go and telephone! Ask the doctor to come over and 
 see me this morning. Simply say that I am not feeling 
 well; but that, apart from being apparently in a very ner 
 vous condition, you do not know what is the matter." 
 
 " Yes, sir good Lord, sir ! " gasped Jason and left the 
 room to carry out his orders. 
 
 An hour later, Doctor Merlin had been and gone and 
 had left two prescriptions ; one written, the other verbal. 
 With the written one, Benson, in his chauffeur s livery, was 
 dispatched to the drug store; the verbal one was precisely
 
 374 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 what Jimmie Dale had expected from the fussy old family 
 physician : " Two or three days of quiet in the house, 
 James ; and if you need me again, let me know." 
 
 " Now, Jason," said Jimmie Dale, when the old man had 
 returned from ushering Doctor Merlin from the house, 
 " our friends out there will be anxious to learn the verdict. 
 I was to dine with the Ross-Hendersons to-morrow night, 
 was I not ? " 
 
 *"Yes, sir; I think so, sir." 
 
 " Make sure ! " said Jimmie Dale. " Look in my engage 
 ment book there on the table." 
 
 Jason looked. 
 
 " Yes, sir, that s right," he announced. 
 
 " Very good," said Jimmie Dale softly. " Now go and 
 telephone again, Jason. Present my regrets and excusea 
 to the Ross-Hendersons, and say that under the doctor s 
 orders I am confined to the house for the next few days 
 and, Jason! " 
 
 "Yes, sir?" 
 
 " When Benson returns with the medicine let him bring 
 it here himself and I shall want you as well." 
 
 Jimmie Dale propped himself up a little wearily on the 
 pillows, as Jason went out of the room. After all, his 
 condition was not entirely feigned. He was, as a matter 
 of fact, pretty well played out, both mentally and physically. 
 Certainly, that he should require a doctor and be confined 
 to the house could not arouse suspicion even in the minds 
 of those alert, aristocratic thugs of the Crime Club, prone 
 as they would be to suspect anything a man who had been 
 knocked unconscious in an automobile smash the night be 
 fore, had been in a fight, had been subjected to a terrific 
 mental shock, to say nothing of the infernal drug that had 
 been administered to him, might well be expected to be 
 indisposed the next morning, and for several mornings fol 
 lowing that ! It might, indeed, even cause them to relax 
 their vigilance for the time being though he dared build 
 nothing on that. Well, he had only to coach Benson and
 
 THE "HOUR" 
 
 Jason in the parts they were to play, and the balance of the 
 morning and all the afternoon was his in which to rest. 
 
 He reached ever to the table, picked up a pencil and paper, 
 and began to jot down memoranda. He had just tossed the 
 pencil back on the table as the two men entered. 
 
 Jason, at a sign, closed the door quietly. 
 
 Jimmie Dale looked at Benson half musingly, half whim 
 sically, for a moment before he spoke. 
 
 " Benson," he said, " the back seat of the large touring car 
 is hinged and lifts up, once the cushion is removed, doesn t 
 it?" 
 
 " Yes, sir," Benson answered promptly. 
 
 " And there s space enough for, say, a man inside, isn t 
 there?" 
 
 " Why, yes, sir ; I suppose so at a squeeze " Benson 
 stared blankly. 
 
 " Quite so ! " said Jimmie Dale calmly. " Now, anothei 
 matter, Benson : I believe some chauffeurs have a habit, 
 when occasion lends itself, of taking, shall we say, theii! 
 1 best girl * out riding in their masters machines ? " 
 
 " Some might," Benson replied, a little stiffly. " I hope 
 jrou don t think, sir, that " 
 
 " One moment, Benson. The point is, it s done quite 
 generally ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " And you have a best girl/ or at least could find one fof 
 *uch a purpose, if you were so inclined? " 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Benson ; " but " 
 
 " Very good ! " Jimmie Dale interrupted. " Then to 
 night, Benson, taking advantage of my illness, and to-mor 
 row night, and the nights after that until further notice, you 
 Will acquire and put into practice that reprehensible habit." 
 
 " I I don t understand, Mr. Dale." 
 
 " No ; I dare say not," said Jimmie Dale and then the 
 whimsicality dropped from him. " Benson," he said slowly, 
 * do you remember a night, nearly four years ago, the first 
 night you ever saw me? You had, indiscreetly, I think;
 
 876 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 displayed more money than was wise in that East Side neigh 
 bourhood.* 
 
 * I remember," said Benson, with a sudden start; theft 
 simply . " I wouldn t be here now, sir, if it hadn t been for 
 you " 
 
 " Well," said Jimmie Dale quietly, " the tables are turned 
 to-day, Benson. As Jason already knows, this house is 
 watched. For reasons that I cannot explain, I am in great 
 danger. Bluntly, I am putting my life in your hands and 
 Jason s. 
 
 Benson looked for an instant from Jimmie Dale to Jason, 
 caught the strained, troubled expression on the old man s 
 face, then back again at Jimmie Dale. 
 
 * D ye mean that, sir ! " he cried. " Then you can count 
 on me, Mr. Dale, to the last ditch ! " 
 
 " I know that, Benson," Jimmie Dale said softly. " And 
 now, both of you, listen ! It is imperative that I should get 
 away from the house ; and equally imperative that those 
 watching should believe that I am still here. Not even 
 the servants are to be permitted a suspicion that I am not 
 here in my bed, ill. That, Jason, is your task. You will 
 allow no one to wait on me but yourself ; you will bring the 
 meal trays up regularly and eat the food yourself. You 
 will answer all inquiries, telephone and otherwise, in per- 
 son I am not seeing any one. You understand perfectly s 
 Jason ? " 
 
 " I understand, Master Jim. You need have no fear, sir, 
 on that score." 
 
 " Now, you, Benson," Jimmie Dale went on. " A few 
 minutes ago I sent you out in your chauffeur s togs with 
 that prescription. You were undoubtedly observed. I 
 wanted you to be. It was quite necessary that they should 
 know and be able to recognise you again to disabuse their 
 m;nds later on of the possibility that I might be masquerad 
 ing in your clothes; and also, of course, that they should 
 know who you were, and what your position was in the house 
 hold. Very well ! To-night, at eight o clock exactly, you are 
 to go out from the back door of the house to the garage
 
 THE "HOUR" 87f 
 
 On the way out it will be quite dark then I want you to 
 drop something, say, a bunch of keys that you had been 
 jingling in your hand. You are to experience some diffi 
 culty in rinding it again, move about a little to force any one 
 that may be lurking by the garage to retreat around the cor 
 ner. Grumble a bit and make a little noise; but you are 
 not to overdo it a couple of minutes at the outside is 
 enough, by that time I shall be under the car seat. You will 
 ;hen run the machine out to the street and stop at the curb, 
 jump out, and, as though you had forgotten something, 
 hurry back to the garage. You must not be away long 
 enough only to permit, say, a passer-by to glance into the 
 car and satisfy himself that it is empty. You understand, 
 of course, Benson, that the hood must be down no closed 
 car to invite even the suggestion of concealment that would 
 be a fatal blunder. Drive then to the young lady s home by 
 as direct a route as you can give no appearance of being 
 aware that you are followed, as you will be, and much less 
 the appearance of attempting to elude pursuit. Act natu 
 rally. Between here and your destination I will manage 
 readily enough to leave the car. You will then take the 
 young lady for her drive that is what they will be interested 
 in your motive for going out to-night. And, as 1 said, take 
 her driving again on each succeeding night establish the 
 habit to their satisfaction." 
 
 Jimmie Dale paused, glanced at the paper which he still 
 held in his hand, then handed it to Benson. 
 
 " Just one thing more, Benson," he said : " Listed on that 
 paper you will find a different rendezvous for each night 
 for the next five nights, excluding to-night, which, after you 
 have returned the young lady to her home, you are to pass 
 by on your way back here. See that your drive is always 
 over in time for you to pass each night s rendezvous at half- 
 past eleven sharp. Don t stop unless I signal you. If I 
 am not there, go right on home, and be at the next place 
 <TO the following night. I am fairly well satisfied they will 
 not bother about you after to-night, or to-morrow night at 
 ?Jhe most ; but, for all that, you must take no chances, so, ex-
 
 378 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 cept in the route you take in going to the young lady s 
 always avoid covering the same ground twice, which might 
 give the appearance of having some ulterior purpose in view 
 even in your drives, vary your runs. Is this clear, Ben- 
 son?" 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Benson earnestly. 
 
 " Very well, then," said Jimmie Dale. " Eight o clock 
 to the dot, Benson compare your time with Jason s. And 
 now, Jason, see that I get a chance to sleep until dinner time 
 to-night." 
 
 The hours that followed were hours of sound and much- 
 needed sleep for Jimmie Dale, and from which he awoke 
 only on Jason s entrance that evening with the dinner tray. 
 
 " I ve slept like a log, Jason ! " he cried briskly, as he 
 leaped out of bed. "Anything new anything happened?" 
 
 " No, sir ; not a thing," Jason answered. " Only, Master 
 Jim, sir " the old man twisted his hands nervously " I 
 you ll excuse my saying so, sir I do hope you ll be careful 
 to-night, sir. I can t help being afraid that something ll 
 happen to you, Master Jim." 
 
 " Nonsense, Jason ! " Jimmie Dale laughed cheerfully. 
 " There s nothing going to happen to me ! You go ahead 
 now and stay with the servants, and get them out of the road 
 at the proper time." 
 
 He bathed, dressed, ate his dinner, and was slipping car 
 tridges into the magazine of his automatic when, within a 
 minute or two of eight o clock, Jason s whisper came from 
 the doorway. 
 
 " It s all clear now, Master Jim, sir." 
 
 " Right ! " Jimmie Dale responded and followed Jason 
 down the stairway, and to the head of the cellar stairs. 
 
 Here Jason halted. 
 
 " God keep you, Master Jim ! " said the old man huskily. 
 
 " Good-night, Jason," Jimmie Dale answered softly ; and, 
 with a reassuring squeeze on the other s arm, went on down 
 to the cellar. 
 
 Here he moved quickly, noiselessly across to the window 
 aot the window of the night before, but another of the saint
 
 THE "HOUR" 79 
 
 description, almost directly beneath the one in his den above, 
 that faced the garage and lay in the line of that black shadow 
 path between the two buildings. Deftly, cautiously without 
 sound, a half inch, an inch at a time he opened it. He stood 
 listening, then. A minute passed. Then he heard Benson 
 open and shut the back door ; then Benson in the yard ; and 
 then Benson s voice in a muttered and irritable growl, talking 
 to himself, as he stamped around on the ground. 
 
 With a lithe, agile movement, Jimmie Dale pulled him 
 self up and through the window and began to creep rapidly 
 on hands and knees toward the garage. It was dark, in 
 tensely dark. He could barely distinguish Benson s form, 
 though, as he passed the other, the slight sounds he made 
 drowned out by the chauffeur s angry mumblings, he could 
 have reached out and touched Benson easily. 
 
 He gained the interior of the garage, and, as Benson, 
 came on again, stepped lightly into the car, lifted the seat, 
 and wriggled his way inside. 
 
 It was close, stuffy, abominably cramped, but Jimmie 
 Dale was smiling grimly now. Thanks to Benson, there 
 wasn t a possibility that he had been seen. He both felt 
 ind heard Benson start the car. Then the car moved for 
 ward, ran the length of the driveway, bumped slightly as it 
 made the street and stopped. He heard Benson jump out 
 and run back and then he listened intently, and the grim 
 smile flickered on his lips again. Came the sound of a foot 
 step on the sidewalk close beside the car then silence th- 
 car shook a little as though some one s weight was on thr 
 step then the footsteps receded Benson returned on th* 
 run and the car started forward once more. 
 
 Perhaps ten minutes passed. Three times the car had 
 swerved sharply, making a corner turn. Then Jimmie Dale 
 pushed up the seat, and, protected from observation from 
 behind by the back of the car itself, crawled out and 
 crouched down on the floor of the tonneau. 
 
 " Don t look around, Benson," he said calmly. " Are \m 
 followed?" 
 
 " Yes sir," Benson answered. " At least, there s always
 
 380 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 been a car behind us, though not the same one. They re 
 pretty clever. There must be three or four, each following 
 the other. Every time I turn a corner it s a different car thai 
 turns it behind me." 
 
 " How far behind ? " Jimmie Dale asked. 
 
 " Half a block." 
 
 " Slow down a little," instructed Jimmie Dale ; " and don 1 * 
 turn another corner until they ve had a chance to accomo- 
 date themselves to your new speed. You are going too fast 
 for me to jump, and I don t want them to notice any change 
 in speed, except what is made in plain sight Yes; that s 
 better. Where are we, Benson ? " 
 
 " That s Amsterdam Avenue ahead," replied Benson. 
 
 " All right," said Jimmie Dale quietly. " Turn into it. 
 The more people the better. Tell me just as you are about 
 to turn." 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Benson; then, almost on the instant i 
 "All ready, sir!" 
 
 Jimmie Dale s hand reached out for the door catch, edged 
 the door ajar, the car swerved, took the corner and Jim 
 mie Dale stepped out on the running board, hung there 
 negligently for a moment as though chatting with Benson, 
 and then with an airy " good-night " dropped nonchalantly 
 to the ground, and the next instant had mingled with the 
 throng of pedestrians on the sidewalk. 
 
 A half minute later, a large gray automobile turned the 
 corner and followed Benson and Jimmie Dale, stepping out 
 into the street again, swung on a downtown car. The road 
 to the Sanctuary was open ! 
 
 In his impatience, now, the street car seemed to drag along 
 every foot of the way ; but a glance at his watch, as he finally 
 reached the Bowery, and, walking then, rapidly approached 
 the cross street a few steps ahead that led to the Sanctuary,, 
 told him that it was still but a quarter to nine. But even at 
 that he quickened his steps a little. He was free now ! There 
 was a sort of savage, elemental uplift upon him. He was 
 free! He could strike now in his own defense and hers? 
 jfo a few moments he would be at the Sanctuary ; in a f ev
 
 THE "HOUR" 581 
 
 more he wouid be Larry the Bat , and by tomorrow at th( 
 latest he would see The Tocsin. After all, that " hour 
 was not to be taken from him ! It was not, perhaps, the houi 
 that she had meant it should be, thought and prayed, per 
 haps, that it might be ! It was not the hour of victory. But 
 it was the hour that meant to him the realisation of the years 
 of longing, the hour when he should see her, see her for the 
 first time face to face, when there should be no more barriers 
 between them, when " 
 
 " Per Gawd s sake, mister, buy a pencil ! " 
 
 A hand was plucking at his sleeve, the thin voice was 
 whining in his ear. He halted mechanically. A woman, 
 old, bedraggled, ragged, was thrusting a bunch of cheap 
 pencils imploringly toward him and then, with a stifled cry, 
 Jimmie Dale leaned forward. The eyes that lifted to his for 
 an instant were bright and clear with the vigor of youth, 
 great eyes of brown they were, and trouble, hope, fear, wist- 
 fulness, ay, and a glorious shyness were in their depths. 
 And then the -voice he knew so well, the Tocsin s voice, ws* 
 whispering hurriedly : 
 
 * I will be waiting toere, Jimmie for Larry the
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE TOCSIN 
 
 IT wt* only a little way back along the street from tih, 
 Sanctuary to the corner on the Bowery where as Jim* 
 mie Dale he had left her, where as Larry the Bat now he wav 
 going to meet her again ; it would take only a moment or so 
 even at Larry the Bat s habitual, characteristic, slouching 
 gait but it seemed that was all too slow, that he must throw 
 discretion to the winds and run the distance. His blood was 
 tingling ; there was elation upon him, coupled with an almost 
 childlike dread that she might be gone. 
 
 " The Tocsin ! The Tocsin ! " he kept saying to himself. 
 
 Yes; she was still there, still whiningly imploring those 
 who passed to buy her miserable pencils and then, with a 
 quick-flung whisper to him to follow as he slouched up close 
 to her, she had started slowly down the street. 
 
 "The Tocsin! The Tocsin! The Tocsin ! "his brain 
 seemed to be ringing with the words, ringing with them in 
 a note clear as a silver bell. The Tocsin at last! The 
 woman who so strangely, so wonderfully, so mysteriously 
 had entered into his life, and possessed it, and filled it with a 
 love and yearning that had come to mold and sway and 
 actuate his very existence the woman for whom he had 
 fought; for whom he had risked, and gladly risked, his 
 wealth, his name, his honour everything; the woman for 
 whose sake he, the Gray Seal, was sought and hounded as the 
 most notorious criminal of the age; she whose cleverness, 
 whose resourcefulness, whose amazing intimacy with the 
 hidden things of the underworld had seemed, indeed, to 
 border on the supernatural; she, the Tocsin the woman 
 whose face he had never seen before ! The woman whose 
 
 382
 
 THE TOCSIN 388 
 
 face he had never seen before and who now was that 
 wretched hag that hobbled along the street before him, 
 begging, whining, and importuning the passers-by to pur. 
 chase of her pitiful wares ! 
 
 He laughed a little buoyantly. He had never pictured a 
 first meeting such as this ! A hag ? Yes ! And one as dis 
 reputable in appearance as he himself, as Larry the Bat, was 
 disreputable ! But he had seen her eyes ! Inimitable as was 
 her disguise, she could not hide her eyes, or hide the pledge 
 they held of the beauty of form and feature beneath the 
 tattered rags and the touch of a master in the make-up that 
 brought haggard want and age into the face and dimly he 
 began to divine the source, the means by which she had ac 
 quired the information that for years had enabled her to plan 
 their coups, that had enabled him to execute them under the 
 guise of crime, that for years had seemed beyond all human 
 reach. 
 
 Where was she going ? Where was she taking him ? But 
 what did it matter ! The years of waiting were at an end 
 the years of mystery in a few moments now would be mys 
 tery no more ! 
 
 Ah ! She had turned from the Bowery, and was heading 
 cast. He shuffled on after her, guardedly, a half block be 
 hind. It was well that Jimmie Dale had disappeared, that 
 he vras Larry the Bat again the neighbourhood was grow 
 ing more and more one that Jimmie Dale could not long 
 linger in without attracting attention ; while, on the other 
 hand, it was the natural environment of such as Larry the 
 Bat and such as she, who was leading him now to the su 
 preme moment of his life. Yes, it was that the fulfill 
 ment of the years ! The thought of it alone filled his mind,, 
 his soul ; it brushed aside, it blotted out for the time being 
 the danger, the peril, the deadly menace that hung over them 
 both. It was only that she, the Tocsin, was here only that 
 at last they would be together. 
 
 On she went, traversing street after street, the direction 
 always trending toward the river until finally she halted 
 before what appeared to be, as nearly as he could make oitf
 
 884 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 in the almost total darkness of the ill-lighted street, a smaft 
 and tumble-do ^/n, self-contained dwelling that bordered on 
 what seemed to be an unfenced store yard of some descrip 
 tion. He drew his breath in sharply. She had halted 
 waiting for him to come up with her. She was waiting for 
 him waiting for him ! It seemed as though he drank of 
 some strange, exhilarating elixir he reached her side 
 eagerly and then and then her hand had caught his, an(? 
 she was leading him into the house, into a black passagt 
 where he could see nothing, into a room equally black over 
 whose threshold he stumbled, and her voice in a low, con 
 scious way, with a little tremour, a half sob in it that thrilled 
 him with its promise, was in his ears: 
 
 * We are safe here, Jimmie, f 01 a little while but, oh, 
 Jimmie, what have I done! What ha^e I done to bring 
 you into this only only I was so sure, so sure, Jimmie, 
 that there was nothing more to fear ! " 
 
 Ihe blood was beating in hammer blows at his temples 
 It seemed all unreal, untrue that this moment could be his, 
 that it was not a dream a dream which was presently to be 
 snatched from him in a bitter awakening. And then he 
 laughed out wildly, passionately. No it was true, it was 
 real ! Her breath was on his cheek, it was a living, pulsing 
 hand that was still in his and then soul and mind and body 
 seemed engulfed and lost in a mad ecstasy and she was in 
 his arms, crushed to him, and he was raining kisses upon her 
 face. 
 
 " I love you ! I love you ! " he was crying hoarsely ; antf 
 over and over again : " I love you ! I love you ! " 
 
 She did not struggle. The warm, rich lips were yielding 
 to his ; he could feel the throb, the life in the young, lithe 
 form against his own. She was his his! The years, the 
 past, all were swept away and she was his at last his for 
 always. And there came a mighty sense cf kingship upon 
 him, as though all the world were at his feet, and virility, 
 and a great, glad strength above all other men s, and a 
 was in his soul, a song triumphant for she was his! 
 
 " You ! " he cried out and strained hei to him. " You J
 
 THE TOCSIN 385 
 
 he <:ried again and kissed her lips and her eyelids and her 
 lips again. 
 
 And then her head was buried on his shoulder, and she 
 was crying softly ; but after a moment she raised her hands 
 and laid them upon his face, and held them there, and be 
 cause it was dark, dared to raise her head as well, and her 
 eyes to look into his. 
 
 Then for a long time they stood there so, and for a long 
 time neither spoke and then with a little startled, broken 
 cry, as though the peril and the menace hanging over them, 
 forgotten for the moment, were thrust like a knife stab 
 suddenly upon her, she drew herself away, and ran from 
 him, and went and got a lamp, and lighted it, and set it 
 upon the table. 
 
 And Jimmie Dale, still standing there, watched her. How 
 gloriously her eyes shone, dimmed and misty with the 
 tears that filled them though they were! And there was 
 nothing incongruous in the rags that clothed her, in the 
 squalour and poverty of the bare room, in the white furrows 
 that the tears had plowed through the grime and make-up 
 on her cheeks. 
 
 " You wonderful, wonderful woman ! " Jimmie Dale 
 whispered. 
 
 She shook her head as though almost in self-reproach. 
 
 " I am not wonderful, Jimmie," she said, in a low voice. 
 " I " and then she caught his arm, and her voice broke a 
 little " I ve brought you into this probably to your death 
 Jimmie, tell me what happened last night, and since then. 
 I I ve thought at times to-day I should go mad. Oh, Jim 
 mie, there is so much to say to-night, so much to do if li 
 we are ever to be together for for always. Last night, 
 Jimmie the telephone I knew there was danger that all 
 had gone wrong what was it ? " 
 
 His arms were around her shoulders, drawing her close 
 to him again. 
 
 " I found the wires tapped," he said slowly. 
 
 "Yes, and and the man you met the chauffeur?* 
 
 **He is dead," Jimmie Dale answered gently.
 
 886 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 He felt her hand close with a quick, spasmodic clutcft 
 upon his arm ; her face grew white and for a moment she 
 turned away her head. 
 
 " And and the package ? " she asked presently. 
 
 " I do not know," replied Jimmie Dale. " He did not 
 have it with him ; he " 
 
 " Wait ! " she interrupted quickly. " We are only wast 
 ing time like this ! Tell me everything, everything just as 
 it happened, everything from the moment you received my 
 letter." 
 
 And, holding her there in his arms, softening as best he 
 could the more brutal details, he told her. And, at the 
 end, for a little while she was silent; then in a strained, im 
 pulsive way she asked again : 
 
 " The chauffeur you are sure you are positive that he 
 is dead?" 
 
 " Yes,* said Jimmie Dale grimly ; " I am sure." Ami 
 then the pent-up flood of questions burst from his lips. 
 Who was the chauffeur? The package, the box numbered 
 428, and John Johansson? And the Crime Club? And the 
 issue at stake? The danger, the peril that surrounded her? 
 And she above all more than anything else about her 
 self her strange life, its mystery? 
 
 She checked him with a strangely wistful touch of her 
 finger upon his lips, with a queer, pathetic shake of her 
 head. 
 
 " No, Jimmie ; not that way. You would never under 
 stand. I cannot " 
 
 " But I am to know now! Surely I am to know now 7* 
 he cried, a sudden sense of dismay upon him. Three years ! 
 Three years and always the " next " time ! " I must know 
 now, if I am to help you ! " 
 
 She smiled a little wanly at him, as she drew herself 
 away, and, dropping into a chair, placed her elbows on the 
 rickety table, cupping her chin in her hands. 
 
 " Yes v : you are to know now," she said, almost as though 
 she were talking to herself ; then, with a swift intake of hef 
 breath, impulsively : " Jimmie ! Jimmie ! I had though!
 
 THE TOCSIN 38"< 
 
 tnat it would be all so different when when you came. 
 That that I would have nothing to fear for you for 
 me because it would be all over. And now you are here, 
 Jimmie and, oh, thank God for you! but I feel to-night 
 almost almost as though it were hopeless, that that we 
 were beaten." 
 
 " Beaten ! " He stepped quickly to the table, and sat 
 down, and took one of her hands away from her face to 
 hold it in both his own. " Beaten ! " he laughed out de- 
 fkrtly: then, playfully, soothingly, to reassure her: "Jim. 
 mie Dale and Larry the Bat and the Gray Seal and the Toc 
 sin beaten! And after we have just scored the last trick ! " 
 
 " But we do not hold many trumps, Jimmie," she answered 
 gravely. " You have seen something of this Crime Club s 
 power, its methods, its merciless, cruel, inhuman cunning, 
 and you, perhaps, think that you understand but you have 
 not begun to grasp the extent of either that power or cun 
 ning. This horrible organisation has been in existence for 
 many years. I do not know how many. I only know that 
 the men of whom it is composed are not ordinary criminals, 
 that they do not work in the ordinary way to-day, they set 
 the machinery of fraud, deception, robbery, and murder in 
 motion that ten years from now, and, perhaps, only then, 
 vill culminate in the final success of their schemes and 
 they play only for enormous stakes. But " her lips grew 
 set " you will see for yourself. I must not talk any longer 
 than is necessary ; we must not take too much time. You 
 count on three days before they begin to suspect that all is 
 not right with Jimmie Dale I know them better than you, 
 and I give you two days, forty-eight hours at the outside, 
 and possibly far less. Jimmie " abruptly " did you ever 
 hear of Peter LaSalle? " 
 
 " The capitalist ? Yes ! " said Jimmie Dale. " He died 
 a few years ago. I know his brother Henry well at the 
 club, and all that." 
 
