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 sometimes 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, professional 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.
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 manufacturers 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 on 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 everything 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 somewhere where it would be the first thing your eyes would light upon when you reached the scene, and—”
“Don't go so fast,” smiled Jimmie Dale. “I don't quite 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 bluffing; 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 answered, with a wry grimace. “He knew me, all right, confound 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 something 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,” averted 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 appreciation.”
“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,” commented Jimmie Dale. “Why not give him credit for having, say—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 art of the thing was in his blood. A man like that could no more stop than he could stop breathing—and live. He's 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 discovered 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 nervously 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 originality,” 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—”
“Jason”—Jimmie Dale flung out the interruption, sudden, 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,” commented Jimmie Dale, with a curious tinge of bitterness in his voice. “I'd have given a year's income for your opportunity 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 imperative 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 inveigle 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 as 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?”
“On the table in your studio, sir,” said Jason, mechanically.
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 who 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, 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-covered 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 stood 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 haunting, 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 as 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 arm of the chair and tore them over and over again, tore them until they were scarcely larger than bits of confetti, tore at them absently and mechanically, his eyes never shifting from the rug at his feet.
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 afire. 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 on his knees in front of a round, squat, barrel-shaped safe—one of his own design and planning in the years when he had been with his father.
His slim, sensitive fingers 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 opposite 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 pockets 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 caressing touch over the vicious little implements, and from one of the pockets extracted a thin, flat metal case. This Jimmie 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 themselves into a frenzy over the Gray Seal, the papers had grown absolutely maudlin—and she had written, in her characteristic way:
Things are a little too warm, aren't they, Jimmie? Let's 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 begun 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 succeeded. 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 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 following the Maiden Lane affair, indeed, before he had breakfasted, 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 conjure with. And, yes, it was quite true, he had entered into it all, gone the limit, with an eagerness that was 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 headed briskly down the street before him. A little later he crossed into West Broadway, and his pace slowed to a leisurely stroll.
Here, at the upper end of the street, was a conglomerate business section of rather inferior class, catering doubtless to the poor, foreign element that congregated west of Broadway 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 swinging 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 Jimmie Dale. Quick as a cat, active, lithe, 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 NEWS-ARGUS, or any one else, for that matter, would have picked out as the setting for the second debut of the 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 in the lock. A curious snipping sound followed. Jimmie Dale 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 and 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 minute since he had vaulted the back fence. It was hardly a quarter of a minute more before the cumbersome lock of the front door was 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 anything 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, wobbly 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 lightning. 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 crunch of feet. Motionless in the utter darkness, Jimmie Dale listened—there was a scraping noise in the rear—someone 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 than no 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, listening 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 he might not be caught like a rat in a trap, darted from the 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 life 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 his 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 somewhat 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 confused 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 amiably to himself. “And to think of that cop running away with the idea that I didn't see him when he hid in a doorway after I passed the corner! Well, well, strange—isn't it?”
With another glance down the street, a whimsical lift of his shoulders, he headed west into the dilapidated tenement 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 lingering 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 obtaining 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 two rooms each. He paused for an instant to adjust the black silk mask, tried the door quietly, found it unlocked, opened 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 single 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 was 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 suppose you're a plain-clothes man, though I never knew dicks wore masks.”
“They don't generally,” said Jimmie Dale coolly. “It's 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.
“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 there 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 there for the want of something a little money'd buy—and—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 you'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 half 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.
“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 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, whenever 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 Riverside 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 reached 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, listen—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!”
“The 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, unbelievable 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 denunciations 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 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 his social standing, graduate of Harvard, inheritor 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 himself, 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 particular 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 the hallway without—that is, Jimmie Dale caught the sound, muffled though it was by the heavy carpet. Came then a knock upon the door.
“Come in,” invited Jimmie Dale.
It was old Jason, the butler. The old man was visibly excited, as he extended a silver tray on which lay a letter.
Jimmie Dale's hand reached quickly out, the long, slim tapering fingers closed upon the envelope—but his eyes were on Jason significantly, questioningly.