 " Do you ! she said evenly. " Well, the man you know 
 is not Peter LaSalle s brother; he is an impostor and one 
 af the Crime Club."
 
 888 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 * Not Peter LaSalle s brother ! " Jimmie Dale repeated 
 the words mechanically. And suddenly his brain was whirl 
 ing. Vaguely, dimly, in little memory snatches, events, 
 not pertinent then, vitally significant now, came crowding 
 upon him. Peter LaSalle had come from somewhere in 
 the West to live in New York ; and very shortly afterward 
 had died. The estate had been worth something over eleven 
 millions. And there had been he leaned quickly, tensely 
 forward over the table, staring at her. " My God ! " h 
 whispered hoarsely. " You are not, you cannot be thv~: 
 the daughter Peter LaSalle s daughter, who disappear?*?. &t 
 Strangely ! " 
 
 " Yes," she said quietly, ** X am Marie LaSalla."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE TOCSIN S STORY 
 
 .^ A2.ALLE! The old French name! That old Frencfc* 
 inscnption on the ring: " Sonnez le Tocsin!" Yesj 
 he began to understand now. She was Marie LeSalle ! Hf 
 began to remember more clearly. 
 
 Marie LaSalle ! They had said she was one of the most 
 beautiful girls who had ever made her entree into New 
 York society. But he had never met her as Marie La 
 Salle ; never met her until now, as the Tocsin, in this bare, 
 destitute, squalid hovel, here at bay, both of them, for their 
 lives. 
 
 He had been away when she had come with her father 
 to New York; and on his return there had only been the 
 father s brother in the father s place and she was gone. 
 He remembered the furor her disappearance had caused ; 
 the enormous rewards her uncle had offered in an effort to 
 trace her ; the thousand and one speculations as to what had 
 become of her; and that then, gradually, as even the most 
 startling and mystifying of events and happenings always 
 do, the affair had dropped into oblivion and had been for 
 gotten by the public at least. He began to count back. 
 Yes, it must have been nearly five years ago; two years 
 before she, as the Tocsin, and he, as the Gray Seal, had 
 formed their amazing and singular partnership, that he 
 started suddenly, as she spoke. 
 
 " I want to tell you in as few words as I can," she said 
 abruptly, breaking the silence. " Listen, then, Jimmie. 
 My mother died ten years ago. I was little more than a 
 child then. Shortly after her death, father made a business 
 frip to New York, and, on the advice of some supposed
 
 390 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 friends, he had a new will drawn up by a lawyer whom they 
 recommended, and to whom they introduced him. I do 
 not know who those men were. The lawyer s name was 
 Travers, Hilton Travers." She glanced curiously at Jim- 
 mie Dale, and added quickly : " He was the chauffeur 
 the man who was killed last night." 
 
 " You mean/ Jimmie Dale burst out, " you mean that 
 he was but, first, the will! What was in the will?" 
 
 " It was a very simple will," she answered. " And from 
 the nature of it, it was not at all strange that my father 
 should have been willing to have had it drawn by a compara 
 tive stranger, if that is what you are thinking. Summarised 
 in a few words, the will left everything to me, and appointed 
 my Uncle Henry as my guardian and the sole executor of 
 the estate until I should have reached my twenty-fifth birth 
 day. It provided for a certain sum each year to be paid 
 to my uncle for his services as executor; and at the ex 
 piration of the trust period that is, when I was twenty- 
 five bequeathed to him the sum of one hundred thousand 
 dollars. * 
 
 Timmie Dale nodded. " Go on ! " he prompted. 
 
 " It is hard to tell it in logical sequence," she said, hesitat 
 ing a moment. " So many things seem to overlap each other. 
 You must understand a little more about Hilton Travers. 
 During the five years following the signing of the will father 
 came frequently to New York, and became, not only intimate 
 with Travers, but so much impressed with the other s clever 
 ness and ability that he kept putting more and more of his 
 business into Travers hands. At the end of that five years, 
 we moved to New York, and father, who was then quite an 
 old man, retired from all active business, and turned over a 
 great many of his personal affairs to Travers to look after 
 for him, giving Travers power of attorney in a number of 
 instances. So much for Travers. Now about my uncle. 
 He was my father s only brother; in fact, they were the 
 only surviving members of their family, apart from very dis. 
 tant connections in France, from where, generations back,
 
 THE TOCSIN S STORY 391 
 
 the family originally came." Her hand touched Jimmie 
 Dale s for an instant. " That ring, Jimmie, with its crest 
 and inscription, is the old family coat of arms." 
 " Yes," he said briefly ; " I surmised as much." 
 " Strange as it may seem, in view of the fact that they 
 had not seen each other for twenty years," she went on 
 hurriedly " my father and my uncle were more than ordi 
 narily attached to each other. Letters passed regularly be 
 tween them, and there was constant talk of one paying the 
 other a visit but the visit never materialised. My uncle 
 was somewhere in Australia, my father was here, and con 
 sequently I never saw my uncle. He was quite a different 
 type of man from father more restless, less settled, more 
 rough and ready, preferring the outdoor life of the Aus 
 tralian bush to the restrictions of any so-called civilisation, 
 I imagine. Financially, I do not think he ever succeeded 
 very well, for twice, in one way or another, he lost every 
 fcheep on his ranch and father set him up again; and I do 
 not think he could ever have had much of a ranch, for I 
 remember once, in one of the letters he wrote, that he said 
 he had not seen a white man in weeks, so he must have 
 lived a very lonely life. Indeed, at about the time father 
 drew the new will, my uncle wrote, saying that he had de 
 cided to give up sheep running on his own account as it 
 did not pay, and to accept a very favourable offer that had 
 been made to him to manage a ranch in New Zealand ; and 
 his next letter was from the latter country, stating that he 
 had carried out his intentions, and was well satisfied with 
 the change he had made. The long-proposed visit still con 
 tinued to occupy my father s thoughts, and on his retirement 
 from business he definitely made up his mind to go out to 
 New Zealand, taking me with him. In fact, the plans were 
 all arranged, my uncle expressed unbounded delight in his 
 letters, and we were practically on the eve of sailing, when 
 a cable came from my uncle, telling us to postpone the visit 
 for a few months, as he was obliged to make a buying trip 
 for his new employer that would keep him away that length 
 of time and then " her fingers, that had been abstractedly
 
 392 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 picking out the lines formed by the grain of the wood in tW 
 table top, closed suddenly into tight-clenched fists " and 
 then my father died." 
 
 Jimmie Dale turned away his head. There were tears 
 in her eyes. The old sense of unreality was strong upon him 
 again. He was listening to the Tocsin s story. It was strange 
 that he should be doing that that it could be really so! 
 It seemed as though magically he had been transported out of 
 the world where for years past he had lived with danger 
 lurking at every turn, where men set watch about his house 
 to trap him, where the denizens of the underworld yowled 
 like starving beasts to sink their fangs in him, where the 
 police were ceaselessly upon his trail to wreak an insensate 
 vengeance upon him ; it seemed as though he had been 
 transported away from all that to something that he had 
 dreamed might, perhaps, sometime happen, that he had 
 hoped might happen, that he had longed for always, but 
 now that it was his, that it also was full of the sense of the 
 unreal. And yet as his mind followed the thread of her story, 
 and leaped ahead and vaguely glimpsed what was to come, 
 he was conscious in a sort of premonitory way of a vaster 
 peril than any he had ever known, as though forces, for the 
 moment masked, were arrayed against him whose strength 
 and whose malignity were beyond human parallel. In what 
 a strange, almost incoherent way his brain was working ! He 
 roused himself a little and looked around him and, with a 
 shock, the starkness of the room, the abject, pitiful air of 
 destitution brought home to him with terrific, startling force 
 the significance of the scene in which he was playing a part. 
 His face set suddenly in hard lines. That she should have 
 been brought to assume such a life as this forced out of her 
 environment of wealth and refinement, forced in her purity 
 to rub shoulders with the vile, the dissolute, forced to exist 
 as such a creature amid the crime and vice, the wretched 
 horror of the underworld that swirled around her! There 
 was anger now upon him, burning, hot a merciless craving 
 that was a savage, hungry lust for vengeance. 
 
 And then she was speaking again :
 
 THE TOCSIN S STORY 393 
 
 " Father s death occurred very shortly after my uncle s 
 message advising us to postpone our trip was received. On 
 his death, Travers, very naturally, as father s lawyer, cabled 
 my uncle to come to New York at once ; and my uncle re 
 plied, saying that he was coming by the first steamer." 
 
 She paused again but only for an instant, as though to 
 frame her thoughts in words. 
 
 " I have told you that I had never seen my uncle, that even 
 my father had not seen him for twenty years ; and I have 
 told you that the man you know as Henry LaSalle is an 
 impostor I am using the word uncle now when I refer 
 to him simply to avoid confusion. You are, perhaps, ex 
 pecting me to say that I took a distinctive dislike to him 
 from the moment he arrived ? On the contrary, I had every 
 reason to be predisposed toward him; and, indeed, was 
 rather agreeably surprised than otherwise he was not 
 nearly so uncouth and unpolished as, somehow, I had pic 
 tured his life would have made him. Do you understand, 
 Jimmie? He was kind, sympathetic; and, in an apathetic 
 way, I liked him. I say apathetic because I think that 
 best describes my own attitude toward every one and every 
 thing following father s death until that night." 
 
 She rose abruptly from her chair, as though a pas 
 sive position of any kind had suddenly become intoler^ 
 able. 
 
 " Why tell you what my father and I were to each other ! " 
 she cried out in a low, passionate voice. " It seemed as 
 though everything that meant anything had gone out of 
 my life. I became worn out, nervous ; and though the days 
 wer bad enough, the nights were a source of dread. I 
 began to suffer from insomnia I could not sleep. This 
 was even before my supposed uncle came. I used to read 
 for hours and hours in my room after I had gone to bed. 
 But " she flung out her hand with an impatient gesture 
 " there is no need to dwell on that. One night, about 
 a week after that man had arrived, and a little over a month 
 after father had died, I was in my room and had finished
 
 a book I was reading-. I remember that it was well 
 midnight I had not the slightest inclination to sleep. I 
 picked up another book and after that another. There were 
 plenty in my room ; but, irrationally, of course, none pleased 
 me. I decided to go down to the library not that I think 
 I really expected to find anything that I actually wanted, 
 but more because it was an impulse, and furnished me for 
 the moment v/ith some definite objective, something to do. 
 I got up, slipped on a dressing gown, and went downstairs. 
 The lights were all out. I was just on the point of switch 
 ing on those in the reception hall, when suddenly it seemed 
 as though I had not strength to lift my hand, and I remem 
 ber that for an instant I grew terribly cold with dread and 
 fear. From the room on my right a voice had reached me. 
 The door was closed, but the voice was raised in an outburst 
 of profanity. I I could hear every word. 
 
 " * If she s out of the way, there s no come-back,* the voice 
 snarled. * I won t listen to anything else ! Do you hear ! 
 Why, you fool, what are you trying to do hand me one! 
 Turn everything into cash, and divvy, and beat it eh? 
 And I m the goat, and I get caught and get twenty years for 
 stealing trust funds and the rest of you get the coin ! He 
 swore terribly again. Who s taken the risk in this for the 
 last five years! There ll be no smart Aleck lawyer tricks 
 there ll be no halfway measures ! And who are you to 
 dictate . She goes out that s safe I inherit as next of kin, 
 with no one to dispute it, and that s all there is to it ! f 
 
 " I stood there and could not move. It was the voice 
 of the man I knew as my uncle 1 My heart seemed to have 
 stopped beating. I tried to tell myself that I was dreaming, 
 that it was too horrible, too incredible to be real ; that they 
 could not really mean to to murder me. And then I rec 
 ognised Hilton Travers voice. 
 
 " I am not dictating, and you are not serious, of course,* 
 he said, with what seemed an uneasy laugh. *I am only 
 warning you that you are forgetting to take the real Henry 
 LaSalle into account. He is bound to hear of this even* 
 tually, and then ^
 
 THE TOCSIN S STORY 
 
 * Another voice broke in one I did not recognise. 
 
 " You re talking too loud, both of you ! Travers doesn t 
 understand, but he s to be wised up to-night, according 
 to orders, and 
 
 " The voice became inaudible, muffled I could not hear 
 any more. I suppose 1 remained there another three or 
 four minutes, too stunned to know what to do; and then 1 
 ran softly along the hall to the library door. The library, 
 you understand, was at the rear of the room they were in, 
 and the two rooms were really one ; that is, there was only 
 an archway between them. I cannot tell you what my 
 emotions were I do not know. I only know that I kept 
 repeating to myself, * they are going to kill me, they are going 
 to kill me ! and that it seemed I must try and find out 
 everything, everything I could." 
 
 She turned away from the table, and began to pace ncnf- 
 cusly up and down the miserable room. 
 
 Jimmie Dale rose impulsively from his chair but s. * 
 waved him back again. 
 
 " No ; wait ! " she said. " Let me finish. I crept into th 
 library. It took me a long time, because I had to be s< 
 careful not to make the slightest noise. I suppose it was 
 fully six or seven minutes from the time I had first heard 
 my supposed uncle s voice until I had crept far enough for 
 ward to be able to see into the room beyond. There were 
 three men there. The man I knew as my uncle was sitting 
 at one end of the table ; another had his back toward me ; and 
 Travers was facing in my direction and I think I never 
 saw so ghastly a face as was Hilton Travers then, He 
 was standing up, sort of swaying, as he leaned with both 
 hands on the table. 
 
 " Now then, Travers, the man whose back was turned 
 to me was saying threateningly, you ve got the story now 
 sign those papers ! 
 
 " It seemed as though Travers could not speak for a mo 
 ment. He kept looking wildly from one to the other. He 
 was white to the lips. 
 
 " You ve let me in for this!" he said hoarsely, a* last
 
 896 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 3 You devils you devils you devils ! You ve let me in fofc 
 murder! Both of them! Both Peter and his brother 
 murdered!" 
 
 She stopped abruptly before Jimmie Dale, and clutched 
 his arm tightly. 
 
 " Jimmie, I don t know why I did not scream out. Every 
 thing went black for a moment before my eyes. It was the 
 first suspicion I had had that my father had met with foul 
 play, and I " 
 
 But now Jimmie Dale swayed up from his chair. 
 
 "Murdered!" he exclaimed tensely. "Your father! 
 But but I remember perfectly, there was no hint of any 
 such thing at the time, and never has been since. He died 
 from quite natural causes." 
 
 She looked at him strangely. 
 
 " He died from inoculation," she said. " Did did you 
 not see something of that laboratory in the Crime Club your 
 self the night before last enough to understand ? " 
 
 " Good God ! " muttered Jimmie Dale, in a startled way ; 
 then : " Go on ! Go on ! What happened then ? " 
 
 She passed her hand a little wearily across her eyes and 
 sank down into her chair again. 
 
 " Travers," she continued, picking up the thread of her 
 story, " had raised his voice, and the third man at the table 
 leaned suddenly, aggressively toward him. 
 
 " Hold your tongue ! he growled furiously. All you re 
 asked to do is sign the papers not talk ! 
 
 " Travers shook his head. 
 
 " I won t ! he cried out. * I won t have any hand in 
 another murder in hers ! My God, I won t I won t, I tell 
 you ! It s horrible ! 
 
 " * Look here, you fool ! the man who was posing as my 
 tincle broke in then. You re in this too deep to get out 
 now. If you know what s good for you, you ll do as you re 
 Sold! 
 
 " Jimmie, I shall never forget Travers face. It seemed 
 to have changed from white to gray, and there was horror 
 xn his eyes ; and then he seemed to lose all control of hin>-
 
 THE TOCSIN S STORY 397 
 
 self, shaking his fists ii their faces, cursing them in utter 
 abandon. 
 
 " * I m bad { he cried. * I ve gone everything, everything 
 but the limit everything but murder. I stop there! I ll 
 have no more to do with this. I m through! You you 
 pulled me into this, and and I didn t know ! 
 
 " Well, you know now ! the third man sneered. What 
 are you going to do about it ? 
 
 " * I m going to see that no harm comes to Marie LaSalle," 
 Travers answered in a dull way. 
 
 " The other man now was on his feet and, I do not 
 know quite how to express it, Jimmie, he seemed ominously 
 quiet in both his voice and his movements. 
 
 " You d better think that over again, Travers ! he said 
 Do you mean it ? 
 
 " I mean it, Travers said. I mean it God help me ! * 
 
 " You may well add that ! returned the other, with an 
 ugly laugh. He reached out his hand toward the telephone 
 on the table. Do you know what will happen to you if I 
 telephone a certain number and say that you have turned- 
 traitor ? * 
 
 " I ll have to take my chances/ Travers replied doggedly. 
 * I m through ! 
 
 " Take them, then ! flung out the other. You ll have 
 little time given you to do us any harm ? 
 
 " Travers did not answer. I think he almost expected an 
 Attack upon him then from the two men. He hesitated a 
 moment, then backed slowly toward the door. What hap 
 pened in the next few moments in that room, I do not know, 
 I stole out of the library. I was obsessed with the thought 
 that I must see Travers, see him at all costs, before he got 
 away from the house. I reached the end of the hall as the 
 room door opened, and he came out. It was dark, as I said, 
 und I could not see distinctly, but I could make out his form. 
 He closed the door behind him and then I called his name 
 in a whisper. He took a quick step toward me, then turned 
 and hurried toward the front door, and I thought he was 
 going away but the next instant I understood his ruse. He
 
 398 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 opened the front door, shut it again quite loudly, and crept 
 back to me. 
 
 " Take me somewhere where we will be safe quick ! he 
 whispered. 
 
 " There was only one place where I was sure we would 
 be safe. I led him to the rear of the house and up the 
 servants stairs, and to my boudoir." 
 
 She broke off abruptly, and once more rose from her chair t 
 and once more began to pace the room. Back in his chair, 
 Jimmie Dale, tense and motionless now, watched her with 
 out a word. 
 
 " It would take too long to tell you all that passed between 
 us," she went on hurriedly. " The man was frankly a 
 criminal but not to the extent of murder. And i that 
 respect, at least, he was honest with himself. Almost the 
 first words he said to me were : * Miss LeSalle, I am as 
 good as a dead man if I am caught by the devils behind those 
 two men downstairs. And then he began to plead with me 
 to make my own escape. He did not know who the man 
 was that was posing as my uncle, had never seen him before 
 until he presented himself as Henry LaSalle ; the other man 
 he knew as Clarke, but knew also that * Clarke was merely 
 an assumed name. He had fallen in with Clarke almost 
 from the time that he had begun to practise his profession, 
 and at Clarke s instigation had gone from one crooked deal 
 to another, and had made a great deal of money. He knew 
 that behind Clarke was a powerful, daring, and unscrupulous 
 band of criminals, organised on a gigantic scale, of which he 
 himself was, in a sense a probationary sense, as he put it 
 a member ; but he had never come into direct contact with 
 them he had received all his orders and instructions 
 through Clarke. He had been told by Clarke that he was to 
 cultivate father following the introduction, to win father s 
 confidence, to get as many of father s affairs into his hands 
 as possible, to reach the position, in fact, of becoming father s 
 recognised attorney and ail this with the object, as he sup 
 posed of embezzling from father on a large scale. Then 
 father died, and Travers was instructed to cable my uncle
 
 THE TOCSIN S STORY 
 
 He knew that the man who answered that summons was an 
 impostor ; but he did not know, until they had admitted it to 
 him that night, that both my father and my uncle had been 
 murdered, and that I, too, was to be made away with.* 
 
 She looked at Jimmie Dale, and suddenly laughed out 
 bitterly. 
 
 " No ; you don t understand, even yet, the patient, in 
 genious deviltry of those fiends. It was they, at the time 
 the new will was drawn, who offered to buy out my real 
 uncle s sheep ranch in that lonely, unsettled district in 
 Australia, and offered him that new position in New Zealand. 
 My uncle never reached New Zealand. He was murdered 
 on his way there. And in his place, assuming his name, ap 
 peared the man who has been posing as my uncle ever since. 
 Do you begin to see ! For five years they were patiently 
 working out their plans, for five years before my father s 
 death that man lived and became known and accepted, and 
 established himself as Henry LaSalle. Do you see now 
 why he cabled us to postpone our visit? He ran very little 
 risk. The chances were one in a thousand that any of his 
 few acquaintances in Australia would ever run across him 
 in New Zealand ; and besides, he was chosen because it seems 
 there was a slight resemblance between him and the real 
 Henry LaSalle enough, with his changed mode of living 
 and more elaborate and pretentious surroundings, to have 
 enabled him to carry through a bluff had it become necessary. 
 He had all of my uncle s papers ; and the Crime Club fur 
 nished him with every detail of our lives here. I forgot to 
 Bay, too, that from the moment my uncle was supposed to 
 have reached New Zealand all his letters were typewritten 
 an evidence in father s eyes that his brother had secured a 
 position of some importance ; as, indeed, from apparently 
 unprejudiced sources, they took pains to assure father was 
 a fact. This left them with only my uncle s signature to 
 forge to the letters not a difficult matter for them ! 
 
 " Believing that they had Travers so deeply implicated 
 that he could do nothing, even if he had the inclination, 
 which they had Dot for a moment imagined, and arrogant
 
 400 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 in the belief m aieir own power to put him out of the way 
 in any case if he proved refractory, they admitted all this 
 to him that night when he brought up the issue of the real 
 Henry LaSalle putting in an appearance sooner or later, 
 and when they wanted him to smooth their path by releasing 
 all documents where his power of attorney was involved. 
 Do you see now the part they gave Travers to play ? It 
 was to put the stamp of genuineness upon the false Henry 
 LaSalle. Not but that they were prepared with what would; 
 appear to be overwhelmingly convincing evidence to prove 
 it if it were necessary ; but if the man were accepted by the 
 estate s lawyer there was little chance of any one else ques 
 tioning his identity." 
 
 She halted again by the table- --and forced a smile, as hei 
 tyes met Jimmie Dale s. 
 
 " I am almost through, Jimmie. lihat night was a terrible 
 one for both of us. Travers life was not worth a moment s 
 purchase once they found him and mine was only under 
 reprieve until sufficient time to obviate suspicion should 
 have elapsed after father s death. We had no proof that 
 would stand in any court even if we should have been 
 given the chance to adopt that course. And without abso 
 lute, irrefutable proof, it was all so cleverly woven, stretched 
 over so many years, that our charge must have been held 
 to be too visionary and fantastic to have any basis in fact. 
 
 "All Travers would have been able to advance was the 
 statement that the supposed Henry LaSalle had admitted 
 being an impostor and a murderer to him ! Who would be 
 lieve it ! On the face of it, it appeared to be an absurdity. 
 And even granted that we were given an opportunity to bring 
 the charge, they would be able to prove by a hundred in 
 fluential and well-known men in New Zealand that the 
 impostor was really Henry LaSalle; and were we able to 
 find any of my uncle s old acquaintances in Australia, it 
 would be necessary to get them here and not one of them 
 would have reached America alive. 
 
 " But there was not a chance, not a chance, Jimmie, of 
 doing that they would have killed Travers the moment he
 
 THE TOCSIN S STORY *OI 
 
 himself in the open. The only thing we could do 
 that night was to try and save our own lives ; the only thing 
 we could look forward to was acquiring in some way, un 
 known to them, the proof, fully established, with which 
 we could crush them in a single stroke, and before they 
 would have time to strike back. 
 
 " The vital thing was proof of my uncle s death. That, 
 if it could be obtained at all, could only be obtained in 
 Australia. Travers was obliged to go somewhere, to dis 
 appear from that moment if he wanted to save his life, and 
 he volunteered to go out there. He left the house that night 
 by the back entrance in an old servant s suit, which I 
 found for him and I never heard from him again until a 
 month ago in the personal column of the Morning News* 
 Argus, through which we had agreed to communicate,, 
 
 " As for myself, I left the house the next morning, tell 
 ing my pseudo uncle that I was going to spend a few days 
 with a friend. And this I actually did; but in those few 
 days I managed to turn all my own securities, that had been 
 left me by my mother and which amounted to a consider 
 able sum, into cash. And then, Jimmie, I came to this, 
 I have lived like this and in different disguises, as a settle 
 ment worker, as a widow of means in a fashionable uptown 
 apartment, but mostly as you see me now for five years 
 For five years I have watched my supposed uncle, hoping, 
 praying that through him I could get to know the others 
 associated with him ; hoping, praying that Travers would 
 succeed; hoping, praying that we would get them all and 
 watching day after day, and year after year the personal 
 column of the paper, until at last I began to be afraid that 
 it was all useless. And there was nothing, Jimmie, nothing 
 anywhere, and I had no success " her voice choked a little. 
 * Nothing ! Even Clarke never went again to the house. 
 You can understand now how I came to know the strange 
 things that I wrote to the Gray Seal, how the life that 1 
 have led, how this life here in the underworld, how the con 
 stant search for some clew on my own account brought 
 them to my knowledge; and you can understand now, too, 
 I never dared to let you meet me. for I knew well
 
 402 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 enough that, while I worked to undermine my father s 
 my uncle s murderers, they were moving heaven and earth 
 to find me. 
 
 " That is all, Jimmie. The day before yesterday, a month 
 after Travers first message to let me know that he was com 
 ing, there was another personal giving me an hour and a 
 telephone number. He was back! He had everything 
 everything ! We dared not meet ; he was afraid, suspicious 
 that they had got track of him again. You know the rest. 
 That package contained the proof that, with Travers death, 
 can probably never be obtained again. Do you understand 
 why they want it why it is life and death to me? Do you 
 understand why my supposed uncle offered huge rewards 
 for me, why secretly every resource of that hideous organi 
 sation has been employed to find me that it is only by my 
 death the estate can pass into their hands, and now 
 
 She flung out her hands suddenly toward Jimmie Dale. 
 
 " Oh, Jimmie, Jimmie, I ve I ve fought so long alone ! 
 Jimmie, what are we to do ? " 
 
 He came slowly to his feet. She had fought so long 
 alone. But now now it was his turn to fight for her. 
 But how? She had not told him all surely she had not 
 told him all, for everything depended upon that package. 
 There had been so much to tell that she had not thought of 
 aM, and she had not told him the details about that. 
 
 " That box No. 428 ! " he cried quickly. " What is that ? 
 What does it mean ? " 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " I do not know," she answered. 
 
 " Then who is this John Johansson?" 
 
 ff I do not know," she said again. 
 
 * Nor where the Crime Club is ? " 
 
 No "dully. 
 
 He stared at her for a moment in a dazed way. 
 
 " My God ! " Jimmie Dale murmured. 
 
 And then she turned away her head. 
 
 "It s it s pretty bad, isn t it, Jimmie? I I told you 
 we did not hold many trumps."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 SILVER MAG 
 
 was silence between them. Minute after minute 
 passed. Neither spoke. 
 
 Jimmie Dale dropped back into his chair again, and stared 
 abstractedly before him. " We do not hold many trumps, 
 Jimmie we do not hold many trumps " her words were 
 repeating themselves over and over in his mind. They 
 seemed to challenge him mockingly to deny what was so 
 obviously a fact, and because he could not deny it to taunt 
 and jeer at him to jeer at him, when all that was held af 
 stake hung literally upon his next move ! 
 
 He looked up mechanically as the Tocsin walked to a 
 broken mirror at the rear of the miserable room ; nodded 
 mechanically in approval as she began deftly to retouch the 
 make-up on her face where the tears had left their traces 
 and resumed his abstracted gaze before him. 
 
 Box number four-two-eight John Johansson the Crime 
 Club the identity of the man who was posing as Henry 
 LaSalle! If only he could hit upon a clew to the solution 
 of a single one of those things, or a single phase of one of 
 them if only he could glimpse a ray of light that would 
 at least prompt action, when every moment of inaction was 
 multiplying the odds against them ! 
 
 There were the men who were watching his house at that 
 moment on Riverside Drive he, as Larry the Bat, might 
 in turn keep watch on them. He had though of that. In 
 time, perhaps, he might, by so doing, discover the where* 
 abouts of the crime Club. In time! It was just that hi 
 had no time! Forty-eight hours, the Tocsin insisted, was 
 $1J the time that he could count upon before they would be* 
 
 403
 
 404 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIfi DALE 
 
 come suspicious of Jimmie Dale s " illness," before they 
 would discover that they were watching an empty house! 
 
 He might though this was even more hazardous make 
 an attempt to trace the wires that tapped those of his tele 
 phone through the basement window that gave on the garage 
 driveway. And what then ? True, they could not lead very 
 far away ; but, even if successful, what then? They would 
 not lead him to the Crime Club, but simply to some confed 
 erate, to some man or woman playing the part of a servant, 
 perhaps, in the house next door, who, in turn, would have 
 to be shadowed and watched. 
 
 Jimmie Dale shook his head. Better, of the two, to start 
 in at once and shadow those who were shadowing his house. 
 But that was not the way ! He knew that intuitively. He 
 hated to eliminate it from consideraion, for he had no other 
 move to take its place but such a move was almost suicide 
 in itself. Time, and time alone, was the vital factor. They, 
 the Tocsin and he, must act quickly and strike that night 
 if they were to win. His fingers, the grimy fingers, dirty- 
 Tiailed, of Larry the Bat, that none now would recognise as 
 the slim tapering, wonderfully sensitive fingers of Jimmie 
 Dale, the fingers that had made the name of the Gray Seal 
 famous, whose tips mocked at bars and safes and locks, 
 and seemed to embody in themselves all the human senses, 
 tightened spasmodically on the edge of the table. Time! 
 Time! Time! It seemed to din in his ears. And while 
 he sat there powerless, impotent, the Crime Club was mov 
 ing heaven and earth to find what he must find that package 
 if he was to save this woman here, the woman whom he 
 loved, she who had been forced, through the machinations of 
 these hell fiends, to adopt the life of a wretched hag, to exist 
 among the dregs of the underworld, whose squalour and vice 
 and wantonness none knew better than he ! 
 
 Jimmie Dale s face set grimly. Somewhere somewhere in 
 the past five years of this life of hers in which she had been 
 fighting the Crime Club, pitting that clever brain of hers 
 against it, must lie a clew. She had told him her story only 
 in baldest outline, with scarcely a reference to her owr
 
 SILVER MAG 405 
 
 personal acts, with barely a single detail. There must be 
 something, something that perhaps she had overlooked, 
 something, just the merest hint of something that would 
 supply a starting point, give him a glimmer of light. 
 
 She came back from across the room, and sank down in 
 her chair again. She did not speak the question, that 
 meant life and death to them both, was in her eyes. 
 
 Jimmie answered the mute interrogation tersely. 
 
 " Not yet ! " he said. Then, almost curtly, in a quick, 
 incisive way, as the keen, alert brain began to delve and 
 probe : " You say this man Clarke never returned to the 
 liouse after that night ? " 
 
 She nodded her head quietly. 
 
 " You are sure of that ? " he insisted. 
 
 " Yes," she said. " I am sure." 
 
 " And you say that all these years you have kept a watch 
 On the man who is posing as your uncle, and that he never 
 went anywhere, or associated with any one, that would afford 
 you a clew to this Crime Club ? " 
 
 " Yes," she said again. 
 
 It was a moment before Jimmie Dale spoke. 
 
 " It s very strange ! " he said musingly, at last. " So 
 strange, in fact, that it s impossible. He must have commu 
 nicated with the others, and communicated with them often. 
 The game they were playing was too big, too full of details, 
 to admit of any other possibility. And the telephone as an 
 explanation isn t good enough." 
 
 " And yet," she said earnestly, " possible or impossible, 
 it is nevertheless true. That he might have succeeded in 
 eluding me on occasions was perhaps to be expected ; but that 
 in all those years I should not catch him once in what, if 
 you are correct, must have been many and repeated confer 
 ences with the same men is too improbable to be thought of 
 seriously." 
 
 Jimmie Dale shook his head again. 
 
 "If you had been able to watch him night and day, that 
 might be so," he said crisply. " But, at best, you could only 
 watch him a very small portion of the time."
 
 406 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 She smiled at him a little wanly. 
 
 " Do you think, Jimmie, from what you, as the Gray Seal, 
 know of me, that I would have watched in any haphazard 
 way like that ? " 
 
 He glanced at her with a sudden start. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " he asked quickly. 
 
 " Look at me ! " she said quietly. " Have you ever sect 
 me before ? I mean as I am now." 
 
 " No," he answered, after an instant. " Not that I know 
 of." 
 
 " And yet " she smiled wanly again " you have nol 
 lived, or made the place you hold in the underworld, without 
 having heard of Silver Mag." 
 
 " You ! " exclaimed Jimmie Dale. " You Silver Mag ! " 
 He stared at her wonderingly, as, crouch-shouldered now, 
 the hair, gray-threaded, straggling out from under the hood 
 of a faded, dark-blue, seam- worn cloak, she sat before him, 
 a typical creature of the underworld, her role an art in its 
 conception, perfect in its execution. Silver Mag! Yes, he 
 had heard of Silver Mag as every one in the Bad Lands 
 had heard of her. Silver Mag and her pocketful of coin! 
 Always a pocketful of silver, so they said, that was dispensed 
 prodigally to the wives and children temporarily deprived 
 of support by husbands and fathers unfortunate enough in 
 their clashes with the law to be doing " spaces " up the river 
 and therefore the underworld swore by Silver Mag. 
 Always silver, never a bill ; Silver Mag had never been seen 
 with a banknote that was her eccentricity. Much or little, 
 she gave or paid out of her pocketful of jangling silver.. 
 She was credited with being a sworn enemy of the police, 
 and yes, he remembered, too with having done " time " 
 herself. " I don t quite understand," he said, in a puzzled 
 way. " I haven t run across you personally because yoo. 
 probably took care to see that I shouldn t ; but it s no secret 
 - every one says you ve served a jail sentence yourself." 
 
 " That is simply enough explained," she answered gravely. 
 u The story is of my own making. When I decided to adopt 
 this life, both for my own saftey and as the best means o(
 
 SILVER MAG 40T 
 
 fceeping a watch on that man, I knew that I must win the 
 confidence of the underworld, that I must have help, and that 
 in order to obtain that help I must have some excuse for 
 my enmity against the man known as Henry LaSalle. To be 
 widely known in the underworld was of inestimable value 
 nothing, I knew, could accomplish that as quickly a? eccen 
 tticity. You see now how and why I became known as Silver 
 Mag. I gained the confidence of every crook in New York 
 through their wives and children* I told them the story of 
 my jail sentence while I swore vengeance on Henry La 
 Salle. I told them that he had had me arrested for some 
 thing I never stole while I was working for him as a char 
 woman, and that he had had me railroaded to jail. There 
 wasn t one but gave me credit for the theft, perhaps ; but 
 equally, there wasn t one but understood, and my eccentric 
 ity helped this out, my wanting to get Henry LaSalle. 
 Well do you see now, Jimmie? I had money, I had the 
 confidence of the underworld, I had an excuse for my hatred 
 of Henry LaSalle, and so I had all the help I wanted. Day 
 and night that man has been watched. He receives no 
 visitors what social life he has is, as you know, at the 
 club. There is not a house that he has ever entered that, 
 sooner or later, I have not entered after him in the hope 
 of finding the headquarters of the clique. Even the men 
 and women, as far as human possibility could accomplish 
 it, that he has talked to on the streets have been shadowed, 
 and their identity satisfactorily established and the net re 
 sult has been failure ; utter, absolute, complete failure ! " 
 
 Jimmie Dale s eyes, that had held steadily on her face, 
 shifted, troubled and perplexed, to the table top. 
 
 " You are wonderful ! " he said, under his breath. " Won 
 derful! And and that makes it all the more amazing, all 
 the more incomprehensible. It is still impossible that he 
 has not been in close and constant touch witn his accom 
 plices. He must have been! We would be blind fools to 
 argue against it! It could not, on the face of it, have been 
 otherwise!"
 
 408 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 " Then how, when, where has he done it ? " she asked 
 wearily. 
 
 " God knows ! " he said bitterly. " And if they have been 
 clever enough to escape you all these years, I m almost in 
 clined to say what you said a little while ago that we re 
 beaten." 
 
 She watched him miserably, as he pushed back his chair 
 impulsively and, standing up, stared down at her. 
 
 "We re against it hard!" he said, with a mirthless 
 laugh. Then, his lips tightening: "But we ll try another 
 tack the chauffeur Travers. Th<- gh even here the 
 Crime Club has a day s start of us, even if last night they 
 knew no more about the whereabouts of that package than 
 we know now. I m afraid of it ! The chances are more than 
 even that they ve already got it. If they were able to catch 
 Travers as the chauffeur, they would have had something 
 tangible to work back from " Jimmie Dale was talking 
 more to himself than to the Tocsin now, as though he were 
 muttering his thoughts aloud. " How dd they get track f 
 him? When? Where? What has it led to? And what 
 in Heaven s name," he burst out suddenly, " is this box 
 number four-two-eight ! " 
 
 " A saftey-deposit vault, perhaps, that he has taken some 
 where," she hazarded. 
 
 Jimmie Dale laughed mirthlessly again. 
 
 " That is the one definite thing I do know that it isn t! " 
 he said positively. " It is nothing of that kind. It was half- 
 past ten o clock at night when I met him, and he said that 
 he had intended going back for the package if it had 6een 
 safe to do so. Deposit vaults are not open at that hour. 
 The package is, or was, if they have not already got it, 
 readily accessible and at any hour. Now go over every 
 thing again, every detail that passed between you and 
 Travers. He let you know that he was back in New York 
 by means of a * personal, vou said. W r hat else was in that 
 * personal besides the telephone number and the hour you 
 #ere to call him? Anything? " 
 
 ** Nothing that will help us any," she replied colourlessly.
 
 SILVER MAG 409 
 
 v There were simply the words northeast corner of Sixth 
 Avenue and Waverly Place, and the signature that we had 
 agreed upon, the two first and two last letters of the alpha 
 bet transposed BAZY." 
 
 " I see," said Jimmie Dale quickly. " And over the phone 
 he completed his message. Clever enough ! " 
 
 " Yes," she said. " In that way, if any one were listening, 
 or overhead the plan, there could be little harm come of 
 it, for the essential feature of all, the place of rendezvous, 
 was not mentioned. It has not been Travers fault that this 
 happened and in spite of every precaution it has cost him 
 his life. He wanted nothing to give them a clew to my 
 whereabouts ; he was trying to guard against the slightest 
 evidence that would associate us one with the other. He 
 even warned me over the phone not to tell him now, where, 
 or the mode of life I was living. And naturally, he dared 
 give me no particulars about himself. I was simply to select 
 a third party whom I could trust, and to follow out his in 
 structions, which were those that I sent to you in my letter. r 
 
 Jimmie Dale began to pace nervously up and down the 
 room. 
 
 " Nothing else ? " he queried, a little blankly. 
 
 " Nothing else," she said monotonously. 
 
 " But since last night, since you knew that things had gone, 
 wrong," he persisted, " surely you traced that telephone num. 
 ber the one you called up ? " 
 
 " Yes," she said, and shrugged her shoulders in a tired 
 way. " Naturally I did that but, like everything else, it 
 amounted to nothing. He telephoned from MakofFs pawn 
 shop on that alley off Thompson Street, and " 
 
 "Where!" Jimmie Dale, suddenly stock-still, almost 
 shouted the word. " He telephoned from where ! Say 
 that again ! " 
 
 She looked at him in amazement, half rising from her 
 chair. 
 
 " Jimmie, what is it ? " she cried. " You don t mean 
 that n
 
 410 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 He was beside her now, his hands pressed upon her shout* 
 ders, his face flushed. 
 
 " Box number four-two-eight ! " He laughed out hysteri 
 cally in his excitement. " John Johansson box number 
 four-two-eight! And like a fool I never thought of it! 
 Don t you see ? Don t you know now yourself ? The under 
 ground post office!" 
 
 She stood up, clinging to him ; a wild relief, that was 
 based on her confidence in him, in her eyes and face, even 
 while she shock her head. 
 
 " No," she said frantically. " No I do not know. Tell 
 me, Jimmie ! Tell me quickly ! You mean at Makoff s ? " 
 
 " No ! Not Makoff s at Spider Jack s, on Thompson 
 Street ! " he was clipping off his words, still holding her 
 tightly by the shoulders, still staring into her eyes. " You 
 know Spider Jack ! Jack s little novelty store ! Ah, you 
 have not learned all of the underworld yet! Spider Jack 
 is the craftiest fence in the Bad Lands and Makoff is his 
 partner. Spider buys the crooks stuff, and Makoff disposes 
 of it through the pawnshop it s only a step through the 
 connecting back yard from one to the other, and " 
 
 " Yes but," she interrupted feverishly, " the package 
 you said " 
 
 " Wait ! " Jimrnie Dale cried. " I m coming to that! If 
 Travers stood in with Makoff, he stood in with Spider 
 Jack. For years Spider has been a sort of clearing house for 
 the underworld for years he has conducted, and profitably, 
 too, his underground post office. Crooks from all over the 
 country, let alone those in New York, comvnunicate with 
 each other through Spider Jack. These, for a fee, are regis 
 tered at Spider s, and given a number a box number he 
 calls it, though, of course, there are no actual boxes. Letters 
 come by mail addressed to him the sealed envelope within 
 containing the actually intended recipient s name. These 
 Spider either forwards, or delivers in person when they are 
 called for. Dozens of crooks, too, unwilling, perhaps, to 
 dispose of small ill-gotten articles at ruinous fence prices^ 
 and finding it unhealthy for the moment to keep them in theif
 
 SILVER MAG 411 
 
 possession, use this means of depositing them temporarily for 
 safe-keeping. You see now, don t you? It s certain that s 
 where Travers left the package. He used the name of John 
 Johansson, not to hoodwink Spider Jack, I should say, but as 
 an added safeguard against the Crime Club. Travers must 
 have known both Makoff and Spider Jack in the old days, 
 and probably had reason, and good reason, to trust them 
 both possibly, a crook then himself, as he confessed, he 
 may have acted in a legal capacity for them in their fre 
 quent tangles with the police." 
 
 ** Then," she said and there was a glad, new note in 
 her voice, " then, Jimmie Jimmie, we are safe ! You can 
 get it, Jimmie! It is only a little thing for the Gray Seal 
 to do to get it now that we know where it is." 
 
 " Yes," he said tersely. " Yes if it is still there." 
 
 " Still there ! " she repeated the words quickly, ner 
 vously. " Still there ! What do you mean ? " 
 
 " I mean if they, too, have not discovered that he was at 
 Makoff s if they have not got there first! " he said grimly. 
 " There seems to be no limit to their cleverness, or their 
 power. They penetrated his disguise as a chauffeur, and 
 who knows what more they have learned since last night? 
 We are fighting them in the dark, and what s that!" he 
 whispered tensely, suddenly and leaning forward like a 
 flash, as he whipped his automatic from his pocket, he blew 
 out the lamp. 
 
 The room was in darkness. They stood there rigid, silent, 
 listening. Her hand found and caught his arm. 
 
 And then it came again a low sound, the sound of a 
 stealthy footstep just outside the window that faced on the 
 storage yard.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE MAGPIE 
 
 /I MINUTE passed another. The automatice at Jimm tt 
 *^ Dale s hip, the muzzle just peeping over the table top, 
 held a steady bead on the window. Came the footstep agaifl 
 and then suddenly, a series of low, quick tappings upon 
 the windowpane. The Tocsin s hand slipped away from 
 his arm. Jimmie Dale s set face relaxed as he read the un 
 derground Morse, and he replaced his revolver slowly in 
 his pocket. 
 
 " The Magpie ! " said Jimmie Dale, in an undertone. 
 "What s he want?" 
 
 " I don t know," she answered, in a whisper. " He never 
 came here before. There s a back way out, Jimmie, il 
 you " 
 
 " No," he said quickly. " We ve enemies enough, with- 
 out making one of the Magpie. He knows some one is here 
 with you our shadows were on the blind. Don t queer 
 yourself. Let him in. I ll light the lamp." 
 
 He struck a match, as she ran from the room, and, lift 
 ing the hot lamp chimney with the edge of his ragged coat, 
 lighted the lamp. He turned the wick down a little, shading 
 and dimming the room and then, as he flirted a bead of 
 moisture from his forehead, whimsically stretched out ni& 
 hand to watch it in the lamplight. 
 
 " That s bad, Jimmie," he muttered gravely to himself, aft 
 he noted an almost imperceptible tremour. " Got a start, 
 didn t you ! Under a bit of a strain, eh ? Well " grimly 
 "never mind! It looks as though the luck had turned 
 Makoff and Spider Jack ! " 
 
 412
 
 THE MAGPIE 413 
 
 His hand reached up to his hat, jerked the brim at a 
 rakish angle over his eyes and he sprawled himself out OQ 
 a chair. He heard the Tocsin s voice at the front door, and 
 & man s voice, low and guarded, answer her. Then the door 
 closed, and their steps approached ie room. It was rather 
 curious, that a visit from the Magpie! What could the 
 Magpie want? What could there be in common between 
 the Magpie and Silver Mag? The Magpie, alias Slimmy 
 Joe, was counted the cleverest safe worker in the United 
 States, barring only and always one a smile flickered across 
 the lips of Larry the Bat one whose preeminence the Mag 
 pie, much to his own chagrin, admitted himself the Gray 
 Seal! 
 
 He looked up, twisting the stub of a cigarette between 
 his grimy fingers and fumbling for a match, as the Tocsin 
 and, behind her, the Magpie, short, slim, and wiry, shrewd- 
 faced, with sharp, quick-glancing little black eyes, entered 
 the room. 
 
 " Ello, Larry ! " grinned the Magpie. " Got yer breath 
 back yet? I felt it through de windowpane when youse let 
 go at de lamp ! " 
 
 " Ello, Slimmy ! " returned Jimmie Dale ungraciously, 
 speaking through the corner of his mouth. " Ferget it ! " 
 
 " Sure ! " said the Magpie unconcernedly. He stared 
 about him, and finrlly, drawing a chair up to the table, sat 
 down, motioned the Tocsin to do the same, and leaned for 
 ward amiably. " I didn t mean to throw no scare into 
 youse," he said, in a conciliating tone. " But I had a little 
 business wid Mag, an* I was kind of interested in whether 
 she was entertainin company or not see? I didn t know 
 youse an Mag was workin together." 
 
 " Mabbe," observed Jimmie Dale, as ungraciously as be. 
 fore, " mabbe dere s some more t ings youse don t know ! " 
 
 " Aw, cough up de grouch ! " advised the Magpie, with a 
 hint of impatience creeping into his voice. " Youse don t 
 teed to be sore all night ! I told youse I wasn t tryin to hand 
 youse one, didn t I ? " 
 
 " Never mind Larry, Slimmy," put in the Tocsin petu-
 
 414 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 lantly. " He s down on his luck, dat s all. He ain t had de 
 price of a pinch of coke fer two days." 
 
 " Oho ! " exclaimed the Magpie, grinning again. " So 
 dat s wot s givin youse de pip, eh, Larry? Well, den, say, 
 youse can take it from me dat mabbe youse ll be glad I blew 
 around. I was lookin fer a guy about yer size fer a little job 
 to-night, an I was t inkin of lettin Young Dutchy in on it, 
 but seem* youse are here an in wid Mag, an dat I got to 
 get Mag in, too, youse are on if youse say de word." 
 
 " Wot s de lay ? " inquired Larry the Bat, unbending a 
 little. 
 
 The Magpie cocked his eye, and stuck his tongue in his 
 cheek. 
 
 " Good-night ! " he said tersely. " Nothin like dat ! Are 
 youse on, or ain t youse ? " 
 
 "Well, den, wot s in it fer me?" persisted Larrry the 
 Bat. 
 
 " More n de price of a coke sneeze ! " returned the Mag 
 pie pertinently. " Dere s a century note fer youse, an 
 mabbe two or t ree of dem fer Mag." 
 
 Larry the Bat s eyes gleamed avariciously. 
 
 " Aw, quit yer kiddin ! " he said gruffly. " A century 
 note fer me ! " 
 
 " Dat s wot I said ! Youse heard me ! " rejoined the Mag 
 pie shortly. " Only if it listens good to youse now, I don t 
 want no squealin after the divvy. I m takin de chances, 
 youse has de soft end of it. One century note fer youse 
 an de rest is none of yer business ! Dat s puttin it straight, 
 ain t it ? Well, wot do youse say, an say it quick cause if 
 youse ain t comin in, youse can beat it out of here so s I can 
 talk to Mag." 
 
 " Dere ain t nothin I wouldn t take a chance on fer a 
 hundred plunks ! " declared Larry the Bat, with sudden fer 
 vency and stared, anxiously expectant, at the Magpie. 
 " Sure, I m on, Slimmy ! Sure, I am ! Cut it loose ! Spill 
 de story ! " 
 
 " Well, den," said the Magpie, " I wants " 
 
 " Youse ain t through yet ! " interrupted the Tocsin tartly.
 
 THE MAGPIE 415 
 
 * I ain t heard youse askin me nothin ! I ain t on me uppers 
 like Larry, an* mabbe de price don t cut so much ice- 
 see?" 
 
 " Aw," said the Magpie, with a smirk, " I don t have to 
 ask youse on dis lay. Dis is where youse d come in on it 
 fer marbles. Say, dis is where we gets de hook into a guy 
 by de name of Henry LaSalle ! Get me ? " 
 
 Henry LaSalle! Under the table, Jimmie Dale s hand 
 clenched suddenly ; but not a muscle of his face moved, save, 
 as with the tip of his tongue, he shifted the butt of the 
 cigarette that was hanging royally from his lower lip to 
 the other corner of his mouth. 
 
 " Sure ! She s got youse, Slimmy ! " he flung out, with 
 a grin, as the Tocsin wrinkled up her face menacingly and 
 began to mumble to herself. " He s de guy dat handed her 
 one when she was young, an she s been layin* fer him ever 
 since ! Sure ! I know ! Ain t I worked him fer her till I 
 wears me shoes out tryin to get somet ing on him! Sure, 
 she s in on it ! Go on, Slimmy, wot s de lay ? Wot do I do 
 fer dat century ? " 
 
 The Magpie hitched his chair closer to the table and, as 
 his sharp, little, ferret eyes glanced around the room, mo 
 tioned the two to brings their heads nearer. 
 