“Yes, Master Jim,” said the old man, “I recognised it on the instant, sir. After what you said, sir, last week, honouring me, I might say, to a certain extent with your confidence, though I'm sure I don't know what it all means, I—”
“Who brought it this time, Jason?” inquired Jimmie Dale quietly.
“Not the young person, begging your pardon, not the young 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 Dale. “You may go.”
The door closed. Yes, it was from HER—it was the same texture of paper, there was the same rare, haunting fragrance 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 again 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 fragments of 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—he stood like a man stricken, still staring at the sheet in his 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 extended to pick up the telephone. How explain to Carruthers that he, Jimmie Dale, already knew what Carruthers might not yet have heard of, even though Carruthers would naturally be among the first to be in touch with such affairs! No; 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!” came a voice. “This is Carruthers. That you, Jimmie?”
“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 toes off their feet for the chance. Come down, you blast idiot! 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 installation, 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, he 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 lenses worked on a pivot, and, closed over one another, were of about the compass of a 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 inside the pockets his hands were clenched and knotted fists.
Murder! At times it had occurred to him that there was a possibility that some crook of the underworld would attempt 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, recognised 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 abhorrence of the name, the stainless name, of the Gray Seal. It WAS stainless! He had guarded it jealously—as a man guards the woman's name he loves.
Affairs that had mystified and driven the police distracted 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 protection 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 reporter 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. Carruthers was but an example. Carruthers now would hunt the Gray Seal like a mad dog. The Gray Seal, to Carruthers and 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 between his teeth. “I'll GET him! And, when I get him, 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 Jimmie 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 my 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, and I'm awfully damned thankful to you for giving me a 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 I 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 sidewalk 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 inside, 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 Carruthers, 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 voice rose above the others, heavy and gratingly complacent.
“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 Jimmie Dale to Inspector Clayton.
“Mr. Matthewson, a new man of ours—inspector.”
“Glad to know you, Mr. Matthewson,” said the inspector.
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 bed, one arm outflung across the bedspread, the other dangling, 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 carpet, and—
“Metzer was a stool pigeon, see?” 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, diamond shaped paper seal flaunted itself—the device of the Gray Seal. In Jimmie Dale' hand, hidden as he turned his back, the tiny combination of powerful lenses was focused on the seal.
Clayton guffawed. “That's right!” he called out. “Take a good look. That's a bright young man you've got, Carruthers.”
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 piece 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 bit of evidence we wanted at eight o'clock to-night.”
Jimmie Dale was listening—to every word. But he stooped now again over the murdered man's head deliberately, 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 his 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 hot 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 of here bodily!”
Jimmie Dale edged away, and, eyes lowered, fumbled nervously 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 to 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 ever pulled off. I waited till nine o'clock, an hour ago, and I was getting nervous. Then I started over here to find out what was the matter. When I got here I asked Moriarty if he'd 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?” 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 significantly. “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. Jimmie 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 Inspector 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 reporter 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 Jimmie Dale; then his scowl relaxed into a self-sufficient and pleased smile, 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 notebook in his pocket.
An officer entered the room hurriedly, and, drawing Clayton aside, spoke in an undertone. A triumphant and malicious 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 whimsically. “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 acting queer? You haven't been drinking, have you, Jimmie?”
“What'll they do with it?” persisted Jimmie Dale.
“Well,” said Carruthers, smiling a little tolerantly, “they'll photograph it and enlarge the photograph, and label 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 photograph 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 consideration—whatever he asks—I'll pay for it.”
“But what for?” demanded Carruthers. “I don't understand.”
“Because,” said Jimmie Dale very seriously, “put it down to imagination or whatever you like, I think I smell something 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 you, 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 in 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 come 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, deserted. 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 stairway, 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 behind 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 advantage 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 Sanctuary, 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, furnished in the most scanty fashion. Neither, apparently, was there anything suspicious about it to reward one curious 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 boots. There were only two sources of supply. His own—and the collection that the police had made, which Carruthers 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 before a cracked mirror. Who was it that would have access to the gray seals in the possession of the police, since, obviously, 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 forever 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's touch—and then the spruce, muscular Jimmie Dale, transformed into a slouching, vicious-featured denizen of the underworld, 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 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, carefully 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 sensational 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 resort to another he hurried, talking in the accepted style through one corner of his mouth to hard-visaged individuals 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 into Chatham Square, heading for the Pagoda Dance Hall. A man loitering at the curb shot a swift, searching glance at him as he slouched by. Jimmie Dale paused in the doorway of the Pagoda and looked 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 a dozen couples 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, comprehensive glance, fixed on a little fellow, loudly dressed, who shared a table halfway down the room with a woman in a picture hat, and a smile of relief touched his lips. The Runt at last!