 " One of me influential broker friends down on Wall 
 Street put me wise," he said, with a wink. " Dat s good 
 enough fer youse two, as far as dat goes. But take it from 
 me, I got it dead straight." He lowered his voice " Say, 
 ne s one of de richest mugs in New York, ain t he? Well, 
 he s been sellin stocks an bonds all day, t ousands an* t ou- 
 sands of dollars worth fer cash." 
 
 "All dem t ings is always sold fer cash," remarked 
 Larry the Bat fatuously. 
 
 " Aw, f erget it ! " said the Magpie earnestly. " Fer cash, 
 I said dfc coin, de long green understand? He wasn t 
 shovin no checks fer what he sold into de bank except to 
 get dem cashed. Dat s wot he s been doin all day gettin 
 de checks cashed, an gettin de money in big bills see ! I 
 f tnow of one bunch of eighty t ousand an dat s only one! "
 
 416 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 " Wot f er ? " inquired Larry the Bat. It was the ques 
 tion that was pounding at his brain, as he stared innocently 
 at the Magpie. What did it meau? Why was Henry La- 
 Salle turning, and, if the Magpie was right, feverishly turn 
 ing every security he could lay his hands on into cash ? And 
 then, in a flash, the answer came. They had not found the 
 package! Equally to them, as to the Tocsin, sitting there be 
 fore him, it meant life and death. If the package were found 
 by the Tocsin instead of themselves, the game was up! 
 They were preparing for eventualities. If they were forced 
 to run at a moment s notice, they at least were not going 
 to run empty-handed ! Far from empty-handed, it seemed ! 
 It would not be difficult for the estate s executor to realise 
 a vast sum in short order on instantly marketable, gilt-edged 
 securities say, half a million dollars. Not very bulky, 
 either in large bills! Five thousand hundred-dollar bills 
 would make half a million. It was astonishing how small a 
 hand bag, say, might hold a fortune ! " Wot f er, Slimmy ? " 
 he inquired again, wiggling his cigarette butt on his tongue 
 tip. "Wot d he do dat fer?" 
 
 " How de hell do youse suppose I knows ! " demanded the 
 Magpie, politely scornful. " Dat s his business dat ain f 
 wot s worry in me!" 
 
 " No sure, it ain t!" admitted Larry the Bat ingratiat 
 ingly. " But go on, keep movin , Slimmy ! Wot s he done 
 wid de stuff?" 
 
 " Done wid it f " echoed the Magpie, with a short laugh 
 "Wot do youse t ink! He s been luggin it home to his 
 swell joint up dere on de avenoo, an crammin his safe full 
 of it." 
 
 Larry the Bat sucked in his breath. 
 
 "Gee, dat s soft!" he murmured, and then suddenly, as 
 though with painful inspiration : " Say, Slimmy say, are 
 youse sure youse ain t been handed a steer ? " 
 
 The Magpie grinned wickedly. 
 
 " I ain t fallin fer steers ! " he said shortly. " Dis te on 
 de level." 
 
 Jimmie Dale lurched up from his chair, and, leaning
 
 THE MAGPIE 417 
 
 the lamp chimney, drew wheezily on his cigarette to get a 
 light. His eyes sought the Tocsin s face. To all intents and 
 purposes she was entirely absorbed in the Magpie. He sat 
 down again to gape, with well-stimulated, doglike admiration, 
 at Slimmy Joe. W as this, too, a plant? Why had the Mag 
 pie come to them with this story of Henry LaSalle? Anc 
 then, the next instant, as the Magpie spoke, his suspicions 
 were allayed. 
 
 " Let s get down to cases ! " the Magpie invited crisply. 
 " I didn t blow in here just by luck. Dis Henry LaSalle 
 is de guy youse worked fer once, ain t he, Mag? Dat s de 
 spiel, ain t it? he sent youse up fer pinchin de tacks out 
 of his carpets ! " 
 
 " I never pinched nothin ! " snarled Silver Mag trucu* 
 lently. " He s a dirty liar ! I never did ! " 
 
 " Cut it out ! Cut it out ! Can dat ! " complained the 
 Magpie patiently. " De point is, youse worked in his house, 
 didn t youse ? " 
 
 "Sure I did!" snapped the Tocsin, sullenly aggressive; 
 "but " 
 
 " Well, den, dat s wot I want, dat s wot I come fer, Mag 
 a plan of de house. See?" 
 
 Jimmie Dale could feel the Tocsin s eyes upon him, ques 
 tioning, searching, seeking a cue. A plan of the house 
 yes or no ? And a decision on the instant ! 
 
 " Sure ! " said Larry the Bat brightly. " Dat s wot I 
 was t inkin* youse were after all de time. Say, youse are 
 all right, Slimmy ! Youse are de kind to work wid ! Go on, 
 Mag, draw de dope fer Slimmy. Dat s better dan tryin to 
 put one over on de swell guy. Dis ll make him squeal fer 
 fair!" 
 
 The Magpie produced a pencil and a piece of paper from 
 his pocket, and laid them on the table in front of the Toc 
 sin. 
 
 " Dere youse are," he announced. " Help yerself, an* 
 >o to it, Mag \ " 
 
 The Tocsin, evidently not quite certain of her part, wdr 
 u *te pencil doubtfully on the end of her tongue.
 
 418 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 " I ain t never drawed plans," she said anxiously. 
 * Mabbe " she glanced at Jimmie Dale " mabbe I dunno 
 how to do it right. 
 
 " Aw, go ahead ! " nodded Larry the Bat. " Youse can 
 do it right, Mag. Youse don t have to make no oil paintin ! 
 All de Magpie wants is de doors an windows, eh, Siimmy ? " 
 
 " Sure," agreed the Magpie encouragingly. " Dat s all, 
 Mag. Just mark de rooms out on de first floor, an de 
 basement. Youse can explain wot youse re doin as youse 
 goes along. I ll get youse." 
 
 The Tocsin cackled maliciously in assent ; and then, while 
 the Magpie got up from his chair and stood peering over 
 her shoulder, she began to draw labouriously, her brows 
 knitted, the pencil hooked awkwardly between cramped-up 
 forefinger and thumb. 
 
 Larry the Bat, slouched forward over the table, his chin 
 in his hands, appeared to watch the proceedings with mild 
 interest but his eyes, like a hawk s, were following every 
 line on the paper, transferring them to his brain, photo 
 graphing every detail of the plan in his mind. And as he 
 watched, there seemed something that was near to the acme 
 of all that was ironical in the Magpie standing there, his 
 sharp, little, black eyes drinking in greedily the Tocsin s 
 work, in the Tocsin herself aiding and abetting in the proj 
 ected theft of her own money! How far would he let 
 the Magpie go? He did not know. Perhaps who could 
 tell ! all the way. Between now and then there lay that 
 package! If it were at Makoff s, at Spider Jack s, if he 
 could find it, get it the Magpie as a temporary custodian 
 of the estate s money would at least preclude its loss by 
 flight if the Crime Club took alarm too quickly. Larry the 
 Bat s eyes, under half-closed lids, rested musingly on the 
 Magpie s face. The Magpie would not get very far away 
 with it! On the other hand, if he failed at Spider Jack s, 
 if, after all, he was wrong, and the package had n^ver been 
 there, or if they had forestalled him, turned thev."ick upon 
 him, already secured it, then Larry the Bat s lips, working 
 on his cigarette, formed in a twisted smile then, well then,
 
 THE MAGPIE 
 
 that was quite another matter ! Perhaps he and the Magpie 
 might not agree so far! A half million dollars was per 
 haps not much out of eleven millions, but it was a salvage 
 not to be despised ! Why did he say half a million ! Well, 
 why not? If the Magpie knew of a single transaction of 
 eighty thousand, and there had been many transactions dur 
 ing the day, a half million was little likely to prove an ex 
 aggeration and the less likely in view of the fact that, 
 if those in the Crime Club were preparing for an emer 
 gency, they would not stint themselves in the disposal of 
 securities. 
 
 The Magpie was keeping up a running fire of questions, as 
 the Tocsin toiled on with her pencil. Where did the hall 
 lead to? How many windows in the library? Did she re- 
 member the kind of fastenings? Did the servants sleep in 
 the basement, or above? And finally, twice over, as she 
 finished the clumsy drawing and pushed it toward him, he 
 demanded minute details of the position of the safe. 
 
 " Aw, dat s all right, Slimmy ! " Larry the Bat cut in 
 airily. "If youse ferget anyt ing when youse get in dere, 
 youse can ask me. I got it cinched ! " 
 
 The Magpie folded the paper and stowed it carefully 
 away in his pocket. 
 
 " Ask youse, eh ! " he grunted sarcastically. " An where 
 do youse t ink youse ll be about dat time ? " 
 
 " In dere wid youse, of course," replied Larry the Bat 
 promptly. " Dat s wot youse said." 
 
 "Yes, youse will not!" announced the Magpie, with 
 cold finality. " Do youse t ink I want to queer myself ! 
 A hot one youse d be on an inside job ! Youse ll be outside, 
 wid yer peepers skinned for de bulls youse an Mag here, 
 too. See ! Get dat straight. While I m on de job youse two 
 plays de game. Now youse listen to me, both of youse. 
 Don t start nothin unless youse has to. If it s a cinch I got 
 to make a get-away, youse two start a drunk fight. Get me ? 
 Youse know de lay. T row de talk loud an I ll fade. 
 Dat s all! We ll crack de crib early it ll be quiet enough 
 Up dere by one o clock "
 
 420 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 One o clock ! Larry the Bat shook his head. What time 
 was it now? It was about nine when he had first met the 
 Tocsin, then the Sanctuary, then the long walk as he had 
 followed her say a quarter of ten for that. And he had 
 certainly been here with her not less than an hour and a 
 half. It must be after eleven, then. One o clock! And 
 before that must come Makoff and Spider Jack ! The night 
 that half an hour ago had seemed so sterile, was crowding 
 a program of events upon him now too fast ! 
 
 " Nothin doin ! " he said thoughtfully. " Youse are in 
 wrong dere, Slimmy. One o clock don t go! Say, take it 
 from me, I ve watched dat guy too many nights fer Mag. 
 Tain t often he leaves de club before one o clock an he 
 ain t never in bed before two." 
 
 " All right," agreed the Magpie, "fter a moment s re 
 flection. " Youse ought to know. Make it three o clock." 
 He pulled a cigar from his pocket, lighted it, and, leaning 
 back in his chair, stuck his feet up on the table. " If youse 
 don t mind, Mag, I ll stick around a while," he decided 
 calmly. " Mabbe de less I m seen to-night de better an 
 I guess dere won t be nobody lookin fer me here." 
 
 Larry the Bat coughed suddenly, and rose up a little 
 heavily from his chair. He had not counted on that! If 
 the Magpie was settling down for a prolonged stay, it de 
 volved upon him, Jimmie Dale, to get away, and at once 
 and without exciting the Magpie s suspicions. He coughed 
 again, looked nervously from the Tocsin to the Magpie 
 stammered swallowed hard and coughed once more. 
 
 " Well, wot s bitin youse ? " inquired the Magpie iron 
 ically. 
 
 " Nothin ," said Larry the Bat and hesitated. " Nothin , 
 only " He hesitated again ; and then, the words in a rush : 
 " Say, Slimmy, couldn t youse come across wid a piece of 
 dat century now ? " 
 
 " Wot fer ? " demanded the Magpie, a little aggressively. 
 
 Larry the Bat cleared his throat with a desperate effort. 
 
 " Youse knows," he admitted sheepishly. " Just gimme d* 
 price of one, Slimmy just one."
 
 THE MAGPIE 
 
 "Coke!" exploded the Magpie. "An* get soaked to de 
 eyes not by a damn sight ! " 
 
 " No Honest to Gawd, no, Slimmy just one ! " pleaded 
 Larry the Bat. 
 
 " Nix ! " said the Magpie shortly. 
 
 Larry the Bat thrust out a hand before the Magpie s eyes 
 that shook tremulously. 
 
 " I got to have it ! " he declared, with sudden fierceness. 
 " I qot to see ! Look at me ! I ain t goin to be no good 
 to-night if I don t. I tell youse, I got to! I ain t goin to 
 t row youse down, Slimmy honest, I ain t ! Just one an* 
 it ll set me up. If I don t get none I ll be on de rocks before 
 mornin ! Dat s straight, Slimmy ask Mag, she knows." 
 
 " Aw, let him go get it ! " broke in the Tocsin wearily, 
 "* Dat s de best t ing youse can do, Slimmy dey re all alike 
 when dey gets in his class." 
 
 " Youse cocaine sniffers gives me de pip ! " snorted the 
 Magpie, in disgust. He dug down into his pocket, pro 
 duced a bill, and flung it across the table to Larry the Bat. 
 "Well, dere youse are; but youse can take it from me, 
 Larry, dat if youse gets whiffed "he swore threateningly 
 " I ll crack every bone in yer face ! Get me ? " 
 
 " Slimmy," said Larry the Bat fervently, grabbing at the 
 bill with a hungry hand, " youse can count on me. I ll be 
 ap dere on de job before youse are. Three o clock, eh? 
 Well, so long, Slimmy "he slouched eagerly to the door. 
 " So long, Mag "he paused on the threshold for a single, 
 quick-flung, significant glance. " See youse on de avenoa 
 Mag I ll be up dere before youse are. So long!" 
 
 " Oh, so long ! " said the Tocsin contemptuously. 
 
 And, an instant later, Jimmie Dale closed the outer door 
 behind him.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 JOHN JOHANSSON FOUR-TWO-EIGB1 
 
 flkfEARLY midnight already! It was even later than he 
 
 had thought. Larry the Bat pressed his face against 
 
 a shop s windowpane on the Bowery for a glance at a clock 
 
 that had caught his eye on the wall within. Nearly mid* 
 
 night ! 
 
 He slouched on again hurriedly, still debating in his mind, 
 as he had been debating it all the way from the Tocsin s, 
 the question of returning again to the Sanctuary. So fai% 
 the way both to Spider Jack s and the Sanctuary had been 
 in the same direction but the Sanctuary was on the next 
 street. 
 
 Jimmie Dale reached the corner and hesitated. It was 
 strange how strong was the intuition upon him to-night that 
 bade him go on and make all speed to Spider Jack s while 
 equally strong was the cold, stubborn logic that bade him go 
 first to the Sanctuary. There were things that he needed 
 .here that would probably be absolutely essential to him be 
 fore the night was out, things without which he might be 
 so badly handicapped as to invite failure from the start; 
 and yet it was already midnight! 
 
 Ostensibly both Makoff and Spider Jack closed their 
 places at eleven. But that might mean anything depend 
 ing upon their own respective inclinations, or on what of 
 their own peculiar brand of deviltry might be afoot. If 
 they were still about, still in evidence, he was still too early, 
 midnight though it was ; though, on the other hand, if 
 the coast was clear, he could ill afford to lose a moment of 
 the time between now and the hour that the Magpie had 
 planned for the robbery of Henry LaSalle, for it would not 
 
 422
 
 JOHN JOHANSSON FOUR-TWO-EIGHT 423 
 
 $e an easy matter, even once inside Spider Jack s, to find 
 that package since it was Spider s open boast that things 
 committed to his care were where the police, or any one 
 else, might as well whistle and suck their thumbs as try 
 to find them! 
 
 And then, with sudden decision, taking his hesitation, as 
 it were, by the throat, Jimmie Dale hurried on again to 
 the Sanctuary. At most, it could delay him but another 
 fifteen minutes, and by half-past twelve, or a quarter to 
 one at the latest, he would be at Spider Jack s. 
 
 Disdaining the secrecy of the side door on the alley, for 
 who had a better right or was better known there than Larry 
 the Bat, a tenant of years, he entered the tenement by the 
 front door, scuffled up the stairs to the first landing, and 
 let himself into his disreputable room. He locked the door 
 behind him, lighted the choked and wheezy gas jet, in a 
 single, sharp-flung glance assured himself that the blinds 
 were tightly shut, and, kneeling in the far corner, threw 
 back the oilcloth and lifted up the loose section of the floor- 
 ing beneath. He reached inside, fumbling under the neatly 
 folded clothes of Jimmie Dale, and in a moment laid his 
 leather girdle with its kit of burglar s tools on the floor be 
 side him ; and beside that again an electric flashlight, a black 
 silk mask, and what he had never expected to use again 
 when, early the night before, he had, as he had believed, 
 put it away forever the thin, metal insignia case of the 
 Gray Seal. Another moment, and, with the flooring re 
 placed, the oilcloth rolled back into position, he had stripped 
 off ^lis coat and was pulling his spotted, greasy shirt off 
 ove\ his \iead ; then, stooping quickly, he picked up th 
 girdl&, put it on, put on his shirt again over it, put on his 
 coat, ptit the metal case, the flashlight, and the mask in his 
 pockets and once more the Sanctuary was in darkness. 
 
 It was perhaps fifteen minutes later that Jimmie Dale 
 turned into the upper section of Thompson Street. Here 
 he slowed his pace, that had been almost a run since he had 
 Seft the Sanctuary, and began to shuffle leisurely along; 
 for the street, that a few hours before would have been
 
 424 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 choked with its pushcarts and venders, its half naked chiK 
 dren playing where they could find room in the gutters, its 
 sidewalks thronged with shawled women and picturesquely 
 dressed, earringed, dark-visaged men, a scene, as it were, 
 transported from some foreign land, was still far from de 
 serted ; the quiet, if quiet it could be called, was but com 
 parative, there were many yet about, and he had no desire 
 to attract attention by any evidence of undue haste. And, 
 besides, Spider Jack s was just ahead, making the corner 
 of the alleyway a few hundred feet farther on, and he had 
 very good reasons for desiring to approach Spider s little 
 novelty store at a pace that would afford him every op 
 portunity for observation. 
 
 On he shuffled along the street, until, reaching Spider 
 Jack s, a little two-storied, tumble-down brick structure, a 
 muttered exclamation of satisfaction escaped him. The shop 
 was closed and dark ; and, though Spider Jack lived above 
 the store, there were no lights even in the upper windows. 
 Spider Jack presumably was either out, or in bed ! So f ar> 
 then, he could have asked for nothing more. 
 
 Jimmie Dale edged in close to the building as he slouched 
 by, so close that his hat brim seemed to touch the window. 
 pane. It was possible that from a room at the rear of the 
 store there might be a light with a telltale ray perhaps filter 
 ing through,say, a door crack. But there was nothing only 
 blackness within. 
 
 He paused at the corner of the building by the alleyway. 
 Down here, adjoining the high board fence of Spider Jack s 
 back yard, Makoff made pretense at pawnbrokering in a 
 small and dingy wooden building, that was little more 
 pretentious than a shed and in Makoff s place, so far at 
 he could see, there was no light, either. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s fingers were industriously rolling a ciga 
 rette, as, under the brim of his slouch hat, his eyes were 
 noting every detail around him. A yard in against the watt 
 of Spider Jack s, the wall cutting off the rays of the street 
 lamp at a sharp angle, it was shadowy and black and be 
 yond that, farther in, the alleyway was like a pit. It wo*H
 
 JOHN JOHANSSON FOUR-TWO-EIGHT 425 
 
 take less, far less, than the fraction of a second to gain that 
 yard, but some one was approaching behind him, and a little 
 group of people loitered, with annoying persistency, directly 
 across the way on the other side of the street. Jimmie Dale 
 stuck the cigarette between his lips, fumbled in his pockets, 
 and finally produced a box of matches. The group opposite 
 was moving on now ; the footsteps he had heard behind him, 
 those of a man, drew nearer, the man passed by and the 
 box of matches in Jimmie Dale s hand dropped to the ground. 
 He reached to pick them up, and in his stooping posture, 
 without seeming to turn his head, flung a quick glance behind 
 him up the street. No one, for that fraction of a second that 
 he needed, was near enough to see and in that fraction of 
 a second Jimmie Dale disappeared. 
 
 A dozen yards down the lane, he sprang for the top of the 
 high fence, gripped it, and, lithe and active as a cat, swung 
 himself up and over, and dropped noiselessly to the ground 
 on the other side. Here he stood motionless for a moment, 
 close against the fence, to get his bearings. The rear of 
 Spider Jack s building loomed up before him the back win- 
 dows as unlighted as those in front. Luck so far, at least, 
 was with him! He turned and looked about him, and, his 
 fcyes growing accustomed to the darkness, he could just make 
 out Makoff s place, bordering the end of the yard nor, 
 from this new vantage point, could he discover, any more 
 than before, a single sign of life about the pawnbroker s 
 establishment. 
 
 Jimmie Dale stole forward across the yard, mounted the 
 three steps of the low stoop at Spider Jack s back door, 
 and tried the door cautiously. It was locked. From his 
 pocket came the small steel instrument that had stood Larry 
 the Bat in good stead a hundred times before in similar cir 
 cumstances. He inserted it in the keyhole, worked deftly 
 with it for an instant and tried the door again. It was still 
 locked. And then Jimmie Dale smiled almost apologetically. 
 Spider Jack did not use ordinary locks on his back door! 
 
 The discountenanced instrument went back into his pocket, 
 and now Jimmie Dale s hand slipped inside his shirt,
 
 426 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 from one of the little, upright pockets of the leather belt, and 
 from still another, and from after that a third, came the 
 vicious little blued-steel tools. The sensitive fingers travelled 
 slowly up and down the side of the door and then he was 
 at work in earnest. A minute passed another there was a 
 dull, low, grating sound, a snick as of metal yielding sud 
 denly and Jimmie Dale was coolly stowing away his tools 
 again inside his shirt. 
 
 He pushed the door open an inch, listened, then swung it 
 wide, stepped inside, and closed it behind him. A round, 
 white beam of light flashed in a quick circle and went out. 
 It was a sort of storeroom, innocent enough and orderly 
 enough in appearance, bare-floored, with boxes and packing 
 cases piled neatly against the walls. In one corner a stair 
 case led to the story above and from above, quite audibly 
 now, he caught the sound of snoring. Spider Jack was in 
 bed, then! 
 
 Directly facing him was the open door of another room, 
 And Jimmie Dale, moving softly forward, entered it. He 
 had never been in Spider Jack s before, and his first concern 
 was to form an intimate acquaintanceship with his surround 
 ings. Again the flashlight circled, and again went out. 
 
 " No windows ! " muttered Jimmie Dale under his breath. 
 " Nothing very fancy about the architecture ! Three rooms 
 m a row! Store in front of this room through that door-, 
 of course. Wonder if the door s locked, though it s a fore 
 gone conclusion the package wouldn t be in there." 
 
 Not a sound, his tread silent, he crossed to the closed door 
 that he had noticed. It was unlocked, and he opened it tenta 
 tively a little way. A faint glow of light diffused itself 
 through the opening. Jimmie Dale nodded his head and 
 closed the door again. The street lamp, shining through the 
 shop windows, accounted for the light. 
 
 And now the flashlight played with steady inquisitiveness 
 about him. The room in which he stood seemed to combine 
 a sort of office, with a lounging room, in which Spider Jack, 
 no doubt, entertained his particular cronies. There was a 
 table in the centre, cards still upon it. chairs about it-,
 
 JOHN JOHANSSON FOUR-TWO-EIGHT 42V 
 
 Against the wall farthest away from the shop stood a huge, 
 old-fashioned cabinet ; and a little farther along, anglewise, 
 partitioning off the corner, as it were, hung, for some pur 
 pose or other, a cretonne curtain. Also, against the wall 
 next to the lane, bringing a commiserating smile to Jimmie 
 Dale s lips as his eyes fell upon it, was a clumsy, lumbering,, 
 antique safe. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s eyes returned to the curtain. What was it 
 doing there? What was it for? Instinctively he stepped? 
 over to examine it. A single glance, however, as he lifted 
 it aside, sufficed. It was nothing but a make-shift clothes 
 closet. He turned from it, switched off the flashlight, and 
 stood staring meditatively into the darkness. In a strange 
 house, with the knowledge to begin with that what he sought 
 was carefully hidden, it was no sinecure to find that package. 
 He had never for a moment imagined that it would be. But 
 of one thing, however, there was no uncertainty in his mind- 
 he would get the package! by search if possible, by other 
 means if search failed. It was now close to one o clock. If 
 by two o clock his efforts had been fruitless, Spider Jack 
 would hand over the package at the revolver point! It 
 was quite simple! Meanwhile Jimmie Dale shrugged hi* 
 shoulders, and, going over to the safe, knelt down in front of 
 it meanwhile, as well begin here as anywhere else. 
 
 The trained fingers closed on the handle and on the in 
 stant, as though in startled amazement, shifted to the dial. 
 They came back to the handle a wrench then a low f 
 amused chuckle and the door swung open. The great, un 
 wieldy thing was only a monumental bluff! It not only had 
 not been locked, but it could not be locked the mechanism 
 was out of order, the bolts could not be moved by so much 
 as a hair s breadth ! 
 
 Still chuckling, Jimmie Dale shot the flashlight s ray Into 
 the interior of the safe and the chuckle died on his lips, 
 and into his face came a look of strained bewilderment 
 Inside, everything was in chaos, books, papers, a miscellany 
 of articles, as though they had first been ruthlessly pulled out 
 the floor, then gathered up in an armful and crammed
 
 428 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 back inside again. For an instant he did not move, and then 
 a queer, hard, mirthless smile drew down the corners of his 
 mouth. With a sort of bitter, expectant nod of his head, he 
 turned the light upon the door of the safe. Yes, there were 
 the scratches that the tools had left ; and, as though in sar 
 donic jest, the holes, where the steel bit had bored, were 
 plugged with putty and rubbed over with some black sub 
 stance that was still wet and came off, smearing his finger, 
 as he touched it. It could not have been done long ago, 
 then ! How long ? A half hour an hour ? Not more than 
 that! 
 
 Mechanically he closed the door of the safe, rose to his 
 feet and, almost heedless of noise now, the flashlight ray 
 dancing before him, he jumped across to the old-fashioned 
 cabinet and pulled the door open. Here, as within the safe, 
 all inside, plain evidence of thorough, if hasty, search, was 
 scattered and tossed about in hopeless confusion. 
 
 He shut the cabinet door ; the flashlight went out ; and he 
 stood like a man stunned, the sense of some abysmal disaster 
 upon him. He was too late! The game was up! If it had 
 ever been here, the package was gone now gone! The 
 Crime Club had been here before him! 
 
 " The game was up ! The game was up ! " his mind 
 seemed to keep on repeating that. The Crime Club had 
 beaten him by an hour, at most, and had been here, and 
 had searched. It was strange, though, that they should have 
 been at such curious pains to cover their tracks by leaving 
 the room in order, by such paltry efforts to make the safe 
 appear untouched when the first glance that was at all 
 critical would disclose immediately what had been done! 
 Why should they need to cover their tracks at all ; or, if it 
 was necessary, why, above all, in such a pitifully inadequate 
 way ! His mind harked back to the same ghastly refrain 
 " the game was up ! " 
 
 No ! Not yet ! There was still a chance ! There was still 
 Spider Jack! Suppose, in spite of their search, they had 
 failed to find the package ! Jimmie Dale s lips set in a thin 
 line, as he started abruptly toward the door. There was still
 
 JOHN JOHANSSON FOUR-TWO-EIGHT 429 
 
 /hat chance, and one thing was grimly certain Spider Jack 
 would, at least, show him where the package had been! 
 
 And then, halfway to the door, he halted suddenly, and 
 stood still listening. An electric bell was ringing loudly, 
 imperiously, somewhere upstairs. Followed almost im 
 mediately the sound of some one, Spider Jack presumably, 
 moving hurriedly about overhead ; and then, a moment later, 
 steps coming down the staircase in the adjoining room. 
 
 Jimmie Dale drew back, flattening himself against the 
 wall. Spider Jack entered the room, stumbled across it, in 
 the darkness, fumbled for the door that led into his little 
 shop, opened it, passed through, fumbled around in there 
 again, for matches evidently, then lighted a gas jet in the 
 store, and, going to the street door, opened it. 
 
 Jimmie Dale had edged along the wall a little to a position 
 where he had an unobstructed view through the open door* 
 way connecting the shop and the room in which he stood. 
 Spider Jack, in trousers and shirt, hastily donned, no doubt, 
 as he had got out of bed, was standing in the street door 
 way, and beyond him loomed the forms of several men. 
 Spider Jack stepped aside to allow his visitors to enter and 
 suddenly, a cry barely suppressed upon his lips, Jimmie Dale 
 involuntarily strained forward. Three men had entered, but 
 his eyes were fixed, fascinated, upon only one the first of 
 the three. Was it an hallucination ? Was he mad dream 
 ing? It was Hilton Travers, the chauffeur the man whom 
 he could have sworn he had last seen dead, lashed in that 
 chair, in that ghastly death chamber of the Crime Club! 
 
 " Rather rough on you, Spider, to pull you out of bed at 
 this hour," the chauffeur was saying apologetically. 
 
 " Oh, that s all right, seein it s you, Travers," Spider Jack 
 answered, gruffly amiable. " Only I was kind of lookin for 
 you last night." 
 
 " I know," the chauffeur replied ; " but I couldn t connect 
 with my friends here. Shake hands with them, Spider Bob 
 Marvin Harry Stead." 
 
 " Glad to know you, gents," said Spider Jack, with a> 
 apiece.
 
 430 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 The chauffeur lowered his voice a little. 
 
 "I suppose we re alone here, eh, Spider? Yes? Well, 
 then, you know what I ve come for that package Marvin 
 and Stead, here, are the ones that are in on it with me. Get 
 it for me, will you, Spider? " 
 
 " Sure Mr. Johansson ! " Spider grinned. " Sure ! 
 Come on into the back room and make yourselves com* 
 fortable. I ll be mabbe five minutes, or so." 
 
 Jimmie Dale s brain was whirling. What did it mean? 
 He could not seem to understand. His mind seemed to re 
 fuse its functions. Travers, the chauffeur alive! He drew 
 in his breath sharply. That curtain in the corner ! He must 
 see this out now ! They were coming ! Quick, noiseless, he 
 stole along the side of the wall, reached the corner, and 
 slipped in behind the curtain, as Spider Jack, striking a 
 match, entered the room. 
 
 Spider Jack lighted the gas, and, as the others followed be. 
 hind him, waved them toward the chairs around the table, 
 
 " I ll just ask you gents not to leave the room," he said 
 meaningly, over his shoulder, as he stepped toward the rear 
 door. " It s kind of a fad of mine to keep some things even 
 from my wife ! " 
 
 " All right, Spider I understand," the chauffeur returned 
 readily. 
 
 Jimmie Dale s knife cut a tiny slit in the cretonne on a 
 level with his eyes. The three men had seated themselves 
 at the table, and appeared to be listening intently. Spider 
 Jack s footsteps echoed back as he crossed the rear room, 
 sounded dull and muffled descending the stoop outside, and 
 died away. 
 
 " I told you it wasn t in the house ! " the man who had 
 been introduced as Stead laughed shortly. " We wasted the 
 hour we had here." 
 
 The third man spoke crisply, incisively, to the chauffeur. 
 
 " Turn down that gas jet a little ! You ve got across with 
 it so far but you can t stand a searchlight, Clarke ! " 
 
 And at the words, in a flash, the meaning of it, all of it, to 
 the last Detail that was spelling death, ruin, and disaster
 
 JOHN JOHANSSON FOUR-TWO-EIGHT 431 
 
 her, the Tocsin, for himself as well, burst upon Jimmie Dale. 
 That j &ice! He would have known it, recognised it, among 
 a thousand it was the masked man of the night before, the 
 leader, the head of the Crime Club ! And it was not Travers 
 there at all! He remembered now, too well, that second 
 room they had showed him in the Crime Club its multitude 
 of disguises, though in this case they had the dead man s 
 clothes ready to their hands the leader s boast that im 
 personation was but child s play to them ! And now he 
 understood why they had covered up the traces of their 
 search in only so curiously inadequate a manner. They had 
 failed to find the package, and, as a last resort, had adopted 
 the ruse of impersonating Hilton Travers, the chauffeur, 
 which made it necessary that when they called Spider Jack 
 from his bed, as they had just done, that Spider Jack, at a 
 casual glance, should notice nothing amiss but it would be 
 no more than a casual glance, for, who should know better 
 than they, he would not have to go for the package to any 
 place that they had disturbed ! And he, Jimmie Dale, could 
 only stand here and watch them, helpless, powerless to move ! 
 Three of them ! A step out into the room was to invite cer 
 tain death. It would not matter, his death if he could gain 
 anything for her, for the Tocsin, by it. But what could he 
 gain by dying? He clenched his hands until the nails bit 
 into the flesh. 
 
 Spider Jack reentered the room, carrying what looked like 
 a large, bulky, manila envelope, heavily sealed, in his hand. 
 He tossed it on the table. 
 
 " There you are, Travers ! " he said. 
 
 " I wonder," suggested the leader pleasantly, " if, now that 
 we re here, Travers, your friend would mind letting us have 
 this room for a few minutes to ourselves to clean up the busi 
 ness ? " 
 
 " Sure ! " agreed Spider Jack cordially. " You re welcome 
 ;o it ! I ll wait out here in the store until you say the word." 
 
 He went out, closing the door after him. The leader 
 picked up the package. 
 
 " We ll take no chances with this," he said grimly. " It s
 
 432 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 loeen too close a call. After we ve had a look at it., we ll put 
 it out of harm s way on the spot, here, while we ve got it 
 before we leave! " 
 
 He ripped the package open, and disclosed perhaps a dozen 
 official-looking documents, besides a miscellaneous number of 
 others. He took up the first of the papers, glanced through 
 it hurriedly, then tossed it to the pseudo chauffeur. 
 
 " Tear it up, and tear it up small! " he ordered tersely. 
 The next, after examining it as he had the first, he tossed 
 to the other man. " Go ahead ! " curtly. " Work fast ! 
 From the looks of these, Travers had us cold ! There s 
 proof enough here of LaSalle s murder to send us all to the 
 chair!" 
 
 He went on glancing through the documents; and then 
 suddenly, joining the others in their work, began to rip and 
 tear at the papers himself. 
 
 A sort of cold horror had settled upon Jimmie Dale, and 
 his forehead was clammy wet. The inhuman irony of it! 
 That he should stand there and watch, impotent to prevent 
 it, the destruction of what he would have given his life to 
 secure! And then slowly, a grim, hard, merciless smile 
 came to his lips. He had recognised the leader s voice 
 now he would recognise the leader s face. At least, that was 
 left to him perhaps the master trump of all. It would not 
 be very hard to find the Crime Club now with that man 
 to lead the way ! 
 
 The scraps of paper, tiny shreds, mounted into a heap on 
 the table and with the last of the contents of the package 
 destroyed, the leader stood up. 
 
 " Put these pieces in your pockets ; we don t want to leave 
 them here," he directed quietly. " And then let s get out." 
 
 In scarcely a moment, the last scrap of paper had vanished. 
 The three men walked to the door, passed through it, and 
 joined Spider Jack in the store and Jimmie Dale, slipping 
 out from behind the curtain, gained the door of the rear 
 room, crept through it, reached the stoop, and then, darting 
 like the wind across the yard, was over the fence in a second, 
 and in another was out of the alleyway and on the street.
 
 JOHN JOHANSSON FOUR-TWO-EIGHT 433 
 
 He was in time in plenty of time. They had just left 
 Spider Jack s, and were, perhaps, fifty yards or so ahead of 
 him. He slouched on behind them the cold, grim smile on 
 his lips once more. It was the Crime Club now, that hell s 
 cradle where their devil s schemes were hatched, that was 
 the one thing left to him ; they would lead him to that, and 
 then and then it would be his turn to strike! 
 
 They turned the first corner. And suddenly, as the racing 
 engine of an automobile caught his ear, he broke into a run v 
 and dashed around the corner after them in time to see 
 them jump into a car, and the car speed off along the street ! 
 He halted, as though he were suddenly dazed started in 
 voluntarily to run forward again stopped, with a hollow 
 laugh at the futility of it and stood still and motionless 
 on the sidewalk. 
 
 And then he swayed a little, and his face grew gray. 
 Failure, defeat, ruin in that moment he knew them all to 
 their bitterest dregs. How could he go to her ! How could 
 he face her, and tell her that they were beaten, that the 
 last hope was gone, that he had failed ! 
 
 " God ! " he cried aloud, and clenched his hands. 
 
 Then deep in his consciousness a thought stirred, and he 
 swept a shaking hand across his eyes. Why had it come 
 again, that thought! Did it mean that he must play the 
 last card ! There was a way there had always been a way. 
 The way the Crime Club took murder. It was their own 
 weapon! If the man who posed as Henry LaSalle were 
 killed ! If that man were killed ! 
 
 " The Magpie was to be there at three ! " he muttered- -? 
 and started mechanically back along the street
 
 CHAPTER XIISl 
 
 THE ONLY WAY 
 
 jf T was a horrible thing and it grew upon him. In a blind. 
 mechanical way, his brain receptive to nothing else, 
 Jimmie Dale walked on along the street. To kill a man! 
 Death he had faced himself a hundred times, witnessed it a 
 hundred times in its most violent forms, had seen murder 
 done before his eyes, had been in straits where, to save his 
 own life, it had seemed the one last desperate chance and 
 yet his hands were still clean ! To kill a man in fair fight, in 
 struggle, when the blood was hot, was terrible enough, a 
 possibility that was always before him, the one thing from 
 which he shrank, the one thing that, as the Gray Seal, he had 
 always feared ; but to kill a man deliberately, to creep upon 
 his victim with hideous, cold-blooded premeditation he 
 shivered a little, and his hand shook as he drew it nervously 
 across his eyes. 
 
 But there was no other way ! Again and again, insidiously 
 grappling with his revulsion, with the horror that the impulse 
 to murder inspired, came that other thought there was no 
 other way. If the man who posed as Henry LaSafle were 
 dead! If he were dead ! If he were dead ! See, now, what 
 would happen if that man were dead! How clear his brain 
 was on that point! The whole plot would tumble like a 
 house of cards about the heads of the Crime Club. Hie 
 courts would require an auditing of the estate by a trustee 
 of the courts own appointing, who would continue to ad 
 minister it until the Tocsin s twenty-fifth birthday, or until 
 there was tangible evidence of her death but the Tocsin, 
 automatically with her pseudo uncle s death, could publicly 
 appear again. Her death could no longer benefit the Criro* 
 
 434
 
 THE ONLY WAY 435 
 
 Club, since it, the Crime Club, with the supposed uncle dead, 
 could not profit through the false Henry LaSalle inheriting 
 as next of kin ! It was the weak link, the vulnerable point 
 in the stupendous scheme of murder and crime with which 
 these hell fiends had played for and won, so far, the stake 
 of eleven millions. Not that they had overlooked or been 
 blind to this, they were too clever, too cunning for that it 
 was only that they had planned to accomplish the Tocsin s 
 death, as they had her father s and uncle s, and establish the 
 false Henry LaSalle in undisputed possession and ownership 
 of the estate and had failed in that up to the present. 
 But the material results remained the same, so long as the 
 Tocsin, to save her life, was forced to remain in hiding, so 
 k>ng as proof that would convict the Crime Club was not 
 forthcoming so long as that man lived! 
 
 Time passed to which Jimmie Dale was oblivious. At 
 times he walked slowly, scarcely moving; at times his pace 
 Was a nervous, hurried stride, that was almost a run. And 
 As he was oblivious to time, so was he oblivious to his sur 
 roundings, to the direction which he took. At times his 
 forehead was damp with moisture that was not there from 
 physical exertion ; at times his face, deathly white, was full 
 as of the vision of some shuddering, abhorrent sight; at 
 times his lips were thinned into a straight line, and there was 
 a glitter in the dark eyes that was not good to see, while his 
 hands at his sides clenched until the skin, tight over the 
 knuckles, was an ivory white. To kill a man ! 
 
 What other way was there ? The proof that it had takep 
 Hilton Travers years to obtain, the proof on which the 
 Tocsin s life depended, was destroyed utterly, irreparably. 
 It could never be duplicated Hilton Travers was dead 
 murdered. Murder ! That thought again ! It was their own 
 weapon! Murder! Would one kill a venomous reptile in 
 whose fangs was death? What right had this man to life, 
 whose life was forfeit even under the law for murder? 
 Was she to drag on an intolerable existence among the dregs 
 and the scum of the underworld, she, in her refinement and 
 -her purity, to exist among the vile and dissolute, in daily
 
 436 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 hourly peril of her life, because the weapons that these in 
 human vultures had used to rob her, to destroy those she 
 loved, to make of her life a hideous, joyless thing, should 
 not be used against them ? 
 
 But to kill a man ! To steal upon a man with cold intent 
 in the blackness of the night and take his life! To be a 
 murderer ! To know the horror of blood forever upon one s 
 hands, to rise, cold-sweated, in the night, fearful of the very 
 shadows around one, to live with every detail of that fear 
 some act sweeping like some dread spectre at unexpected 
 moments upon the consciousness ! He put up his hands be 
 fore his face, as though to blot out the thought from him. 
 Mind and soul recoiled before it to kill a man! 
 
 He walked on and on, until at last, conscious of a sense of 
 fatigue, he stopped. He must have come a long way, been 
 walking a long time. Where was he ? He looked about him 
 for a moment in a dazed way and suddenly, with a low 
 cry, shrank back. As though he had been drawn to it by 
 some ghastly magnet, he found himself standing in front of 
 the LaSalle mansion, on Fifth Avenue. No, no ; it was not 
 for that he had come to kill a man ! It was only only to 
 get that money. Yes he remembered now that money 
 from the safe, before the Magpie got it. The Magpie was 
 to be there at three o clock and the Tocsin was to be there, 
 too. The Tocsin ! That package ! He had failed ! It had 
 been her one hope, and and it was gone. What could he 
 say to her? How could he tell her the miserable truth? 
 But but he had not come there in the dead of night to kill 
 a man, these other things were what had 
 
 " Jimmie ! " It was a quick-breathed whisper. A hand 
 was on his arm. 
 
 He turned, startled. It was the Tocsin Silver Mag. 
 
 " Jimmie ! " in alarm. " Why are you standing here like 
 this ? You may be seen! " 
 
 Seen! Suppose he -were seen? He shuddered a little. 
 
 " Yes ; that s so ! " he said hoarsely. He glanced numbly 
 tip and down the wide, deserted, but well-lighted, avenue, 
 Ji was no place, that most aristocratic section of the city, fot
 
 THE ONLY WAY 487 
 
 such as Silver Mag and Larry the Bat to be seen at that 
 hour of night, or, rather, morning. And if anything hap 
 pened inside that house ! " I I didn t think of that," he 
 said mechanically. 
 
 " Come across the street under the stoop of that house 
 there." She had his arm, and was half dragging him as she 
 spoke, the alarm in her voice intensified. And then, a mo 
 ment later, safe from observation : " Jimmie, Jimmie, what 
 is the matter? What has happened? What makes you act 
 so strangelv ? " 
 
 " Nothing," he said. " I " 
 
 " Tell me ! " she insisted wildly. 
 
 And then, with a violent effort, Jimmie Dale forced his 
 mind back to the immediate present. He was only inspiring 
 her with terror and there was the Magpie and that money 
 in the safe! 
 
 " Where is the Magpie ? " he asked, with quick appre 
 hension. " Am I late ? Is he in there already ? " 
 
 " No," she said. " He hasn t come yet." 
 
 " What time is it ? " he demanded anxiously. 
 
 " About half -past two," she replied. " But, Jimmie " 
 
 " Wait ! " he broke in. " Where is he now ? You were 
 both together! And you were both to be here at three. 
 What are you doing here alone at half -past two?" 
 
 A strange little exclamation, one almost of dismay, it 
 seemed, escaped her. 
 
 " The Magpie left my place an hour ago to get his kit, 
 I think. And I came here at once because that was what 
 you and I understood I was to do, wasn t it? Jimmie, you 
 frighten me! You are not yourself. Don t you remember 
 the last words you said, as you nodded to me behind the 
 Magpie s back that you would be here before us? There 
 was no mistaking your meaning if I could get away from 
 him, I was to come here and meet you." 
 
 Jimmie Dale passed his hand nervously across his eyes. 
 Of course, he remembered now 1 What a frightful turmoil 
 his brain had been in !
 
 438 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 " Yes ; of course ! " He tried to speak nonchalantly. " 1 
 had forgotten for the moment." 
 
 She caught his arm in a quick, tight hold, shaking him ki 
 a terrified way. 
 
 " You forget a thing like that ! Jimmie something ter 
 rible has happened. Can t you see that I am nearly mad 
 with anxiety! What is it? What is it? That package, 
 Jimmie is it the package?" 
 
 He did not answer. What could he say? It meant life, 
 hope, joy, everything that the world held for her and it 
 was gone. 
 
 " Yes it is the package ! " she whispered frantically. 
 " Quick, Jimmie ! Tell me ! It it was not there ? You 
 you could not find it ? " 
 
 " It was there," he said, as though the words were literally 
 forced from him. 
 
 " Then? Then what, Jimmie? " The clutch on his arm 
 was like a vise. 
 
 " They got it," he said. It was like a death sentence that 
 he pronounced. " It is destroyed." 
 
 She did not speak or move save that her hands, as though 
 nerveless and without strength, fell away from his arms, and 
 dropped to her sides. It was dark there under the stoop, 
 though not so dark but that he could see her face. It was 
 gray gray as death. And there was misery and fear and a 
 pitiful helplessness in it and then she swayed a little, and 
 he caught her in his arms. 
 
 " Gone ! " she murmured in a dead, colourless way and 
 suddenly laughed out sharply, hysterically. 
 
 "Don t! For God s sake, don t do that!" he pleaded 
 wildly. 
 
 She looked at him then for a moment in strange quiet 
 and lifted her hand and stroked his face in a numbed way. 
 
 " It it would have been better, Jimmie, wouldn t it," she 
 waid in the same monotonous voice, " it would have been 
 better if if I had never found out anything, and they 
 they had done the same to me that they did to to father. " 
 
 ** Marie ! Marie ! " It was the first time he had ever
 
 THE ONLY WAY 439 
 
 spoken her name, and it was on his lips now in an agony of 
 tenderness and appeal. " Don t ! You mustn t speak like 
 that ! " 
 
 " I m tired," she said. " I I can t fight any more." 
 
 She did not cry. She lay there in his arms quite still- 
 like a weary child. 
 
 The minutes passed. When Jimmie Dale spoke again it 
 was irrelevantly and his face was very white : 
 
 " Marie, describe the upper floor of that house over there 
 for me." 
 
 She roused herself with a start. 
 
 " The upper floor ? " she repeated slowly. ** Why why 
 do you ask that ? " 
 
 " Have you forgotten in turn ? " he said, with a steady 
 smile. " That money in the safe it s yours we can at 
 least save that out of the wreck. You only drew the base 
 ment plan and the first floor for the Magpie the more I 
 know about the house the better, of course, in case anything; 
 goes wrong. Now, see, try and be brave and tell me 
 quickly, for I must get through before the Magpie comes, 
 and I have barely half an hour." 
 
 " No, Jimmie no ! " She slipped out of his arms. " Let 
 it alone ! I am afraid. Something I I have a feeling that 
 something will happen." 
 
 " It is the only way." He said it involuntarily, more to 
 himself than to her. 
 
 " Jimmie, let it alone ! " she said again. 
 
 " No," he said. " I am going so tell me quickly. Every 
 minute that we wait is one that counts against us." 
 
 She hesitated an instant and then, speaking rapidly, made 
 a verbal sketch of the upper portion of the house for him. 
 
 " It s a very large house, isn t it ? " he commented in 
 nocently to pave the way for the question, above all others, 
 that he had to ask. " Which is your uncle s, I mean that 
 man s room?" 
 
 " The first on the right, at the head of the landing," she 
 answered. "Only, Jimmie, don t don t go!" 
 
 He drew her close to him again.
 
 440 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 " Now, listen," he said quietly. " When the Magpie comes 
 and finds I am not here, lead him to think that the money 
 he gave me was too much for me; that I am probably in 
 some den, doped with drug and hold him as long as you 
 can on the pretext that there is always the possibility I may, 
 after all, show up before he goes in there. You understand? 
 And now about yourself you must do exactly as I say. On 
 no account allow yourself to be seen by any one except the 
 Magpie. I would tell you to go now, only, unless it is vitally 
 necessary, we cannot afford to arouse the Magpie s suspicions 
 -he d have every crook in the underworld snarling at our 
 heels. But you are not to wait, even for him, if you detect 
 the slightest disturbance in that house before he comes. And, 
 equally, after he has gone in, whether I have come out or 
 not, at the first indication of anything unusual you are to 
 get away at once. You understand Marie?" 
 
 " Yes," she said. " But but, Jimmie, you " 
 
 " Just one thing more." He smiled at her reassuringly. 
 * Did the Magpie say anything about how he intended to get 
 in?" 
 
 " Yes bv the side away from the corner of the street,** 
 she said tremulously. " You see, there s quite a space be 
 tween the house and the one next door; and, besides, the 
 house next door is closed up, there s nobody there, the family 
 has gone away for the summer. The library window there 
 is low enousrh to reach from the ground." 
 
 For a moment longer he held her close to him, as though 
 he could not let her go then bent and kissed her passionately. 
 And in that moment all the emotions he had known as he had 
 walked blindly from Spider Jack s that night surged again 
 upon him ; and that voice was whispering, whispering, whis 
 pering: " Tt is the only way it is the only way." 
 
 And then, not daring to trust his voice, he released her 
 suddenly, and stepped back out from under the stoop and 
 the next instant he was across the deserted avenue. An 
 other, and he had slipped through the iron gates that opened 
 on the street driveway and in yet another he was crouched 
 close up against the front door of the LaSalle mansion.
 
 THE ONLY WAY 441 
 
 It was: a large house, a very large house, one of the few 
 that, even amid the wealth and luxury of that quarter, 
 boasted its own grounds, and those so restricted as scarcely 
 to deserve the name ; but it was set far enough back from 
 the street to escape the radius of the street lamps, and so 
 guarantee in its shadows security from observation. It was 
 not the Magpie s way, the front door the obvious to the 
 Magpie and his ilk was a thing always to be shunned. Jim- 
 tnie Dale s lips were set in a grim smile, as his fingers worked 
 with lightning speed, now taking this instrument and now 
 that from the leather pockets in the girdle beneath his shirt 
 the penitentiaries were full of Magpies who shunned the 
 obvious ! 
 
 Very slowly, very cautiously the door opened. He listened 
 breathlessly, tensely. The door closed again behind him. 
 He was inside now. Stillness! Blackness! Not a sound! 
 A minute went by another. And then, as he stood there, 
 strained, listening, the silence itself began, it seemed, to palpi 
 tate, and pound, pound, pound, and be full of strange noises 
 ft was a horrible thing to kill a man I
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 A MOMENT later, Jimmie Dale stepped forward through 
 ^^ the vestibule. He was quite calm now ; a sort of cold, 
 merciless precision in every movement succeeding the riot 
 of turbulent emotions that had possessed him as he had 
 entered the house. 
 
 The half hour, the maximum length of time before the 
 Magpie would appear, as he had estimated it when out there 
 under the stoop with the Tocsin, had dwindled now to per 
 haps twenty minutes, twenty-five at the outside. Twenty- 
 five minutes ! Twenty-five minutes was so little that for an 
 instant the temptation was strong upon him to sacrifice, 
 rather than any of those precious minutes, the Magpie in 
 stead ! And then in the darkness, as he stole noiselessly 
 across the hall, he shook his head. It would be a cowardly, 
 brutal thing to do. What chance would a man with a record 
 like the Magpie s stand if caught there? How easy it would 
 be to "shift the murder of the supposed Henry LaSalle to 
 the Magpie s shoulders ! Jimmie Dale s lips closed firmly. 
 Self-preservation was, perhaps, the first law, but he would 
 save the Magpie if he could the Magpie should have his 
 chance ! The man might be a criminal, might deserve punish 
 ment at the hands of the law* his liberty might be a menace 
 to the community but he was not a murderer, his life forfeit 
 for a crime he had never committed! 
 
 If he, Jimmie Dale, could only in some way have arranged 
 with the Tocsin out there to keep the Magpie away alto 
 gether! But it could not be done without arousing the 
 Magpie s suspicions ; and, as a corollary to that, afterwaN,, 
 with the subsequent events, would come the deluge? The 
 
 442
 
 OUT OF THE DARKNESS 443 
 
 few of the underworld was clear, concise, and admitting of 
 no appeal on that point ; to double cross a pal meant, sooner 
 or later, a knife thrust, a blackjack, or But what dif 
 ference did it make what form the execution of the sentence 
 took? And, since, then, that was out of the question, since 
 he could not keep the Magpie away without practically risk- 
 ing his own life, the Magpie at least must have his chance. 
 
 Jimmie Dale was at the library door now, that, according 
 to the plan the Tocsin had drawn for the Magpie, and as he 
 remembered her description when she had told him her story 
 earlier in the evening, was just at the foot of the staircase. 
 How dark it was! Though the stairs could be only a few 
 feet away, he could not see them. And how intense the 
 silence was again! Here, where he stood, the slightest 
 stir from above must have reached him but there was not 
 a sound. 
 
 His hand felt out for the doorknob, found it, turned it, 
 tnd pushed the door open. He stepped inside the room and 
 closed the door behind him. The safe, according to the 
 Tocsin s plan again, was in that sort of alcove at the lower 
 end of the library. Jimmie Dale s flashlight played in 
 quisitively about the room. There was the window, the only 
 one in the room, the window through which the Magpie 
 proposed to enter ; there was the archway of the alcove, with 
 its no, there were no longer any portieres ; and there was 
 the safe, he could see it quite plainly from where he stood 
 at the upper end of the room. 
 
 The flashlight went out for the space of perhaps thirty 
 seconds thirty seconds of absolute silence, absolute still 
 ness then the round, white ray of the light again, but glisten* 
 ing now on the nickel knobs and dial of the safe and Jim 
 mie Dale was on his knees before it. 
 
 A low, scarcely breathed exclamation, that seemed to 
 mingle anxiety and hesitation, escaped him. He, who knew 
 the make of every safe in the country, knew this one for its 
 true worth. Twenty-five minutes ! Could he open it in that 
 time, let alone with any time to spare ! It was not like tne 
 one in Spider Jack s ; it was the kind that the Magpie, how-
 
 444 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 ever clever he migh be in his own way, would be forced to 
 negotiate with " soup," and, with the attendant noise, double 
 his chance of discovery and capture and the responsibility 
 for what might have happened upstairs! No; the Magpie 
 must have his chance ! And, besides, the money in the safe 
 apart, why should not he, Jimmie Dale, have his own chance, 
 as well ? All this would help. The motive robbery ; the 
 perpetrator, there was grim mockery on his lips now as the 
 light went out and the sensitive fingers closed on the knob of 
 the dial, the perpetrator the Gray Seal. It would afford 
 excellent food for the violent editorial diatribes under which 
 the police again would writhe in frenzy! 
 
 Stillness again! Silence! Only a low, tense breathing; 
 only, so faint that it could not be heard a foot away, a 
 curious scratching, as from time to time the supersensitive 
 fingers fell away from the dial to rub upon the carpet 
 to increase even their sensitiveness by setting the nerves to 
 throbbing through the skin surface at the tips. And then 
 Jimmie Dale s head, ear pressed close against the safe to 
 catch the tumbler s fall, was lifted and the flashlight played 
 again on the dial. 
 
 " Twenty-eight and a quarter left." 
 
 How fast the time went and how slowly ! Still the black 
 shape crouched there in the darkness against the safe. At 
 times, in strange, ghostly flashes, the nickel dial with the ray 
 upon it seemed to leap out and glisten through the surround 
 ing blackness ; at times, the quick intake of breath, as from 
 great exertion ; at times, faint, musical little clicks, as, after 
 abortive effort, the dial whirled, preparatory to a fresh 
 attempt. And then, at last a gasp of relief : 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 Came the sound, barely audible, as of steel sliding in well- 
 oiled grooves, the muffled thud of metal meeting metal as 
 the bolts shot back and the heavy door swung outward. 
 
 Jimmie Dale stretched his cramped limbs, and wiped the 
 moisture from his face then set to work again upon the 
 inner door. This was an easier matter far easier. Five 
 minutes, perhaps a little more, went by and then the innei
 
 OUT OF THE DARKNESS 443 
 
 door was open, and the flashlight s ray was flooding the in 
 terior of the safe. 
 
 A queer little sound, half of astonishment, half of disap 
 pointment, issued from Jimmie Dale s lips. There was 
 money here, a great deal of money, undoubtedly, but there 
 was no such sum as he had, somehow, fantastically imagined 
 from the Magpie s evidently overcoloured story that there 
 would be ; there was money, ten packages of banknotes 
 neatly piled in the bottom compartment but there was no 
 half million of dollars ! He picked up one of the packages 
 hurriedly and drew in his breath. After all, there was a 
 great deal the notes were of hundred-dollar denomination, 
 and on the bottom were two one-thousand-dollar bills ! 
 Calculated roughly, if each of the other nine packages con 
 tained a like amount, the total must exceed a hundred thou 
 sand. 
 
 And now Jimmie Dale began to work with feverish haste. 
 From the leather girdle inside his shirt came the thin metal 
 insignia case and a gray seal was stuck firmly on the dial 
 knob of the safe. This done, he tucked away the packages 
 of banknotes, some into his pockets and some inside his shirt ; 
 and then quickly ransacked the interior of the safe, flaunt- 
 ingly spilling the contents of drawers and pigeonholes out 
 upon the floor. 
 
 He stood up, and, leaving the safe door wide open, walked 
 back across the room to the window, unfastened the catch, 
 and opened the window an inch or two. The way was open 
 now for the Magpie ! The Magpie would have no need to 
 make any noise in forcing an entrance ; he would be able to 
 see almost at a glance that he had been forestalled by the 
 Gray Seal ; and that, as far as he was concerned, the game 
 was up. The Magpie had his chance ! If the Magpie did not 
 take the hint and make his escape as noiselessly as he had 
 entered it was his own fault ! He, Jimmie Dale, had given 
 the Magpie his chance. 
 
 Jimmie Dale turned from the window, and made his way 
 out of the library to the foot of the stairs, leaving the library 
 door open behind him. How long had he been? Was <*
 
 more or less than the twenty-five minutes? He did not 
 know only, as yet, the Magpie had not come, and now 
 perhaps it did not make so much difference. 
 
 Where was he going now? His foot was on the first 
 stair and suddenly he drew it back, the cold sweat burst 
 ing out on his forehead. Where was he going now ? " The 
 first room on the right at the head of the landing. From 
 his inner consciousness, as it were, the answer, in all the 
 bald, naked horror that it implied, flashed upon him. The 
 first room on the right that man s room ! God, how the 
 darkness and the stillness began to palpitate again, and sudv 
 denly seem to shriek out at him over and over the one, 
 single, ghastly word murder! 
 
 It had been with him, that thought, all the time he had 
 been working at the safe; but it had been there then only 
 subconsciously, like some heavy, nameless dread, subjugated 
 for the moment by the work he had had to do which had 
 demanded the centred attention of every faculty he pos 
 sessed. But now the moment had come when there was 
 only that before him, only that, nothing else only that, the 
 man upstairs in the first room to the right of the landing 1 
 
 Why did he hesitate? Why did he stand there while the 
 priceless moments before daylight came were passing? The 
 man was a murderer, a blotch on society, and, his life already 
 forfeited, he was living now only because the law had not 
 found him out the man was a criminal, bloodstained and 
 his life, because he had taken her father s life and had tried 
 to take the Tocsin s own life, stood between her and every 
 hope of happiness, robbing her even literally, in a material 
 sense, of everything that the world could hold for her ! Why 
 did he hesitate? It was that man s life or hers! It was 
 the only way! 
 
 He put his foot upon the bottom step again paused still 
 another instant and then began stealthily to mount the 
 stairs. The darkness! There had never been, it seemed, 
 such darkness before ! The stillness he had never known 
 silence so heavy, so full of strange, premonitory pulsings ; 
 a silence that seemed so incongruously full of clamouring
 
 OUT OF THE DARKNESS 447 
 
 whispers in his ears ! It must be those imagined whispers 
 that were affecting his nerve for now, as he gained the land 
 ing and slipped his automatic from his pocket, his hand was 
 shaking with a queer twitching motion. 
 
 For an instant, righting for his self -composure, he stood 
 striving to locate his surroundings through the darkness. 
 The staircase was a circular one, making the landing nearly 
 at the front of the house, and rearward from this, the 
 Tocsin had said, a hallway ran down the centre, with rooms 
 on either side. The first room to the right, therefore, should 
 be just at his hand. He reached out, feeling cautiously 
 there was nothing. He edged to the right still nothing; 
 edged a little farther, a sense of bewilderment growing upon 
 him, and finally his fingers touched the wall. It was very 
 strange! The hallway must be much wider than he had 
 understood it to be from what she had said ! 
 
 He moved along now straight ahead of him, his hand on 
 the wall, feeling for the door and with every step his be 
 wilderment increased. Surely there must be some mistake 
 perhaps he had misunderstood ! He had come fully twice 
 the distance that one would expect and yet there was no 
 door. Ah, what was that ? His fingers closed on soft, heavy 
 velvet hangings. These could hardly be in front of a door, 
 and yet what else could it be? He drew the hangings 
 warily apart, and felt behind them. It was a window; but 
 it was shuttered in some way evidently, for he could not see 
 out. 
 
 Jimmie Dale stood motionless there for fully a minute. 
 It seemed absurd, preposterous, the conviction that was 
 being forced home upon him that there were no rooms on 
 the right-hand side of the corridor at all! But that was 
 not like the Tocsin, accurate always in the most minute de 
 tails. The room must be still farther along. He was tempted 
 to use his flashlight but that, as long as he could feel his 
 way, was an unnecessary risk. A flashlight upstairs, where 
 a sleeping-room door might be ajar, or even wide open, 
 where some one wakeful, that man himself, perhaps, might 
 see it, was quite another matter than a flashlight in the closed 
 and deserted library below!
 
 448 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 He went on once, more, still guiding himself by a light 
 finger touch upon the wall, passed another portiere similar 
 to the first, and, after that, another and finally stopped by 
 bringing up abruptly against the end wall of the house. It 
 was certainly very strange ! There were no rooms on the 
 right-hand side of the corridor. And here, hanging across the 
 end wall, was another of those ubiquitous velvet portieres. 
 He parted it, and, a little to his surprise, found a window 
 that was not shuttered, but that, instead, was heavily barred 
 by an ornamental grille work. He could see out, however, 
 and found that he was looking directly out from the rear of 
 the house. A lamp from the side street threw what was 
 undoubtedly the garage into shadowy outline, and he made 
 out below him a short stretch of yard between the garage 
 and the house. He remembered that now she had described 
 all that to the Magpie. There was no driveway between the 
 front and the rear. The house being on the corner, the 
 entrance to the garage was directly from the side street. 
 Yes, she had described all that exactly as it was, but he 
 dropped the portiere and faced around, carrying his hand in 
 a nonplused way to his eyes but here, upstairs, within the 
 house, it was not as she had said it was at all! What did 
 it mean? She could not have blundered so egregiously as 
 that, unless he caught his breath suddenly unless she 
 had done so intentionally ! Was that it ? Had she surmised, 
 formed a suspicion of what was in his mind, of what he 
 meant to do and taken this means of defeating it? If so 
 well, it was too late for that now ! There was one way only 
 one way ! Whatever the cost, whatever it might mean for 
 him there was only one way out for her. 
 
 His flashlight was in his hand now, and the round, white 
 ray shot down the corridor seemed suddenly to falter un 
 steadily swept in through an open door that was almost 
 beside him and then, as though a nerveless hand held it, 
 the ray dropped and played shakily on the toe of his boot 
 before it went out. 
 
 A stifled cry rose to his lips. Something cold, like a hand 
 of ice, seemed to clutch at his hart. Those portieres, the
 
 OUT OF THE DARKNESS 449 
 
 wide, richly carpeted corridor! It was the corridor of the 
 night before ! That room at his side was the room where he 
 had seen Hilton Travers, the chauffeur, dead, lashed in a 
 chair! He felt the sweat beads burst out anew upon his 
 forehead. 
 It was the Crime
 
 RETRIBUTION 
 
 IJIS brain seemed to whirl, staggered as by some gigantic, 
 ghastly mockery. The Crime Club! Here! He had 
 thought to creep upon that man and he had run blindly 
 into the very heart and centre of these hell fiends nest! 
 Silently he stood there, holding his breath as he listened 
 now, motionless as a statue, forcing his mind to think. He 
 remembered that last night his impression of the place had 
 been that it was more like some great private mansion than 
 anything else. Well, he had been right, it seemed! He 
 could have laughed aloud sardonically, hysterically. It 
 was not so strange now that there were no rooms on the 
 right-hand side of the corridor ! And what could have suited 
 their purpose better, what, by its very location, its unim 
 peachable character, could be a more ideal lair for them than 
 this house ! And how grimly simple it was now, the explana 
 tion ! In the five years that the false Henry LaSalle had been 
 in possession, they had cunningly remodelled the upper flooi 1 
 that was all ! It was quite clear now why the man never 
 entertained why he had never been caught or found or 
 known to be in communication with his fellow conspirators ! 
 It was no longer curious that one might watch the door of 
 the house for months at a stretch and go unrewarded for 
 one s pains, as the Tocsin had done, when access to the house 
 by those who frequented it was so easy through the garage 
 on the side street and from the garage, if their work there 
 was in keeping with their clever contrivances within the 
 house, by an underground connection into, say, the cellar z, 
 basement ! 
 
 430
 
 RETRIBUTION 451 
 
 Again Jimmie Dale checked that nervous, unnatural in 
 clination to laugh aloud. Was there anything, any single 
 incident, any single detail of all that had transpired, that 
 was not explained, borne out, as it could be explained and 
 borne out in no other way save that the Crime Club should 
 be no other than this very house itself ? It was the exposi 
 tion of that favourite theory of his it was so obvious that 
 therein lay its security. He had mocked at the Magpie not 
 many moments before on that score and now it was the 
 beam in his own eye ! It was so obvious now, so glaringly 
 obvious, that the Crime Club could have been nowhere 
 else ; so obvious, with every word of the Tocsin s story point- 
 ing it out like a signpost and he had not seen it ! 
 
 And then suddenly every muscle grew strained and rigid. 
 Was there some one in the corridor? Was it some one 
 moving or was it only fancy? He listened while he 
 strained his eyes through the darkness. There was no 
 sound; only that abnormal, heavy silence that yes, he re- 
 membered that, too, now that had clung about him last 
 night like a pall. He could see nothing, hear nothing but 
 intuitively, bringing a cold dismay, the greater because it 
 was something unknown, intangible, he felt as though eyes 
 were upon him, that even in the darkness he was being 
 watched ! 
 
 And as he stood there, then, slowly there crept upon Jim- 
 mie Dale the sense of peril and disaster. It was not intui 
 tion now it was certainty. He was trapped! It was the 
 part of a fool to imagine that with their devil s cunning, their 
 cleverness, their ingenuity, he, or any one else, could enter 
 that house unknown to its occupants ! Had he made electric 
 contact when he had opened the front door, and rung a sig 
 nal here, perhaps, upstairs had he set some system of 
 alarm at work when he had touched that window? What 
 did it matter the details that had heralded his entrance? 
 He was certain now that his presence in the house was 
 known. Only, why had they left him so long without attack ? 
 He shook his head with a quick, impatient movement. That, 
 too. was obvious! He was under observation. Who was
 
 452 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 he ? Why had he come ? Was he simply a paltry safe-tappet 
 or was he one whom they had a real need to fear? And 
 then, too, there might well be another reason. It was far 
 from likely, in fact unreasonable, to imagine thai "all the 
 men he had seen here the night before were in the house 
 now. Not many of them, if any, would live here, for con- 
 stant, daily coming and going, even through the garage, 
 could not escape notice; and, of the servants, probably a 
 lesser breed of criminal, some of them, at least, no doubt, 
 were engaged at that moment in watching his own house on 
 Riverside Drive! There was even the possibility that the 
 man posing as Henry LaSalle was, for the time being, here 
 alone. 
 
 He shook his head again. He could hardly hope for that 
 he had no right to hope for anything more now than a 
 struggle, with an inevitably fatal ending to himself, but one 
 in which at least he could sell his life as dearly as possible, 
 one in which, perhaps, he might pay the Tocsin s score with 
 the man he had come to find! If he could do that well, 
 after all, the price was not too great ! 
 
 There were no tremours of the muscles now. It was Jim- 
 mie Dale, the Gray Seal, every faculty alert, tense, keyed 
 p to its highest efficiency ; the brain cool, keen, and active 
 fighting for his life. The front door through which he had 
 entered was an impossibility ; but there was the window in 
 the library that he had opened if they would let him get that 
 far! That was as good a chance as any. If he made an 
 effort to find, say, a way to the flat above and chanced some 
 means of escape there, it would in no wise obviate an attack 
 upon him, and he would only be under the added disad 
 vantage of unfamiliar surroundings. 
 
 Feeling out with his left hand, his automatic thrown a 
 little forward in his right, he began to retrace his way along 
 the blank wall of the corridor, pausing between each step to 
 listen, moving silently, his tread on the heavy carpet aa 
 noiseless as though it were some shadow creeping there. 
 
 Stillness utter, absolute! Always that stillness. Al- 
 that sense of danger around him the tense, bated
 
 RETRIBUTION 453 
 
 expectancy of momentary attack a revolver flash through 
 the darkness a sudden rush upon him. But still there was 
 nothing only the darkness, only the silence. 
 
 He gained the head of the stairs and began to descend 
 and now the strain began to tell upon his nerves again. 
 Again he was possessed of the mad impulse to cry out, to 
 do anything that would force the issue, that would end the 
 horrible, unbearable suspense. Why did that revolver shot 
 not come? Why had they not yet rushed upon him? Why 
 were they playing with him as a cat with a mouse? Or 
 was it all wild, fanciful imagination? No! What was that 
 again ! He could have sworn this time that he had heard a 
 sound, but he could neither define its character, nor locate 
 the direction from which it had come. 
 
 He was at the foot of the stairs now ; and, guiding himself 
 by the wall, moving now barely an inch at a time, he reached 
 the library door that he had left open, and stole in over the 
 threshold. Halfway down the room and diagonally across 
 from where he stood was the window. In a moment now he 
 could gain that, but they would never let him go so easily 
 and so it must come now, in that next moment, their attack ! 
 Where were they ? Where were they now ? The table he 
 must remember not to bump into the table! A pause be 
 tween each step, he was crossing the room. He was half 
 way to the window. Had it been all fancy, was he to 
 
 And then Jimmie Dale stood motionless. Some one had 
 closed the library door softly! 
 
 Stillness again ! A sort of deadly calm upon him, Jimmie 
 Dale felt out behind his back for the big library table that 
 he had been circuiting if the window were wide open it 
 might be done, but to jump for it and stand silhouetted there 
 during the pause necessary to fling the window up was little 
 less than suicidal. He edged back noiselessly until his fin 
 gers touched the table ; then, lowering himself to his knees, 
 he backed in underneath it, and lay flat upon the floor. It 
 was not much protection, but it had one advantage : if they 
 switched on the lights it would show an empty room for the 
 first instant, and that instant meant the first shot !
 
 454 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 Where were they now ? By the library door ? How man/ 
 of them were there ? Well, it was their move ! Two could 
 play at cat and mouse until until daylight! That wasn t 
 very far off, now, and when that came he might still hav 
 the first shot, but after that he turned his head quickly 
 toward the window. There was a faint scratching noise 
 as of finger nails gripping the sill ; then the window, very 
 slowly, almost silently, was pushed steadily upward, and a 
 dark form loomed up outside ; and then, crawling through, a 
 man dropped, as though his feet were padded like a cat ii. 
 on the floor inside the room. The Magpie ! 
 
 A flashlight s ray shot out and, with a twisted smile, 
 propped now on his left elbow to give free play to his re 
 volver arm, Jimmie Dale followed the white spot eagerly 
 with his eyes. But it did not circle around ; instead, the light 
 was turned almost instantly toward the lower end of the room 
 and, a second later, was holding steadily on the open door 
 of the safe, and the litter of papers on the floor. 
 
 Came a savage growl of amazed fury from the Magpie : 
 then his step down the room ; and, as he reached the safe, 
 a torrent of unbridled blasphemy and then, in a sort of 
 staggered gasp, as he leaned suddenly forward examining 
 the knob of the dial : 
 " The Gray Seal ! " 
 
 A moment the Magpie stood there; and then, cursing 
 again in abandon, turned, and started back for the window, 
 his flashlight dancing before him and stopped, a snarl of 
 fury on his lips. The flashlight was playing full on Jimmie 
 Dale under the table ! 
 
 " Larry the Bat ! The Gray Seal ! By God ! " choked tlw 
 
 Magpie. " You you " The Magpie s flashlight, as 
 
 he shifted it from his right hand to his left and wrenched 
 out his revolver, had fallen upon two men crouched close 
 against the wall by the library door and he screamed out in 
 an access of fury. " De double cross ! A plant ! De bulls ! 
 You damned snitch, Larry!" screamed out the Magpie- * 
 and fired. 
 
 The bullet tore into the carpet beside Jimmie Dak,
 
 RETRIBUTION 455 
 
 Came answering- shots from the men by the door ; and then 
 the Magpie, emptying his automatic at the two men as he 
 ran, the flame tongues cutting vicious lanes of fire through 
 the darkness, dashed for the window. There was a cry, the 
 crash of a heavy body pitching to the floor and the Magpie 
 had flung himself out through the window, and in the mo 
 mentary ensuing silence within the room came the sound of 
 his footsteps running on the gravel below. 
 
 There was a low moan, the movement as of some one 
 staggering and lurching around and then the lights went 
 on. But for an instant Jimmie Dale did not move. He 
 was staring at the form of a man still and motionless on the 
 floor in front of him the man who had posed as Henry 
 LaSalle. Dead! The man was dead! His mind ran riot 
 for a moment. Where were the others were there only 
 these two ? Only these two in the house ! Only these two 
 and one was dead ! And then Jimmie Dale was on his feet. 
 One was dead but there was still the other, the man who 
 was reeling there, back turned to him, by the electric-light 
 switch. But even as Jimmie Dale sprang forward, this sec 
 ond man, clawing at the wall for support, slipped to his 
 knees and fell upon the carpet. 
 
 Jimmie Dale reached him, snatched the revolver from his 
 hand, and bent over him. It was the man whose name he did 
 not know, but whose face he had reason enough to know too 
 well it was the leader of the Crime Club. 
 
 The man, though evidently badly wounded, smiled de 
 fiantly in spite of his pain. 
 
 " So you re the Gray Seal ! " he flung out contemptuously. 
 " A clever enough safe-cracker but only a lowbrow, like 
 the rest of them. Another illusion dispelled ! Well, you ve 
 got the money better run, hadn t you ? n 
 
 Jimmie Dale made no answer. Satisfied that the man was 
 too badly hurt to move, he went and bent over the silent form 
 in the centre of the room. A moment s examination was 
 enough. " Henry LaSalle " was dead. 
 
 He stood there looking down at the man. It was what he 
 *iad come for though it was the Magpie, not himself, who
 
 456 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 had accomplished it ! The man was dead ! The words be- 
 gan to run through his mind in a queer reiteration. The 
 man was dead the man was dead ! He checked himself 
 sharply. He must think now think fast, and think right. 
 The Magpie knew that Larry the Bat was the Gray Seal 
 and as fast as the Magpie could get there, the news would 
 spread like wildfire through the underworld. " Death to the 
 Gray Seal ! Death to the Gray Seal ! " He could her.r that 
 slogan ringing again in his ears, but as he had never heard 
 it before with a snarl of triumph now as of wolves who 
 at last had pulled their quarry down. He had not a second 
 to spare and yet that man wounded there on the floor! 
 What of him guilty of murder, the brains of this inhuman, 
 monstrous organisation, the one to whom, more even than 
 to that dead man, the Tocsin owed the horror and the 
 misery and the grief and despair that had come into her life! 
 What of him? What of the Crime Club here? What of 
 this nest of vipers? Were they to escape? Were they 
 
 With a sudden, low exclamation, Jimmie Dale jumped for 
 the table, and, snatching up the telephone, rattled the hook 
 violently. 
 
 " Give me " his voice came in well-simulated gasps, 
 each like a man fighting for every word " give me police 
 headquarters! Quick! Quick! I ve been shot!" 
 
 The wounded man on the floor raised himself on his el* 
 bow. 
 
 "What are you doing?" he demanded in a startled way. 
 " Are you mad ! Thank your stars you were lucky enough 
 to get out of this alive and get out now, while you have the 
 chance ! " 
 
 Jimmie Dale pressed his hand firmly over the mouth 
 piece of the telephone. 
 
 " I ll go," he said, with a cold smile, " when I ve settled 
 with you for the murder of Henry LaSalle." 
 
 " That man ! " ejaculated the man scornfully, pointing to 
 the form on the floor. " So that s your game ! Going to try 
 and cover your tracks! Why, you fool, I live herel Do
 
 RETRIBUTION 
 
 you think the police would imagine for an instant that I 
 killed him ? " 
 
 " I said Henry LaSalle," said Jimmie Dale evenly. 
 
 The man came farther up on his elbow, a sudden look of 
 fear in his face. 
 
 " What what do you mean ? " he cried hoarsely. 
 
 But Jimmie Dale was talking again into the telephone- 
 gasping, choking out his words as before : 
 
 "Police headquarters? I m Henry LaSalle. Fifth Ave 
 nue. I I ve been shot. Take down this statement. I ll 
 I ll be dead before you get here I m not the real Henry 
 LaSalle at all. We murdered Henry LaSalle in Australia, 
 and murdered Peter LaSalle here. We we tried to kill 
 the daughter, but she ran away. This house has been our 
 headquarters for the last five years. The man who shot me 
 to-night is the leader of the gang. We quarrelled over the 
 division of a haul. He s here on the floor now, wounded. 
 Get them all, get them all, damn them! do you hear? get 
 them all ! They re out of the house now, but lay a trap f 01 
 them. They always come in through the garage on the side 
 street. Oh, God, I m done for! Break down the west 
 walls of the rooms upstairs if you want proof of what 
 the gang s been doing. Hurry ! Hurry ! I m I m done 
 for I " 
 
 Jimmie Dale permitted the telephone to drop with a clash 
 from his hand to the table. 
 
 The face of the man on the floor was livid. 
 
 " Who are you? In God s name, who are you? " he cried 
 out wildly. 
 
 " Does it matter? " inquired Jimmie Dale grimly. " Youf 
 game is up. You ll go to the chair for the murder of Henry 
 LaSalle if it is by proxy ! Those rooms upstairs alone 
 are enough to damn you, to prove every word of that dying 
 M confession " but to-morrow, added to it, will come the 
 ;tory of Marie LaSalle herself." 
 
 For a moment the man hung there swaying on his elbow, 
 %fe face working in ghastly fashion and then suddenly, 
 arith a strange laugh, he carried one hand swiftly to hit
 
 458 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 mouth and laughed again and before Jimmie Dale could 
 reach him was lifeless on the floor. 
 
 A tiny vial rolled away upon the carpet. Jimmie Dale 
 picked it up. A drop or two of liquid still remained in it 
 colourless, clear, like that liquid this same man had dropped 
 into the rabbit s mouth the night before, like the liquid in 
 the glasses they had carried into that third room, like the 
 liquid that his man had said was from a formula of their 
 own, that was instantaneous in its action, that defied detec 
 tion by autopsy ! 
 
 The set, stern features of Jimmie Dale relaxed. It was 
 justice but it was also death. In a surge of emotion, the 
 events of scarcely more than twenty-four hours, began to 
 crowd upon him and then, ominously dominant, above all 
 else, that slogan of the underworld, " Death to the Gray 
 Seal ! " came ringing once more in his ears. It brought 
 him, with a startled movement of his hand across his eyes, 
 to a realisation of his own desperate position. Yes, yes, 
 he must go ! The way was clear now for the Tocsin clear 
 now for her ! 
 
 He dropped the vial into his pocket, and, running to the 
 safe, quickly scraped the gray seal from the dial s knob; 
 then he drew the packages of money from his shirt and 
 pockets and tossed them on the floor among the litter of 
 papers already there she would get it back again when it 
 had served its purpose, it would be self-evident that it was 
 the proceeds of that day s sale of the estate s securities over 
 which the " quarrel " had occurred ! 
 
 And now the window ! He ran to it, closed it, and 
 locked it; then, laying the revolver he had taken from the 
 leader down beside the man, he stepped across the room 
 again and drew the body of " Henry LaSalle " closer to the 
 table as though the man had fallen there when the tele* 
 phone had dropped from his hand. 
 
 It was done now ! On the floor beside him lay each man s 
 weapon and both of the revolvers had been discharged 
 several times. Jimmie Dale paused on the library threshold 
 for a final survey of the room. It was done ! The way
 
 RETRIBUTION 450 
 
 clear for her. And now if he could only save himself! 
 There was no chance for Larry the Bat ! Could he save 
 Jimmie Dale! 
 
 He crossed the hall, a queer, half-grim, half-wistful 
 smile on his lips, unlocked the front door, stepped out, 
 locked it behind him and in another moment, doubling 
 around the corner, was running along like a hare along 
 the side street
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 *fltATH TO THE GRAY SEAL!* 
 
 IN Jimmie Dale ran. Across on Fourth Avenue he swung 
 on a car that took him to Astor Place. Then striking 
 east once more, making a detour to avoid the Bowery, he 
 ran on at top speed again. To reach the Sanctuary, not 
 before the Magpie should have spread the alarm, that was 
 impossible, but to reach it before the underworld should have 
 had time to recover its breath, as it were, before the under 
 world should have had time to act that was his only chanced 
 The Magpie had, at the outside, a start of fifteen minutes: 
 but he, Jimmie Dale, had probably retrieved five minutes of 
 that in the time he had made in getting downtown. That 
 left the Magpie ten to the good. How long would it take the 
 Magpie to bring the underworld swarming like hornets 
 around the Sanctuary? 
 
 On Larry the Bat ran. At the Sanctuary were the clothes, 
 the belongings of Jimmie Dale. Could he save Jimmie Dale I 
 If he could get there, change, and get out again, the way 
 was clear for him as clear as for the Tocsin now. In a 
 few hours the police would have every member of the Crime 
 Club in the trap ; there would be no watch any more around 
 his house on Riverside Drive; and he would be free to 
 return there and resume his normal life ?.s Jimmie Dale again 
 if he could make the Sanctuary in time ! But let the Mag 
 pie get there first, let the underworld tear the place to pieces 
 in its fury as it would do, let them discover that hiding place 
 under the flooring, for instance, and the Gray Seal would 
 not be merely Larry the Bat, but Jimmie Dale as well, and 
 a cry escaped him even as he ran it meant ruin, the disgrace 
 of an honoured name, death, crimes without number at hk 
 
 460
 
 "DEATH TO THE GRAY SEAL!" 461 
 
 door. Crimes! The Gray Seal had never committed a 
 crime ! But the crimes attributed to the Gray Seal he could 
 not disprove, not one of them ! He had meant them to ap 
 pear as crimes and he had succeeded so well that the Gray 
 Seal s name, execrated, was a synonym for the most callous, 
 dangerous, and unscrupulous criminal of the age ! 
 
 He was gasping for breath as finally, making for the side 
 door, he darted into the alleyway that flanked the Sanctuary. 
 What story would the Magpie tell? Not the truth, of course 
 that would let the Magpie in for what had happened that 
 night, for the Magpie must be well aware that he had shot 
 at least one of the two men in that room. But the truth 
 wasn t necessary ; it was foreign, and had no bearing on the 
 one outstanding fact the Gray Seal was Larry the Bat. At 
 the present moment the Magpie had a double incentive for 
 " getting " the Gray Seal the Gray Seal was the only one 
 who could prove murder against him that night in the La- 
 Salle mansion. And afterwards, when the police version of 
 the affair was made public, the Magpie, to save himself, 
 would be careful enough to do or say nothing to contradict 
 v< Henry LaSalle s " confession ! 
 
 Larry the Bat slipped in through the door, halted there, 
 listened ; and then began to mount the rickety stairs, with his 
 silent tread. At the top he paused again. Nothing no 
 sound! They were not here yet so far he was in time! 
 He stepped to the Sanctuary door, unlocked it, passed into 
 the squalid, miserable room that had harboured him for so 
 long as Larry the Bat, locked the door behind him, crossed 
 quickly to the window to make sure that the shutters were 
 closed and then, for the first time, as the gray light streaked 
 in through the interstices, he was conscious that it was al 
 ready dawn. So much the more need for haste then! 
 
 He whipped out his revolver and laid it at his hand on the 
 dilapidated table ; then the flooring in the corner was up in 
 an instant, and he began to strip off the rags of Larry the 
 Bat. Boots, mismated socks, the torn, patched trousers, the 
 greasy flannel shirt, the threadbare coat, the nondescript 
 slouch hat were thrown in a pile on the floor ; and with them,
 
 462 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 from their hiding-place, the grease paints and heterogeneous 
 collection of make-up accessories. This done, he began to 
 slip on the clothes of Jimmie Dale ; and, when half dressed, 
 turned to the table again to remove the characteristic grime, 
 stain, and paint of Larry the Bat from face, hands, wrists, 
 throat, and neck. This was a longer, more arduous task. 
 He reached for the cracked pitcher to pour more water into 
 the basin and, snatching up his revolver instead, whirled 
 to face the door. 
 
 Some one was outside! He had caught the creak of a 
 footstep upon the stairs. In a flash he was across the room 
 and crouched by the door. Yes, the step was nearer now 
 at the head of the stairs on the landing. His revolver lifted, 
 holding a steady bead on the door panel. And then there 
 came a low voice : 
 
 "Jimmie! Jimmie! Are you there? Quick, Jimmie! 
 Are you there ? " 
 
 The Tocsin ! What was she doing here ! Why had he not 
 warned her up there on the avenue, fool that he was, that 
 of all places she was to keep away from here ! 
 
 She slipped into the room as he unlocked the door. 
 
 " They re coming, Jimmie ! " she panted breathlessly. 
 " There s not an instant to lose ! Listen ! When the Magpie 
 ran from the house, I ran with him but it " she tried to 
 smile " it wasn t to obey you, to run away I had made up 
 my mind I wouldn t do that it was to find out from him 
 what had happened. He told me you were the Gray Seal. 
 He did not suspect me. He thinks you were no more than 
 }ust Larry the Bat to me, as you were to everybody else. 
 He went straight to Chicago Ike s gambling rooms and found 
 the Skeeter s gang there you know them, Red Mose, the 
 Midget, Harve Thorns, and the Skeeter you remember your 
 fight with them over old Luddy s diamonds ! Well, they 
 have not forgotten, either! They are on their way here, 
 now ! The news that you are the Gray Seal is travelling like 
 lightning all through the underworld there will be a mob 
 here on the Skeeter s heels. So, Jimmie quick ! Run ! " 
 
 Run! Half Larry the Bat, half Jimmie Dale and rui J
 
 "DEATH TO THE GRAY SEAL!" 468 
 
 In another five minutes, perhaps yes. But there probably 
 would not be five minutes and she if she were found 
 here! 
 
 " Yes," he said quietly. " I ll get away in a moment. You 
 go at once. I ll " he was smiling at her reassuringly " I ll 
 meet you at " 
 
 She looked at him then for an instant interrupting him 
 quickly, as she shook her head. 
 
 " I didn t notice, Jimmie. You cannot go like that can 
 you ? It would be even worse than being caught as Larry the 
 Bat. Hurry then I am not going without you." 
 
 " No ! " he said. " Go now ! Go at once, Marie while 
 you can. You have risked your life as it is to come here 
 and tell me this. For God s sake, go now ! " 
 
 The great, brown eyes were smiling bravely through a 
 sudden mist. She shook her head again. 
 
 " Not without you, Jimmie." 
 
 It brought a fierce, wild throb of joy upon him and then 
 a cold, sickening fear. 
 
 " Listen ! " he cried out desperately. " You must go now 1 
 You cannot take any chances now, Marie. Everything is 
 right for you. That man who posed as your uncle is dead 
 the leader of the Crime Club is dead. Don t you understand 
 what that means! You have only to be Marie LaSalle 
 again and claim your own. I cannot tell you all now there s 
 no time. That house was the Crime Club itself. The police 
 will get them all. Don t you see ! Don t you see ! Every 
 thing is clear for you now and now go ! Go you must 
 go!" 
 
 She was staring at him, a strange wonder in her face. 
 
 " Clear ! All clear for me ! I I can go back to to 
 my own life again ! " It was as though she were whispering 
 some amazing thing of unbelievable joy to herself. 
 
 " Yes! " he cried out again. " Yes ! But go go, Marie ! * 
 
 But now, for answer, suddenly she reached out and took 
 the key from the door and put it in the pocket of her dress. 
 
 "We will go together. Jirnmie or not at all," she said
 
 464 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 simply. " We are wasting precious moments. Hurry and 
 dress !" 
 
 He hesitated miserably. What could he do if she would 
 not go ! And it was true the moments were flying. Bet 
 ter, rather than futile argument, to use them as she said. 
 There was still a chance ! Why not ! Five minutes ! He 
 could do better than that ! He must do better than that ! 
 
 Without a word, he ran back across the room. In frantic 
 haste, from face, hands, wrists, and neck came the stain. 
 There was still time. She was standing there by the door, 
 listening. She, the Tocsin, she whom he loved, she who, all 
 through the years that had gone, had been so strangely elu 
 sive and yet so intimately a part of his life, she was stand 
 ing there now, here with him in peril with every second 
 that passed ! 
 
 He had only to slip on his coat and vest fiow and make a 
 bundle of Larry the Bat s things on the floor, so tha* Vie 
 could carry them away to destroy them. He stooped to 
 gather up the clothes and straightened suddenly and 
 jumped toward the door again. 
 
 " They are coming, Jimmie ! " she called, in a low voice 
 
 But he had already heard them the stairs were creak- 
 Ing loudly under the tread of many feet. He pushed the 
 Tocsin hurriedly back against the wall at the side of the door. 
 
 " Stand there ! " he said, under his breath. " Out of the 
 line of fire ! Don t move ! " 
 
 There was a rush against the door and then a voice 
 growled : 
 
 " Aw, cut dat out ! Wot do youse want to do scare him 
 away by bustin it! Pick de lock, an we ll lay for him in 
 side till he shows up." 
 
 It was the Skeeter s voice. The Skeeter and his gang 
 the worst apaches in the city of New York! Professional 
 assassins, death contractors, he had called them and the 
 lowest bidders! A man s life any time for twenty-five dol 
 lars! No, they were not likely to forget the affair of the 
 pushcart man, to forget old Luddy and his diamonds, to for-
 
 "DEATH TO THE GRAY SEAL!" 465 
 
 gtt the Gray Seal! And they were only the vanguard of 
 what was to come! 
 
 Some one was working at the lock now. There was one 
 way to stop that. It would not take them long to find 
 out that he was there once the door was opened! Better 
 know it with the door shut! Jimmie Dale lifted his revol 
 ver coolly and fired through the panel. 
 
 A burst of yells answered the shot; and among them, 
 high above the others, the Magpie s scream: 
 
 " We got him ! We got him ! He s dere now ! " 
 
 And then it seemed that pandemonium broke loose there 
 was a volley of shots, the bullets splintering through the 
 door panels as from a machine gun, so fast they came and 
 then another rush against the door. 
 
 Flat on the floor, but well back and to one side, Jimmie 
 Dale fired steadily again and again. 
 
 Came screams of pain, yells, and oaths and they fell 
 back from the door. 
 
 And now from above, from overhead, came tumult 
 windows thrown up, the stamp of feet, cries of fright. 
 And from the street, a low, sullen roar. The underworld 
 was gathering fast! 
 
 Once more the rush upon the door and Jimmie Dale, 
 a grim, twisted smile upon his lips, emptied his revolver into 
 the panels. Once more they fell back and then there came 
 the Skeeter s voice, snarling like an infuriated beast: 
 
 " He ll get de lot of us like dis ! Cut it out ! Besides, 
 we ll have de bulls down here in a minute an he s our 
 meat, not theirs. Dey d be too damned soft wid him dey d 
 only send him to de chair. Youse chase upstairs, Mose, an 
 pass de word to beat it an beat it quick. We ll burn de 
 skunk out dat s wot. An de bulls can stand alongside an 
 watch, if dey likes but he s our meat." 
 
 Jimmie Dale did not dare to look at the Tocsin s face. 
 Mechanically he refilled the magazine of his automatic 
 and lay there, waiting. The roar from the street grew 
 louder. They seemed to be fighting out there, as though an 
 inadequate number of police were trying to disperse a mob
 
 466 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 and not succeeding! Pretty soon, with the riot call in, 
 there would probably be a battle for the Gray Seal ! Sub 
 lime irony ! It was death at the hands of either one ! 
 
 Children whimpered on the stairs outside, men swore, 
 women cried, feet shuffled hurriedly by as the tenement 
 emptied. Occasionally, a pertinent invitation to him to rev 
 main where he was, there was a vicious rip through the 
 panel, and the drumming whir of a bullet flying through the 
 room. And then a curious, ominous crackling sound and 
 then the smell of smoke. 
 
 Jimmie Dale stood up, his face drawn and haggard. The 
 tenement would go like matchwood, burn like a bonfire, 
 with any kind of a start and there was no doubt about the 
 start! The Skeeter, the Magpie, and the rest would have 
 seen that it had headway enough to serve their purpose be 
 fore either firemen or police could thwart them. He, Jim 
 mie Dale, could take his choice: walk out into a bullet, or 
 stay there and he smiled miserably as his eyes fell upon the 
 pile of Larry the Bat s clothing on the floor. There was no 
 longer need to worry about its destruction the fire would 
 take care of that only too well ! And then a low, bitter cry 
 came to his lips, and he clenched his hands. If it were only 
 himself only himself! He crossed to the Tocsin and 
 caught her in his arms. 
 
 " Oh, my God Marie ! " he faltered. 
 
 The cape and hood had fallen from her, and with the 
 hood had fallen the gray-streaked hair of Silver Mag and 
 now as she smiled at him it was from a face that was very 
 beautiful and very brave and very full of tenderness. 
 
 And he held her there and neither spoke. 
 
 It seeped in under the threshold of the door, it came from 
 everywhere, filling the room the black, strangling smoke. 
 Outside in the hall all was silence now save for that crackle 
 of flame that grew in volume, that came now in quick, sharp 
 reports, like revolver shots. From out in the street swelled 
 a cry : " Death to the Gray Seal ! " Then the clang of 
 bells, the roar and rattle of fire apparatus, strident voices
 
 "DEATH TO THE GRAY SEAL!" 467 
 
 bellowing orders, and the crowd again, blood hungry: 
 " Death to the Gray Seal ! " 
 
 There was a chance, just one if the fire had no headway 
 along the upper end of the landing and if they had not 
 thought to set a watch for him above! They the Magpie, 
 the Skeeter, and his gang must have been driven even out 
 of the house now by the smoke and flame. 
 
 " Give me the key, I am going to open the door, Marie," 
 he said quietly. " Cover your face with a handkerchief, any 
 thing, and run to the left to the next flight of stairs. There 
 are two flats above this we ll make the roof if we can. 
 Now are you ready ? " 
 
 It was an instant before she answered, an instant in which 
 she lifted her face to his, and held his face between her two 
 hands and then: 
 
 " I am ready, Jimmie." 
 
 He flung open the door, his arm around her to help her 
 forward and instinctively, with a cry, fell back for a mo 
 ment. With the inrush of the draft poured ttie smoke, and 
 through it, lurid, yellow, showed the flames leaping from the 
 stair well. 
 
 And then all was blind madness. Together they ran. 
 At the foot of the stairs she fell, recovered herself, stag 
 gered up another and fell again. He caught her up in 
 his arms and, staggering now as she had staggered, went on. 
 His lungs seemed to be bursting. His limbs grew weak and 
 trembled under him. He could not see or breathe. The 
 nauseating fumes suffocated him, bringing an intolerable 
 agony. He gained the first landing above. There was one 
 more one more! If he could only rest here for a moment! 
 Yes, that was it rest. It wasn t so bad here now. She 
 stirred in his arms, struggled to her feet and he was help 
 ing her on again, and up the next flight of stairs. 
 
 And suddenly he found himself laughing in hysteria for 
 they were climbing a half stair, half ladderway at the end of 
 the upper landing, and the open skylight was above them, 
 and they were drinking in the pure, fresh air and now they 
 were out upon the roof, and the roar from the street was
 
 468 THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMIE DALE 
 
 in their ears, like the roar of great waters from some canon 
 far below. Jimmie Dale tried to speak, and found his lips 
 were cracked and dry. He wet them with his tongue. 
 
 " Don t stand up we d be seen crawl" he mumbled 
 hoarsely. 
 
 It took a long time over one roof, and then another. 
 *nd yet another and then through the skylight of a tene 
 ment whose occupants were either craning from the front 
 windows, or were on the street below. It was, perhaps, 
 half an hour and then they, too, were standing in the street, 
 and all about them the crowd was shouting in wild excfte- 
 ment. 
 
 Up the block, inside the fire lines, the Sanctuary was blaz 
 ing furiously and now suddenly the wall seemed to bulge 
 outward. It brought a yell from the crowd: 
 
 " Death to the Gray Seal ! " 
 
 She pulled at his arm. 
 
 " Let us get away ! Let us get away, Jimmie ! " she whim 
 pered frantically. 
 
 A strange smile was on Jimmie Dale s lips. 
 
 " We re safe now for always," he whispered back. 
 " Look ! " 
 
 The Sanctuary wall bulged farther outward, seemed to 
 hang an instant hesitant in mid-air and fell with a mighty 
 crash. 
 
 The Gray Seal was dead! 
 
 1BE BttD
 
 The greatest pleasure in life is 
 that of reading. Why not then 
 <)wn the books of great novelists 
 when the price is so small 
 
 C Of all the amusements which can possibly 
 be imagined for a hard-working man, after 
 his daily toil, or in its intervals, there is 
 nothing like reading an entertaining book. 
 It calls for no bodily exertion. It transports 
 him into a livelier, and gayer, and more di 
 versified and interesting scene, and while he 
 enjoys himself there he may forget the evils 
 of the present moment. Nay, it accompanies 
 him to his next day s work, and gives him 
 something to think of besides the mere 
 mechanical drugdgery of his every-day occu 
 pation something he can enjoy while absent, 
 and look forward with pleasure to return to. 
 
 Ask your dealer for a list of the titles 
 in Burt s Popular Priced Fiction 
 
 In buying the books bearing the 
 A. L. Burt Company imprint 
 you are assured of wholesome, en 
 tertaining and instructive reading
 
 THE BEST OF RECENT FICTION 
 
 Adventures of Jimmie Dale. Frank L. Packard. 
 
 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. A. Conan Doyle. 
 
 Affair in Duplex 9B, The. William Johnston. 
 
 Affinities and Other Stories. Mary Roberts Rinehart. 
 
 After House, The. Mary Roberts Rinehart. 
 
 After Noon. Susan Ertz. 
 
 Alcatraz. Max Brand. 
 
 Amateur Gentleman. Jeffery Farnol. 
 
 Anne s House of Dreams. L. M. Montgomery. 
 
 Anne of the Island. L. M. Montgomery. 
 
 And They Lived Happily Ever After. Meredith Nicholson. 
 
 Are All Men Alike, and The Lost Titian. Arthur Stringer. 
 
 At the Foot of the Rainbow. James B. Hendryx. 
 
 Auction Block, The. Rex Beach. 
 
 Aw Hell! Clarke Venable. 
 
 Bab: a Sub-Deb. Mary Roberts Rinehart. 
 
 Bar-20. Clarence E. Mulford. 
 
 Bar-20 Days. Clarence E. Mulford. 
 
 Bar 20 Rides Again, The. Clarence E. Mulford. 
 
 Bar-20 Three. Clarence E. Mulford. 
 
 Barrier, The. Rex Beach. 
 
 Bars of Iron, The. Ethel M. Dell. 
 
 Bat Wing. Sax Rohmer. 
 
 Bellamy Trial, The. Frances Noyes Hart. 
 
 Beloved Traitor, The. Frank L. Packard. 
 
 Beloved Woman, The. Kathleen Norris. 
 
 Beltane the Smith. Jeffery Farnol. 
 
 Benson Murder Case, The. S. S. Van Dine. 
 
 Big Brother. Rex Beach. 
 
 Big Mogul, The. Joseph C. Lincoln. 
 
 Big Timber. Bertrand W. Sinclair. 
 
 Bill The Sheik. A. M. Williamson. 
 
 Black Abbot, The. Edgar Wallace. 
 
 Black Bartlemy s Treasure. Jeffery Farnol. 
 
 Black Buttes. Clarence E. Mulford. 
 
 Black Flemings, The. Kathleen Norris. 
 
 Black Oxen. Gertrude Atherton. 
 
 Blatchington Tangle, The. G. D. H. & Margaret Cole, 
 
 Blue Car Mystery, The. Natalie Sumner Lincoln. 
 
 Blue Castle, The. L. M. Montgomery. 
 
 Blue Hand. Edgar Wallace. 
 
 Blue Jay, The. Max Brand. 
 
 Bob, Son of Battle. Alfred Ollivant. 
 
 Box With Broken Seals. E. Phillips Oppenheim.
 
 THE BEST OF RECENT FICTION 
 
 Brass. Charles G. Norris. 
 Bread. Charles G. Norris. 
 
 Breaking Point, The. Mary Roberts Rinehart. 
 Bright Shawl, The. Joseph Hergesheimer. 
 Bring Me His Ears. Clarence E. Mulford. 
 Broad Highway, The. Jeffery Farnol. 
 Broken Waters. Frank L. Packard. 
 Bronze Hand, The. Carolyn Wells. 
 Brood of the Witch Queen. Sax Rohmer. 
 Brown Study, The. Grace S. Richmond. 
 Buck Peters, Ranchman. Clarence E. Mulford. 
 Bush Rancher, The. Harold Bindloss. 
 Buster, The. William Patterson White. 
 Butterfly. Kathleen Norris. 
 
 Cabbages and Kings. O. Henry. 
 
 Callahans and the Murphys. Kathleen Norris. 
 
 Calling of Dan Matthews. Harold Bell Wright. 
 
 Cape Cod Stories. Joseph C. Lincoln. 
 
 Cap n Dan s Daughter. Joseph C. Lincoln. 
 
 Cap n ErL Joseph C. Lincoln. 
 
 Cap n Warren s Wards. Joseph C. Lincoln. 
 
 Cardigan. Robert W. Chambers. 
 
 Carnac s Folly. Sir Gilbert Parker. 
 
 Case and the Girl, The. Randall Parrish. 
 
 Case Book of Sherlock Holmes, The. A. Conan Doyle, 
 
 Cat s Eye, The. R. Austin Freeman. 
 
 Celestial City, The. Baroness Orczy. 
 
 Certain People of Importance. Kathleen Norris, 
 
 Cherry Square. Grace S. Richmond. 
 
 Child of the North. Ridgwell Cullum. 
 
 Child of the Wild. Edison Marshall. 
 
 Club of Masks, The. Allen Upward. 
 
 Cinema Murder, The. E. Phillips Oppenheim. 
 
 Clouded Pearl, The. Berta Ruck. 
 
 Clue of the New Pin, The. Edgar Wallace. 
 
 Coming of Cassidy, The. Clarence E. Mulford. 
 
 Coming of Cosgrpve, The. Laurie Y. Erskine. 
 
 Comrades of PeriL Randall Parrish. 
 
 Conflict. Clarence Budington Kelland. 
 
 Conquest of Canaan, The. Booth Tarkington. 
 
 Constant Nymph, The. Margaret Kennedy. 
 
 Contraband. Clarence Budington Kelland. 
 
 Corsican Justice. J. G. Sarasin. 
 
 Cottonwood Gulch. Clarence E. Mulford. 
 
 Court of Inquiry, A. Grace S. Richmond.
 
 THE BEST OF RECENT FICTION 
 
 Cross Trails. Harold Bindloss. 
 
 Crystal Cup, The. Gertrude Atherton. 
 
 Cup of Fury, The. Rupert Hughes. 
 
 Curious Quest, The. E. Phillips Oppenheim. 
 
 Cytherea. Joseph Hergesheimer. 
 
 Cy Whittaker s Place. Joseph C. Lincoln. 
 
 Dan Barry s Daughter. Max Brand. 
 
 Dancing Star. Berta Ruck. 
 
 Danger. Ernest Poole. 
 
 Danger and Other Stories. A. Conan Doyle. 
 
 Daughter of the House, The. Carolyn Wells. 
 
 Deep in the Hearts of Men. Mary E. Waller. 
 
 Dead Ride Hard, The. Louis Joseph Vance. 
 
 Deep Seam, The. Jack Bethea. 
 
 Delight. Mazo de la Roche, author of "Jalna." 
 
 Depot Master, The. Joseph C. Lincoln. 
 
 Desert Healer. E. M. Hull. 
 
 Desire of His Life and Other Stories. Ethel M. 
 
 Destiny. Rupert Hughes. 
 
 Devil s Paw, The. E. Phillips Oppenheira. 
 
 Devil of Pei-Ling, The. Herbert Asbury. 
 
 Devonshers, The. Honore Willsie Morrow. 
 
 Diamond Thieves, The. Arthur Stringer. 
 
 Door of Dread, The. Arthur Stringer. 
 
 Door with Seven Locks, The. Edgar Wallace. 
 
 Doors of the Night Frank L. Packard. 
 
 Dope. Sax Rohmer. 
 
 Double Traitor, The. E. Phillips Oppenheim. 
 
 Downey of the Mounted. James B. Hendryx. 
 
 Dr. Nye. Joseph C. Lincoln. 
 
 Dream Detective. Sax Rohmer. 
 
 Emily Climbs. L. M. Montgomery. 
 Emily of New Moon. L. M. Montgomery. 
 Empty Hands. Arthur Stringer. 
 Enchanted Canyon, The. Honore Willsie. 
 Enemies of Women. Vicente Blasco Ibanez. 
 Evil Shepherd, The. E. Phillips Oppenheim. 
 Exile of the Lariat, The. Honoro Willsie. 
 Extricating Obadiah. Joseph C. Lincoln. 
 Eyes of the World, The. Harold Beil Wright 
 
 Face Cards. Carolyn Wells. 
 
 Faith of Our Fathers. Dorothy Walworth Carman- 
 Fair Harbor. Joseph C. Lincoln.
 
 THE BEST OF RECENT FICTION 
 
 Feast of the Lanterns, The. Louise Jordan Miln. 
 
 Feathers Left Around. Carolyn Wells. 
 
 Fire Brain. Max Brand. 
 
 Fire Tongue. Sax Rohmer. 
 
 Flaming Jewel, The. Robert W. Chambers. 
 
 Flowing Gold. Rex Beach. 
 
 Forbidden Door, The. Herman Landon. 
 
 Forbidden Trail, The. Honore Willsie. 
 
 Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The. Vicente Blasco 
 
 Ibanez. 
 
 Four Million, The. O. Henry. 
 Foursquare. Grace S. Richmond. 
 Four Stragglers, The. Frank L. Packard. 
 Fourteenth Key, The. Carolyn Wells. 
 From Now On. Frank L. Packard. 
 
 Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The. Frank L. Packard. 
 Furthest Fury, The. Carolyn Wells. 
 
 Gabriel Samara, Peacemaker, E. Phillips Oppenheim. 
 
 Galusha the Magnificent. Joseph C. Lincoln. 
 
 Gaspards of Pine Croft. Ralph Connor. 
 
 Gift of the Desert Randall Parrish. 
 
 Glitter. Katharine Brush. 
 
 God s Country and the Woman. James Oliver Curwood. 
 
 Going Some. Rex Beach. 
 
 Gold Girl, The. James B. Hendryx. 
 
 Golden Beast, The. E. Phillips Oppenheim. 
 
 Golden Ladder, The. Major Rupert Hughes. 
 
 Golden Road, The. L. M. Montgomery. 
 
 Golden Scorpion, The. Sax Rohmer. 
 
 Goose Woman, The. Rex Beach. 
 
 Greater Love Hath No Man. Frank L. Packard^. 
 
 Great Impersonation, The. E. Phillips Oppenheim. 
 
 Great Moment, The. Elinor Glyn. 
 
 Great Prince Shan, The. E. Phillips Oppenheim. 
 
 Green Archer, The. Edgar Wallace. 
 
 Green Dolphin, The. Sara Ware Bassett. 
 
 Green Eyes of Bast, The. Sax Rohmer. 
 
 Green Goddess, The. Louise Jordan Miln. 
 
 Green Timber. Harold Bindloss. 
 
 Grey Face. Sax Rohmer. 
 
 Gun Brand, The. James B. Hendryx. 
 
 Gun Gospel. W. D. Hoffman. 
 
 Hairy Arm, The. Edgar Wallace. 
 Hnd of Fu-Manchu, The. Sax Rohmer,
 
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 Hand of Peril, The. Arthur Stringer. 
 
 Harriet and the Piper. Kathleen Norris. 
 
 Harvey Garrard s Crime. E. Phillips Oppenheim. 
 
 Hawkeye, The. Herbert Quick. 
 
 Head of the House of Coombe, The. Frances Hodgsoc 
 
 Burnett. 
 
 Heart of Katie O Doone, The. Leroy Scott. 
 Heart of the Desert. Honore Willsie. 
 Heart of the Hills, The. John Fox, Jr. 
 Heart of the Range, The. William Patterson White. 
 Heart of the Sunset. Rex Beach. 
 Helen of the Old House. Harold Bell Wright. 
 Her Mother s Daughter. Nalbro Bartley. 
 Her Pirate Partner. Berta Ruck. 
 Hidden Places, The. Bertrand W. Sinclair. 
 Hidden Trails. William Patterson White. 
 High Adventure, The. Jeffery Farnol. 
 Hildegarde. Kathleen Norris. 
 His Official Fiancee. Berta Ruck. 
 Honor of the Big Snows. James Oliver Curwood. 
 Hopalong Cassidy. Clarence E. Mulford. 
 Hopalong Cassidy Returns. Clarence E. Mulford. 
 Hopalong Cassidy s Protege. Clarence E. Mulford. 
 Horseshoe Robinson. John P. Kennedy. 
 House of Adventure, The. Warwick Deeping, author of "So* 
 
 rell and Son" 
 
 House of Intrigue, The. Arthur Stringer. 
 Hunchback of Notre Dame. Victor Hugo. 
 Hustler Joe and Other Stories. Eleanor H. Porter. 
 
 Illiterate Digest, The, Will Rogers. 
 
 Immortal Girl, The. Berta Ruck. 
 
 Inn of the Hawk and Raven, The. George Barr McCutcheoi*. 
 
 In Another Girl s Shoes. Berta Ruck. 
 
 In a Shantung Garden. Louise Jordan Miln. 
 
 Indifference of Juliet, The. Grace S. Richmond. 
 
 Inevitable Millionaires, The. E. Phillips Oppenheim. 
 
 Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu. Sax Rohmer. 
 
 Inverted Pyramid. Bertrand Sinclair. 
 
 Invisible Woman, The. Herbert Quick. 
 
 Iron Trail, The. Rex Beach. 
 
 Isle of Retribution, The. Edison Marshall. 
 
 It Happened in Peking. Louise Jordan Miln. 
 
 I Want To Be a Lady. Maximilian Foster. 
 
 Jacob s Ladder. E. Phillips Oppenheim.
 
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 Jean of the Lazy A. B. M. Bower. 
 
 Jimmie Dale and the Phantom Clue. Frank L. Packard. 
 
 Johnny Nelson. Clarence E. Mulford. 
 
 Judith of the Godless Valley. Honore Willsie. 
 
 Keeper of the Door, The. Ethel M . Dell. 
 
 Kent Knowles: Quahaug. Joseph C. Lincoln. 
 
 Keziah Coffin. Joseph C. Lincoln. 
 
 Kilmeny of the Orchard. L. M. Montgomery. 
 
 Kindling and Ashes. George Barr McCutcheon. 
 
 Kingdom of the Blind. E. Phillips Oppenheim. 
 
 King By Night, A. Edgar Wallace. 
 
 King of the Wilderness. Albert Cooper Allen. 
 
 Knave of Diamonds, The. Ethel M. Dell. 
 
 Kneel To The Prettiest. Berta Ruck. 
 
 Knights of the Desert. W. D. Hoffman. 
 
 Labels. A. Hamilton Gibbs. 
 
 Ladies of Lyndon, The. Margaret Kennedy. 
 
 Land of Forgotten Men. Edison Marshall. 
 
 Land of Mist, The. A. Conan Doyle. 
 
 Last Trail, The. Zane Grey. 
 
 Leap Year Girl, The. Berta Ruck. 
 
 Leave It to Psmith. P. G. Wodehouse. 
 
 Letters of a Self-Made Diplomat to His President. Will 
 
 Rogers. 
 
 Light That Failed, The. Rudyard Kipling. 
 Limping Sheriff, The. Arthur Preston. 
 Little Pardner. Eleanor H. Porter. 
 Little Red Foot, The. Robert W. Chambers. 
 Little Ships. Kathleen Norris. 
 Little White Hag, The. Francis Seeding. 
 Locked Book, The. Frank L. Packard. 
 Lone Hand, The. Joseph B. Ames. 
 Lone Wolf, The. Louis Joseph Vance. 
 Long Live the King. Mary Roberts Rinehart. 
 Loring Mystery, The. Jeffery Farnol. 
 Lost World, The. A. Conan Doyle. 
 Loudon from Laramie. Joseph B. Ames. 
 Luck of the Kid, The. Ridgwell Cullum. 
 Lucky in Love. Berta Ruck. 
 Lucretia Lombard. Kathleen Norris. 
 Lydia of the Pines. Honore Willsie. 
 Lynch Lawyers. William Patterson White. 
 
 ,Madame Claire. Susan Ertz.
 
 THE BEST OF RECENT FICTION 
 
 Major, The. Ralph Connor. 
 
 Man and Maid. Elinor Glyn. 
 
 Man from Bar-20, The. Clarence E. Mulford. 
 
 Man from El Paso, The. W. D. Hoffman. 
 
 Man from Smiling Pass, The. Eliot H. Robinson. 
 
 Man They Couldn t Arrest, The. Austin J. Small. 
 
 Man They Hanged, The. Robert W. Chambers. 
 
 Mare Nostrum (Our Sea). Vicente Blasco Ibanez. 
 
 Martin Conisby s Vengeance. Jeffery Farnol. 
 
 Mary- Gusta. Joseph C. Lincoln. 
 
 Master of Man. Hall Caine. 
 
 Master of the Microbe, The. Robert W. Service. 
 
 Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. A. Conan Doyle. 
 
 Men Marooned. George Marsh. 
 
 Michael s Evil Deeds. E. Phillips Oppenheim. 
 
 Mine With the Iron Door. Harold Bell Wright 
 
 Mind of a Minx, The. Berta Ruck. 
 
 Miracle. Clarence B. Kelland. 
 
 Mischief Maker, The. E. Phillips Oppenheim. 
 
 Miss Blake s Husband. Elizabeth Jordan. 
 
 Money, Love and Kate. Eleanor H. Potter. 
 
 Money Moon, The. Jeffery Farnol. 
 
 More Tish. Marv Roberts Rinehart. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Sen. Louise Jordan Miln. 
 
 Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo. E. Phillips Oppenheim. 
 
 Mr. Pratt. Joseph C. Lincoln. 
 
 Mr. Pratt s Patients. Joseph C. Lincoln. 
 
 Mr. Wu. Louise Jordan Miln. 
 
 Mrs. Red Pepper. Grace S. Richmond. 
 
 My Best GirL Kathleen Norris. 
 
 My Lady of the North. Randall Parrish. 
 
 My Lady of the South, Randall Parrish. 
 
 Mystery of the Sycamore. Carolyn Wells. 
 
 Mystery Road, The. E. Phillips Oppenheim. 
 
 Ne er-Do- Well, The. Rex Beach. 
 
 Net, The. Rex Beach. 
 
 Night Hawk. Arthur Stringer. 
 
 Night Horseman, The. Max Brand. 
 
 Night Operator, The. Frank L. Packard. 
 
 Nina. Susan Ertz. 
 
 No. 17. J. Jefferson Fairjeon. 
 
 Nobody s Man. E, Phillips Oppenheim. 
 
 No Defence. Gilbert Parker. 
 
 North. James B. Hendryx.
 
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 Oak and Iron. James B. Hendryx. 
 
 Obstacle Race, The. Ethel M. Dell. 
 
 Odds, and Other Stories. Ethel M. Dell. 
 
 Old Home Town, The. Rupert Hughes. 
 
 Oliver October. George Barr McCutcheon. 
 
 On the Rustier Trail. Robert Ames Bennet 
 
 Orphan, The. Clarence E. Mulford. 
 
 Owner of the Lazy D. William Patterson White. 
 
 Padlocked. Rex Beach. 
 
 Painted Ponies. Alan Le May. 
 
 Paradise Bend. William Patterson White. 
 
 Partners of the Tide. Joseph C. Lincoln. 
 
 Passer-By, The, and Other Stories. Ethel M. Dell. 
 
 Passionate Quest, The. E. Phillips Oppenheim. 
 
 Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail, The. Ralph Connor, 
 
 Pawned. Frank L. Packard. 
 
 Pawns Count, The. E. Phillips Oppenheim. 
 
 Pearl Thief, The. Berta Ruck. 
 
 Peregrine s Progress. Jeffery Farnol. 
 
 Peter Ruff and the Double Four. E. Phillips Oppenheim. 
 
 Philopena. Henry Kitchell Webster. 
 
 Pine Creek Ranch. Harold Bindloss. 
 
 Poisoned Paradise, The. Robert W. Service. 
 
 Pollyanna; "The Glad Book." (Trade Mark.) Eleanor H. 
 
 Porter. 
 Pollyanna of the Orange Blossoms. (Trade Mark.) Harriet 
 
 Lummis Smith. 
 
 Poor Man s Rock. Bertrand W. Sinclair. 
 Poor Wise Man, A. Mary Roberts Rinehart. 
 Portygee, The. Joseph C. Lincoln. 
 Possession. Mazo de la Roche, author of "Jalna." 
 Postmaster, The. Joseph C. Lincoln. 
 Power of the Glory, The. Gilbert Parker. 
 Prairie Flowers. James B. Hendryx. 
 Prairie Mother, The. Arthur Stringer. 
 Prairie Wife, The. Arthur Stringer. 
 Prillilgirl. Carolyn Wells. 
 Prodigal Son. Hall Caine. 
 Profiteers, The. E. Phillips Oppenheim. 
 Progressive Marriage. Bonnie Busch. 
 Promise, The. J. B. Hendryx. 
 Purple Mask, The. Louise Jordan Miln. 
 Purple Mist, The. Gladys Edson Locke. 
 
 Queer Judson, Joseph C. Lincoln.
 
 THE BEST OF RECENT FICTION 
 
 Quest of the Sacred Slipper, The. Sax Rohmer. 
 Quill s Window. George Barr McCutcheon. 
 
 Rainbow s End, The. Rex Beach. 
 
 Rainbow Valley. L. M. Montgomery. 
 
 Re-Creation of Brian Kent, The. Harold Bell Wright. 
 
 Red and Black. Grace S. Richmond. 
 
 Red Lamp. Mary Roberts Rinehart. 
 
 Red Ledger, The. Frank L. Packard. 
 
 Red Pepper Burns. Grace S. Richmond. 
 
 Red Pepper s Patients. Grace S. Richmond. 
 
 Red of the Redfields, The. Grace S. Richmond. 
 
 Red Road, The. Hugh Pendexter. 
 
 Red Sky at Morning. Margaret Kennedy. 
 
 Renegade. Arthur O. Friel. 
 
 Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu. Sax Rohmer. 
 
 Rhoda Fair. Clarence Budington Kelland. 
 
 Riddle of Three Way Creek, The. Ridgwell Cullum. 
 
 Rider of the Golden Bar. William Patterson White. 
 
 Rilla of Ingleside. L. M. Montgomery. 
 
 Ringer, The. Edgar Wallace. 
 
 Rise of Roscoe Paine, The. Joseph C. Lincoln. 
 
 Rivers to Cross. Roland Pertwee. 
 
 Rocks of Valpre, The. Ethel M. Dell. 
 
 Romantic Comedians, The. Ellen Glasgow. 
 
 Romeo in Moon Village. George Barr McCutcheon. 
 
 Rose of the World. Kathleen Norris. 
 
 Round the Corner in Gay Street. Grace S. Richmond, 
 
 Rowforest. Anthony Pryde. 
 
 Ruben and Ivy Sen. Louise Jordan Miln. 
 
 Rufus. Grace S. Richmond. 
 
 Rugged Water. Joseph C. Lincoln. 
 
 Running Special. Frank L. Packard. 
 
 Rustlers Valley. Clarence E. Mulford. 
 
 Sackcloth and Ashes. E. W. Savi. 
 Saint Michael s Gold. H. Bedford-Jones. 
 Saint of the Speedway. Ridgwell Cullum. 
 Sea Gull, The. Kathleen Norris. 
 Second Violin, The. Grace S. Richmond. 
 Seven Sleepers, The. Francis Beeding. 
 Seventh Man, The. Max Brand. 
 Seward s Folly. Edison Marshall. 
 Shadow of the East, The. E. M. HtrfL 
 Shavings. Joseph C. Lincoln. 
 Sheik, The. E. M. Hull.
 
 THE BEST OF RECENT FICTION 
 
 Shepherd of the Hills, The. Harold Bell Wright. 
 
 Shepherds of the Wilds. Edison Marshall. 
 
 Sherry. George Barr McCutcheon. 
 
 Sight Unseen and the Confession. Mary Roberts Rinehart 
 
 Silver Horde, The. Rex Beach. 
 
 Silver Poppy, The. Arthur Stringer. 
 
 Sin That Was His, The. Frank L. Packard. 
 
 Singing Heart, The. Florence Ward. 
 
 Sinister Man, The. Edgar Wallace. 
 
 Sir John Bering. Je fiery Farnol. 
 
 Sir Percy Hits Back Baroness Orczy. 
 
 Sisters-in-Law. Gertrude Atherton. 
 
 Sir or Madam. Berta Ruck. 
 
 Six Days. Eleanor Glyn. 
 
 Sixth Commandment, The. Carolyn Wells. 
 
 Skyline of Spruce, The. Edison Marshall. 
 
 Slayer of Souls, The. Robert W. Chambers. 
 
 Sleeper of the Moonlit Ranges, The. Edison Marshall. 
 
 Small Bachelor, The. P. G. Wodehouse. 
 
 Smiles: A Rose of the Cumberlands. Eliot H. Robinson. 
 
 Smiling Pass. Eliot H. Robinson. 
 
 Snowdrift. James B. Hendryx. 
 
 Snowshoe Trail, The. Edison Marshall. 
 
 Son of His Father, A. Harold Bell Wright. 
 
 Sons of the Sheik. E. H. Hull. 
 
 Sorrows of Satan. Marie Correlli. 
 
 Soul of China and Other Stories, The. Louis Jordan Miln. 
 
 Soundings. A. Hamilton Gibbs. 
 
 Spaniard, The. Juanita Savage. 
 
 Spirit of Iron. Harwood Steele. 
 
 Spirit of the Border, The. Zane Grw. 
 
 Spoilers, The. Rex Beach. 
 
 Spooky Hollow. Carolyn Wells. 
 
 Steele of the Royal Mounted. James Oliver Curwood. 
 
 Stepchild of the Moon. Fulton Oursler. 
 
 Still Jim. Honore Willsie. 
 
 Stolen Idols. E. Phillips Oppenheim. 
 
 Story Girl, The. L. M. Montgomery. 
 
 Strange Case of Cavendish. Randall Parrish. 
 
 Strawberry Acres. Grace S. Richmond. 
 
 Strength of the Pines. Edison Marshall. 
 
 Subconscious Courtship. Berta Ruck. 
 
 Substitute Millionaire. Hulbert Footner. 
 
 Sweet Stranger. Berta Ruck.
 
 THE BEST OF RECENT FICTION 
 
 Tales of Chinatown. Sax Rohmer. 
 
 Tales of Secret Egypt. Sax Rohmer. 
 
 Tales of Sherlock Holmes. A. Conan Doyle. 
 
 Temperamental People. Mary Roberts Rinehart. 
 
 Tenderfoots, The. Francis Lynde. 
 
 Terrible People, The. Edgar Wallace. 
 
 Terror Keep. Edgar Wallace. 
 
 Tetherstones. Ethel M. Dell. 
 
 Tex. Clarence E. Mulford. 
 
 Texan, The. James B. Hendryx. 
 
 Thankful s Inheritance. Joseph C. Lincoln. 
 
 That Printer of Udell s. Harold Bell Wright 
 
 Their Yesterdays. Harold Bell Wright 
 
 Three of Hearts, The. Berta Ruck. 
 
 Three Ships in Azure. Irvin Anthony. 
 
 Tish. Mary Roberts Rinehart. 
 
 To Him That Hath. Ralph Connor. 
 
 Torrent, The. (Entre Naranjos.) Vicente Blasco Ibane* 
 
 Trailin . Max Brand. 
 
 Treading the Wine Press. Ralph Connor. 
 
 Treasure. Albert Payson Terhune. 
 
 Trimmed Lamp, The. O. Henry. 
 
 Triumph of John Kars. Ridgwell Cullum. 
 
 T. Tembarom. Frances Hodgson Burnett 
 
 Tumble weeds. Hal G. Evarts. 
 
 Twenty-fourth of June. Grace S. Richmond. 
 
 Twisted Foot, The. William Patterson White. 
 
 Two Stolen Idols. Frank L. Packard. 
 
 Uncertain Glory, The. By Harriet Lummis Smith. 
 Under the Country Sky. Grace S. Richmond. 
 Under the Rainbow Sky. Alice Ross Colver. 
 Uneasy Street Arthur Somers Roche. 
 Unknown Quantity, The. Ethel M. DelL 
 Untamed, The. Max Brand. 
 
 Valley of Fear, The. A. Conan Doyle. 
 
 Valley of Voices, The. George Marsh. 
 
 Vandemark s Folly. Herbert Quick. 
 
 Vanished Messenger, The. E. Phillips Oppenheim, 
 
 Vanity Case, The. Carolyn Wells. 
 
 Vanity Fair. Wm. M. Thackeray. 
 
 Vickey Van. Carolyn Wells. 
 
 Viola Gwyn. George Barr McCutcheon. 
 
 Virgin of Yesterday, A. Dorothy Speare. 
 
 Virginia of Elk Creek Valley. Mary Ellen Chase.
 
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