He walked down the room, caught the Runt's eyes significantly as he passed the table, kept on to a door between the platform and the bar, opened it, and went out into a lighted hallway, at one end of which a door opened onto the street, and at the other a stairway led above.
The Runt joined him. “Wot's de row, Larry?” inquired 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, ferget it!” observed the Runt airily. “Dat's stale. Was wise to dat hours ago.”
Jimmie Dale's face fell. “But I just come from dere,” he insisted; “an' de harness bulls only just found it out.”
“Mabbe,” grunted the Runt. “But Metzer got his early in 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 to 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?” 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' up dere all afternoon.”
Stace Morse—known in gangland as a man with every crime in the calendar to his credit, and prominent because of it! Something seemed to go suddenly queer inside of Jimmie 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? Wot fer? How'd yer know?”
The Runt was listening, his eyes strained toward the stairs. 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 bum job of it.”
“Why didn't he get out of de country den when he had de chanst, instead of hangin' around here all afternoon?” 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 and the occupants were swarming to the sidewalk. A patrol 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, yeggman 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 single redeeming trait to lift him from the ruck of mire and slime that had strewn his life from infancy. The face of Inspector 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 nothing 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 time over it before breakfast—and examined it again minutely, even resorting 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.
Jimmie Dale snatched the envelope from the tray, and waved the other from the room. As the door closed, he tore open 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 between them that was at stake—the Gray Seal—the bond that had come, he knew for all time in that instant, to mean his life.
“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 Carruthers came.
Jimmie Dale started to undo the string, then laid the package 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 between 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. “I've WON!”
He was standing beside the rosewood desk, and he reached for the phone. Carruthers would be at home now—he called Carruthers there. After a moment or two he got the connection.
“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. . . . Half an hour. . . . YES. . . . Good-bye.”
Jimmie Dale hung up the receiver; and, hastily now, began to write upon a pad that lay before him on the desk. The minutes passed. As he wrote, he scored out words and lines here and there, substituting others. At the end he had covered three large pages with, to any one but himself, an indecipherable 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. Jimmie Dale folded the copied sheets neatly, tucked them in his pocket, lighted a cigarette, and was lolling lazily in his chair as Jason announced: “Mr. Carruthers, sir, and another 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 stared 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 was 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 suddenly over the desk.
“Yes,” he said slowly, a grim intonation in his voice, “going to draw you—TRUE 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 remarkable—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, inspector, so remarkable, in fact, that it's almost—SUSPICIOUS. Don't you think so? No? Well, that's what Mr. Carruthers 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 as 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 moment—then swung on his heel. “Good-afternoon, gentlemen,” 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 propped upon it, and in the most casual way a revolver covered Inspector Clayton.
“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 hesitated—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. “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 Carruthers—“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 district. 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 afternoon 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 ME!” Clayton's lower jaw hung loosely; but still he made an effort at bluster. “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.
Clayton reached for it quickly. “What is it?” he demanded.
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 side 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 mumbled.
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. I am sure they are more so now—excitement, you know. Carruthers, see that he doesn't interrupt.”
From a drawer, Jimmie Dale took out a little black bottle, the notebook he had used the 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, isn't it? A very good impression, too. Your thumb print, Clayton. Now don't move. You may look—not 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 photograph; that, too, in its enlargement, showed, sharply defined, 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. Moisture was oozing from his forehead.
“I 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.”
“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 a paroxysm of fear.
“I'm innocent—innocent!” he screamed out. “Oh, for 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 Jimmie Dale. “When the big rewards came out last week I stole one of the gray seals from the bunch at headquarters to—to use it the first time any crime was committed when I 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.
Carruthers was up from his seat, his hands gripping tight 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 convicted 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 stammered eagerly.
Jimmie Dale whirled on him in a sudden sweep of passion.
“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 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 Carruthers 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 New 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 forcing 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 for the door—and the door slammed behind him.
Carruthers' face was hard. “What did you let him go for, Jimmie?” he said uncompromisingly.
“Selfishness. Pure selfishness,” 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, Carruthers. 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 universe. “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 answered thoughtfully, with artfully puckered brow. “I remembered 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 disturbed; 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 affected 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 reward, 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.”
“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 “his gratefully,” and in lieu of signature there was a gray-coloured piece of paper shaped like this:
[Picture]
Only there were no fingerprints on it.
It was the following evening, and they had dined together again at the St. James Club—Jimmie Dale, and Carruthers 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 pomposity and a smirk, now—” Jimmie Dale shrugged his shoulders.
Carruthers laughed—and then glanced ludicrously at Jimmie Dale, as the door, ajar, was pushed open, and a man entered.
“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 Carruthers several times—used his sheet more than once to advertise a new bond flotation.”
The dominant note in Markel's voice was an ingratiating and unpleasant whine, and Carruthers nodded, not very cordially—and shook hands.
Markel went back to the door, closed it carefully, and returned 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 their 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 outward 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 photograph of it, and one of Mrs. Markel—eh? Please her, you know—she's crazy on this society stunt—all flubdub to me of course. How's it strike you, Carruthers?”
Carruthers, very evidently, liked neither the man nor his manners, but Carruthers, above everything else, was a gentleman.
“To be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Markel,” he said a little frigidly, “I 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 themselves 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, Markel, 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, Carruthers?”
Carruthers smiled seriously. “Perhaps,” he admitted. “I hope, though, for Mr. Markel'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!” 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 thousand, you said. Any special—er—significance to the occasion, if the question's not impertinent? Birthday, wedding anniversary—or something like that?”
“No, nothing like that!” Markel grinned, winked secretively, 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 Carruthers' shoulder patronisingly again. “I'll just do that little thing.” He picked up the necklace, dangled it till it flashed and flashed again under the light, then restored it very ostentatiously 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 advance.”
“Rotter!” said Carruthers.
“Well,” said Jimmie Dale softly. “You see—Carruthers?”
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 to know better than that. You know, to begin with, since it seems he has advertised with you, that he runs some sort of brokerage business in Boston. He's taken a summer 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 introduced 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 NEWS-ARGUS a long time before he reads anything about that, Jimmie.”
But therein Carruthers was wrong—the NEWS-ARGUS carried the “story” of Markel's diamond necklace in three-inch “caps” in red ink on the front page in the next morning's edition—and Carruthers gloated over it because the morning 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 subject 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 those 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, I don't care to be out too late.”
“No, of course,” concurred Jimmie Dale, getting into his 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 chauffeur, 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 sidewalk. What, however, did it matter? It was there mysteriously, as scores of others had come to him mysteriously, with never a clew to her identity, to the identity of his—he smiled a little grimly—accomplice in crime.
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—Markel's 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 over 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 standing, 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 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', his old college chum! For, even as a reporter, before he had risen to the editorial desk, and even now that he had, Carruthers 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 amazing 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 of police, older than that, old since time immemorial—CHERCHEZ LA FEMME! Quite right—but also quite purposeless! Jimmie 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. Why 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, but to get out of it himself with a whole skin. Markel—eh? Jimmie Dale leaned back in his seat, clasped his hands behind his head—and his eyes, half closed now, were studying 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 it 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 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 alcove, opened the safe, took out that curious leather girdle 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 of 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 attachment that pulled down almost to the tip of his nose, tucked a slouch hat into the pocket of the ulster, and, leaving the 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 occasionally from the gray thread of road ahead of him under 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 seemed 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 surroundings, 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 said. 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 he stepped suddenly from the 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 occupied 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. Jimmie 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, perhaps—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 connection 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 without 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 a telegram caught Jimmie Dale's eye.
He picked it up and glanced at it. It read:
“Vein uncovered to-day. Undoubtedly mother lode. Enormously rich. Put the screws on at once. THURL.”
Under the mask, Jimmie Dale's lips twitched.
“I think, Markel, you miserable hound,” said he softly, “that God will forgive me for depriving you of a share of the 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 back 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 murmured. “And one of the best we ever made. Pretty tough. But I've done it before. Say, half an hour of gentle persuasion. It would be too bad to crack it with 'soup'—besides, that's crude—Carruthers would never forgive the Gray Seal 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 now and then, in a strange, projected, wraithlike effect, 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 low 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. Jimmie 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 compared 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 flashlight 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 a moment or two examining these, then his fingers dived 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 flauntingly 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 noiselessly 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 toward the door of the room. Down the 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 distance 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 the scuffle, and was pressing it against Markel's forehead—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 suggest that you request them to stay where they are.”
Cold sweat was on Markel'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 the 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 Jimmie 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, uncompromising. “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”—Markel's teeth were going like castanets. “I—”
“You'll oblige me by keeping your mouth shut,” observed Jimmie Dale politely—and he whipped the cord of Markel'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!” 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 fascination. 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 understand?”
“Y-yes,” said Markel hoarsely.
“No,” said Jimmie Dale sadly, “I don' think you do. 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 I 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 stood for an instant looking at the other with cool insolence; then: “Good-night, Markel”—and five minutes later a great touring car was tearing New Yorkward over the Long Island roads 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 up at the curb beside a large office building. He got out, snuggled 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 incandescents 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 inner office beyond. Jimmie Dale drew the black silk mask from his pocket, adjusted it, tried the door, found it unlocked, opened it noiselessly, and stepped inside. Across the room, through another door, half 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 it was a nonchalant Jimmie Dale to all outward appearances that, on the instant, stepped unconcernedly over the threshold.
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 the revolver clattered from his fingers to the floor.
“I am afraid,” said Jimmie Dale, smiling pleasantly, “that you were going to shoot yourself. Your name is Wilbur, Henry Wilbur, isn't it?”
Unmanned, trembling, the other stood—and nodded mechanically.
“It's really not a nice thing to do,” said Jimmie Dale confidentially. “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 sleeve 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 anxiety 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 critically.
“You had trouble—a fight with him? Is he—he—dead?”
“No,” said Jimmie Dale, smiling a little grimly. “He's pretty badly hurt, though, I imagine—but not in a physical way.”
“Strange!” whispered Wilbur, in a numbed tone to himself; 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!”
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 breakdown. 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 figure 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 NEWS-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 unrecognisable bass.
“Mr. Carruthers? Yes. I thought it might interest you to know that Mr. Theodore Markel purchased a very valuable 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. Markel'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 ungrateful for, I might say, the eulogistic manner in which the MORNING NEWS-ARGUS treated me in that last affair, 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 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. Carruthers, 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—I 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 unnecessarily. 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 represented my life work. I bought an abandoned mine in Alaska for next to nothing—I was certain it was rich. A man by the name of Thurl, Jason T. Thurl, another mining 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 figure. 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 crippled me both financially and in the progress of the work began 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 mine 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 our way to New York. On the run across the continent 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 thousand 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 Markel. 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 going to shoot yourself?”
Wilbur straightened up, and there was something akin 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 reverting 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 carried 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 BORROW 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. Jimmie 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 disgrace—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 Markel's safe for this—it wouldn't have been worth while. It's only paste.”
“PASTE!” exclaimed Wilbur, in a slow way.
“Paste,” said Jimmie Dale placidly, dropping the necklace 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 before.”
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 Wilbur; 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 anything else but the necklace, with which you have no connection—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 quivering.
“To Markel,” said Jimmie Dale pleasantly. “Write him in reply to his letter of the afternoon, and post it before you leave here—just as though you had written it at once, promptly, on receipt of his. He will still get it on the morning delivery. State that you will take up the note immediately 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?” Uncomprehendingly, stumblingly, Wilbur repeated the word.
“In a month or two or three, as the case may be,” explained 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 understand. 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.
“I wish I knew,” said Jimmie Dale wistfully to himself.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg