As the minutes passed, many of them, Jimmie Dale sat there motionless, staring before him at the desk that was faintly outlined in the unlighted room. Then somewhere in the house a clock struck the hour. Five o'clock! He raised his head. YES! It could be done! There was a way! He had the germ of it now. And now the plan began to grow, to take form and shape in his mind, to dovetail, to knit the integral parts into a comprehensive whole. There was a way—but he must have assistance. Jason—yes, assuredly. Benson, his chauffeur—yes, equally as trustworthy as Jason. Benson was devoted to him; and moreover Benson was young, alert, daring, cool. He had had more than one occasion to test Benson's resourcefulness and nerve!
Jimmie Dale rose abruptly, went to the rear window, and, parting the curtains cautiously, stood peering down into the courtyard. Yes, it was feasible; even a little more than feasible. The garage fronted the driveway, of course, to give free entrance and egress to the cars, but where the wall of the garage and the rear wall of the house overlapped, as it were, the space between them was not much more than ten yards; and here the shadows of the two walls, mingling, lay like a black, impenetrable pathway—not like that other shadow he had seen moving at the side of the garage, and that, if not for the moment discernible, was none the less surely still lurking there!
Satisfied, Jimmie Dale swung briskly from the window, and, going now to his bedroom across the hall, undressed and went to bed—but not to sleep. There would be time enough to sleep, all day, if he wished; now, there were still the little details to be thought out that, more than anything else, could make or wreck his plans. A point overdone, the faintest suggestion of a false note where men of the calibre of those against whom he was now fighting for his life were concerned, would not only make his scheme abortive, but would place him utterly at their mercy.
It was nine o'clock when he rang for Jason.
“Jason,” he said abruptly, as the other entered, “I want you to telephone for Doctor Merlin.”
“The doctor, sir!” exclaimed the old man anxiously. “You're—you're not ill, Master Jim, sir?”
“Do I look ill, Jason?” inquired Jimmie Dale gravely.
“Well, sir,” admitted Jason, in concern; “a bit done up, sir, perhaps. A little pale, sir; though I'm sure—”
“I'm glad to hear it,” said Jimmie Dale, sitting up in bed. “The worse I look, the better!”
“I—I beg pardon, sir?” stammered Jason.
“Jason,” said Jimmie Dale, gravely again, “you have had reason to know that on several occasions my life has been threatened. It is threatened now. You know from last night that this house is now watched. You may, or you may not have surmised—that our telephone wires have been tapped.”
“Tapped, sir!”—Jason's face had gone a little gray.
“Yes; a party line, so to speak,” said Jimmie Dale grimly. “Do you understand? You must be careful to say no more, no less than exactly what I tell you to say. Now go and telephone! Ask the doctor to come over and see me this morning. Simply say that I am not feeling well; but that, apart from being apparently in a very nervous condition, you do not know what is the matter.”
“Yes, sir—good Lord, sir!” gasped Jason—and left the room to carry out his orders.
An hour later, Doctor Merlin had been and gone—and had left two prescriptions; one written, the other verbal. With the written one, Benson, in his chauffeur's livery, was dispatched to the drug store; the verbal one was precisely what Jimmie Dale had expected from the fussy old family physician: “Two or three days of quiet in the house James; and if you need me again, let me know.”
“Now, Jason,” said Jimmie Dale, when the old man had returned from ushering Doctor Merlin from the house, “our friends out there will be anxious to learn the verdict. I was to dine with the Ross-Hendersons to-morrow night, was I not?”
“Yes, sir; I think so, sir.”
“Make sure!” said Jimmie Dale. “Look in my engagement book there on the table.”
Jason looked.
“Yes, sir, that's right,” he announced.
“Very good,” said Jimmie Dale softly. “Now go and telephone again, Jason. Present my regrets and excuses to the Ross-Hendersons, and say that under the doctor's orders I am confined to the house for the next few days—and, Jason!”
“Yes, sir?”
“When Benson returns with the medicine let him bring it here himself—and I shall want you as well.”
Jimmie Dale propped himself up a little wearily on the pillows, as Jason went out of the room. After all, his condition was not entirely feigned. He was, as a matter of fact, pretty well played out, both mentally and physically. Certainly, that he should require a doctor and be confined to the house could not arouse suspicion even in the minds of those alert, aristocratic thugs of the Crime Club, prone as they would be to suspect anything—a man who had been knocked unconscious in an automobile smash the night before, had been in a fight, had been subjected to a terrific mental shock, to say nothing of the infernal drug that had been administered to him, might well be expected to be indisposed the next morning, and for several mornings following that! It might, indeed, even cause them to relax their vigilance for the time being—though he dared build nothing on that. Well, he had only to coach Benson and Jason in the parts they were to play, and the balance of the morning and all the afternoon was his in which to rest.
He reached over to the table, picked up a pencil and paper, and began to jot down memoranda. He had just tossed the pencil back on the table as the two men entered.
Jason, at a sign, closed the door quietly.
Jimmie Dale looked at Benson half musingly, half whimsically, for a moment before he spoke.
“Benson,” he said, “the back seat of the large touring car is hinged and lifts up, once the cushion is removed, doesn't it?”
“Yes, sir,” Benson answered promptly.
“And there's space enough for, say, a man inside, isn't there?”
“Why, yes, sir; I suppose so—at a squeeze”—Benson stared blankly.
“Quite so!” said Jimmie Dale calmly. “Now, another matter, Benson: I believe some chauffeurs have a habit, when occasion lends itself, of taking, shall we say, their 'best girl' out riding in their masters' machines?”
“SOME might,” Benson replied, a little stiffly. “I hope you don't think, sir, that—”
“One moment, Benson. The point is, it's done—quite generally?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you have a 'best girl,' or at least could find one for such a purpose, if you were so inclined?”
“Yes, sir,” said Benson; “but—”
“Very good!” Jimmie Dale interrupted. “Then to-night, Benson, taking advantage of my illness, and to-morrow night, and the nights after that until further notice, you will acquire and put into practice that reprehensible habit.”
“I—I don't understand, Mr. Dale.”
“No; I dare say not,” said Jimmie Dale—and then the whimsicality dropped from him. “Benson,” he said slowly, “do you remember a night, nearly four years ago, the first night you ever saw me? You had, indiscreetly, I think, displayed more money than was wise in that East Side neighbourhood.”
“I remember,” said Benson, with a sudden start; then simply: “I wouldn't be here now, sir, if it hadn't been for you.”
“Well,” said Jimmie Dale quietly, “the tables are turned to-day, Benson. As Jason already knows, this house is watched. For reasons that I cannot explain, I am in great danger. Bluntly, I am putting my life in your hands—and Jason's.”
Benson looked for an instant from Jimmie Dale to Jason, caught the strained, troubled expression on the old man's face, then back again at Jimmie Dale.
“D'ye mean that, sir!” he cried. “Then you can count on me, Mr. Dale, to the last ditch!”
“I know that, Benson,” Jimmie Dale said softly. “And now, both of you, listen! It is imperative that I should get away from the house; and equally imperative that those watching should believe that I am still here. Not even the servants are to be permitted a suspicion that I am not here in my bed, ill. That, Jason, is your task. You will allow no one to wait on me but yourself; you will bring the meal trays up regularly—and eat the food yourself. You will answer all inquiries, telephone and otherwise, in person—I am not seeing any one. You understand perfectly, Jason?”
“I understand, Master Jim. You need have no fear, sir, on that score.”
“Now, you, Benson,” Jimmie Dale went on. “A few minutes ago I sent you out in your chauffeur's togs with that prescription. You were undoubtedly observed. I wanted you to be. It was quite necessary that they should know and be able to recognise you again—to disabuse their minds later on of the possibility that I might be masquerading in your clothes; and also, of course, that they should know who you were, and what your position was in the household. Very well! To-night, at eight o'clock exactly, you are to go out from the back door of the house to the garage. On the way out—it will be quite dark then—I want you to drop something, say, a bunch of keys that you had been jingling in your hand. You are to experience some difficulty in finding it again, move about a little to force any one that may be lurking by the garage to retreat around the corner. Grumble a bit and make a little noise; but you are not to overdo it—a couple of minutes at the outside is enough, by that time I shall be under the car seat. You will then run the machine out to the street and stop at the curb, jump out, and, as though you had forgotten something, hurry back to the garage. You must not be away long—enough only to permit, say, a passer-by to glance into the car and satisfy himself that it is empty. You understand, of course, Benson, that the hood must be down—no closed car to invite even the suggestion of concealment—that would be a fatal blunder. Drive then to the young lady's home by as direct a route as you can—give no appearance of being aware that you are followed, as you will be, and much less the appearance of attempting to elude pursuit. Act naturally. Between here and your destination I will manage readily enough to leave the car. You will then take the young lady for her drive—that is what they will be interested in—your motive for going out to-night. And, as I said, take her driving again on each succeeding night—establish the HABIT to their satisfaction.”
Jimmie Dale paused, glanced at the paper which he still held in his hand, then handed it to Benson.
“Just one thing more, Benson,” he said: “Listed on that paper you will find a different rendezvous for each night for the next five nights, excluding to-night, which, after you have returned the young lady to her home, you are to pass by on your way back here. See that your drive is always over in time for you to pass each night's rendezvous at half past eleven sharp. Don't stop unless I signal you. If I am not there, go right on home, and be at the next place on the following night. I am fairly well satisfied they will not bother about you after to-night, or to-morrow night at the most; but, for all that, you must take no chances, so, except in the route you take in going to the young lady's, always avoid covering the same ground twice, which might give the appearance of having some ulterior purpose in view—even in your drives, vary your runs. Is this clear, Benson?”
“Yes, sir,” said Benson earnestly.
“Very well, then,” said Jimmie Dale. “Eight o'clock to the dot, Benson—compare your time with Jason's. And now, Jason, see that I get a chance to sleep until dinner time to-night.”
The hours that followed were hours of sound and much-needed sleep for Jimmie Dale, and from which he awoke only on Jason's entrance that evening with the dinner tray.
“I've slept like a log, Jason!” he cried briskly, as he leaped out of bed. “Anything new—anything happened?”
“No, sir; not a thing,” Jason answered. “Only, Master Jim, sir”—the old man twisted his hands nervously—“I—you'll excuse my saying so, sir—I do hope you'll be careful to-night, sir. I can't help being afraid that something'll happen to you, Master Jim.”
“Nonsense, Jason!” Jimmie Dale laughed cheerfully. “There's nothing going to happen—to me! You go ahead now and stay with the servants, and get them out of the road at the proper time.”
He bathed, dressed, ate his dinner, and was slipping cartridges into the magazine of his automatic when, within a minute or two of eight o'clock, Jason's whisper came from the doorway.
“It's all clear now, Master Jim, sir.”
“Right!” Jimmie Dale responded—and followed Jason down the stairway, and to the head of the cellar stairs.
Here Jason halted.
“God keep you, Master Jim!” said the old man huskily. “Good-night, Jason,” Jimmie Dale answered softly; and, with a reassuring squeeze on the other's arm, went on down to the cellar.
Here he moved quickly, noiselessly across to the window—not the window of the night before, but another of the same description, almost directly beneath the one in his den above, that faced the garage and lay in the line of that black shadow path between the two buildings. Deftly, cautiously without sound, a half inch, an inch at a time he opened it. He stood listening, then. A minute passed. Then he heard Benson open and shut the back door; then Benson in the yard; and then Benson's voice in a muttered and irritable growl, talking to himself, as he stamped around on the ground.
With a lithe, agile movement, Jimmie Dale pulled himself up and through the window—and began to creep rapidly on hands and knees toward the garage. It was dark, intensely dark. He could barely distinguish Benson's form, though, as he passed the other, the slight sounds he made drowned out by the chauffeur's angry mumblings, he could have reached out and touched Benson easily.
He gained the interior of the garage, and, as Benson, came on again, stepped lightly into the car, lifted the seat, and wriggled his way inside.
It was close, stuffy, abominably cramped, but Jimmie Dale was smiling grimly now. Thanks to Benson, there wasn't a possibility that he had been seen. He both felt and heard Benson start the car. Then the car moved forward, ran the length of the driveway, bumped slightly as it made the street—and stopped. He heard Benson jump out and run back—and then he listened intently, and the grim smile flickered on his lips again. Came the sound of a footstep on the sidewalk close beside the car—then silence—the car shook a little as though some one's weight was on the step—then the footsteps receded—Benson returned on the run—and the car started forward once more.
Perhaps ten minutes passed. Three times the car had swerved sharply, making a corner turn. Then Jimmie Dale pushed up the seat, and, protected from observation from behind by the back of the car itself, crawled out and crouched down on the floor of the tonneau.
“Don't look around, Benson,” he said calmly. “Are we followed?”
“Yes, sir.” Benson answered. “At least, there's always been a car behind us, though not the same one. They're pretty clever. There must be three or four, each following the other. Every time I turn a corner it's a different car that turns it behind me.”
“How far behind?” Jimmie Dale asked.
“Half a block.”
“Slow down a little,” instructed Jimmie Dale; “and don't turn another corner until they've had a chance to accommodate themselves to your new speed. You are going too fast for me to jump, and I don't want them to notice any change in speed, except what is made in plain sight. Yes; that's better. Where are we, Benson?”
“That's Amsterdam Avenue ahead,” replied Benson.
“All right,” said Jimmie Dale quietly. “Turn into it. The more people the better. Tell me just as you are about to turn.”
“Yes, sir,” said Benson; then, almost on the instant, “All ready, sir!”
Jimmie Dale's hand reached out for the door catch, edged the door ajar, the car swerved, took the corner—and Jimmie Dale stepped out on the running board, hung there negligently for a moment as though chatting with Benson, and then with an airy “good-night” dropped nonchalantly to the ground, and the next instant had mingled with the throng of pedestrians on the sidewalk.
A half minute later, a large gray automobile turned the corner and followed Benson—and Jimmie Dale, stepping out into the street again, swung on a downtown car. The road to the Sanctuary was open!
In his impatience, now, the street car seemed to drag along every foot of the way; but a glance at his watch, as he finally reached the Bowery, and, walking then, rapidly approached the cross street a few steps ahead that led to the Sanctuary, told him that it was still but a quarter to nine. But even at that he quickened his steps a little. He was free now! There was a sort of savage, elemental uplift upon him. He was free! He could strike now in his own defense—and hers! In a few moments he would be at the Sanctuary; in a few more he would be Larry the Bat, and by to-morrow at the latest he would see—The Tocsin. After all, that “hour” was not to be taken from him! It was not, perhaps, the hour that she had meant it should be, thought and prayed, perhaps, that it might be! It was not the hour of victory. But it was the hour that meant to him the realisation of the years of longing, the hour when he should see her, see her for the first time face to face, when there should be no more barriers between them, when—
“Fer Gawd's sake, mister, buy a pencil!”
A hand was plucking at his sleeve, the thin voice was whining in his ear. He halted mechanically. A woman, old, bedraggled, ragged, was thrusting a bunch of cheap pencils imploringly toward him—and then, with a stifled cry, Jimmie Dale leaned forward. The eyes that lifted to his for an instant were bright and clear with the vigor of youth, great eyes of brown they were, and trouble, hope, fear, wistfulness, ay, and a glorious shyness were in their depths. And then the voice he knew so well, the Tocsin's was whispering hurriedly:
“I will be waiting here, Jimmie—for Larry the Bat.”
It was only a little way back along the street from the Sanctuary to the corner on the Bowery where as Jimmie Dale he had left her, where as Larry the Bat now he was going to meet her again; it would take only a moment or so, even at Larry the Bat's habitual, characteristic, slouching, gait—but it seemed that was all too slow, that he must throw discretion to the winds and run the distance. His blood was tingling; there was elation upon him, coupled with an almost childlike dread that she might be gone.
“The Tocsin! The Tocsin!” he kept saying to himself.
Yes; she was still there, still whiningly imploring those who passed to buy her miserable pencils—and then, with a quick-flung whisper to him to follow as he slouched up close to her, she had started slowly down the street.
“The Tocsin! The Tocsin! The Tocsin!”—his brain seemed to be ringing with the words, ringing with them in a note clear as a silver bell. The Tocsin—at last! The woman who so strangely, so wonderfully, so mysteriously had entered into his life, and possessed it, and filled it with a love and yearning that had come to mold and sway and actuate his very existence—the woman for whom he had fought; for whom he had risked, and gladly risked, his wealth, his name, his honour—everything; the woman for whose sake he, the Gray Seal, was sought and hounded as the most notorious criminal of the age; she whose cleverness, whose resourcefulness, whose amazing intimacy with the hidden things of the underworld had seemed, indeed, to border on the supernatural; she, the Tocsin—the woman whose face he had never seen before! The woman whose face he had never seen before—and who now was that wretched hag that hobbled along the street before him, begging, whining, and importuning the passers-by to purchase of her pitiful wares!
He laughed a little—buoyantly. He had never pictured a first meeting such as this! A hag? Yes! And one as disreputable in appearance as he himself, as Larry the Bat, was disreputable! But he had seen her eyes! Inimitable as was her disguise, she could not hide her eyes, or hide the pledge they held of the beauty of form and feature beneath the tattered rags and the touch of a master in the make-up that brought haggard want and age into the face—and dimly he began to divine the source, the means by which she had acquired the information that for years had enabled her to plan their coups, that had enabled him to execute them under the guise of crime, that for years had seemed beyond all human reach.
Where was she going? Where was she taking him? But what did it matter! The years of waiting were at an end—the years of mystery in a few moments now would be mystery no more!
Ah! She had turned from the Bowery, and was heading east. He shuffled on after her, guardedly, a half block behind. It was well that Jimmie Dale had disappeared, that he was Larry the Bat again—the neighbourhood was growing more and more one that Jimmie Dale could not long linger in without attracting attention; while, on the other hand, it was the natural environment of such as Larry the Bat and such as she, who was leading him now to the supreme moment of his life. Yes, it was that—the fulfillment of the years! The thought of it alone filled his mind, his soul; it brushed aside, it blotted out for the time being the danger, the peril, the deadly menace that hung over them both. It was only that she, the Tocsin, was here—only that at last they would be together.
On she went, traversing street after street, the direction always trending toward the river—until finally she halted before what appeared to be, as nearly as he could make out in the almost total darkness of the ill-lighted street, a small and tumble-down, self-contained dwelling that bordered on what seemed to be an unfenced store yard of some description. He drew his breath in sharply. She had halted—waiting for him to come up with her. She was waiting for him—WAITING for him! It seemed as though he drank of some strange, exhilarating elixir—he reached her side eagerly—and then—and then—her hand had caught his, and she was leading him into the house, into a black passage where he could see nothing, into a room equally black over whose threshold he stumbled, and her voice in a low, conscious way, with a little tremour, a half sob in it that thrilled him with its promise, was in his ears:
“We are safe here, Jimmie, for a little while—but, oh, Jimmie, what have I done! What have I done to bring you into this—only—only—I was so sure, so sure, Jimmie, that there was nothing more to fear!”
The blood was beating in hammer blows at his temples. It seemed all unreal, untrue that this moment could be his, that it was not a dream—a dream which was presently to be snatched from him in a bitter awakening. And then he laughed out wildly, passionately. No—it was true, it was real! Her breath was on his cheek, it was a living, pulsing hand that was still in his—and then soul and mind and body seemed engulfed and lost in a mad ecstasy—and she was in his arms, crushed to him, and he was raining kisses upon her face.
“I love you! I love you!” he was crying hoarsely; and over and over again: “I love you! I love you!”
She did not struggle. The warm, rich lips were yielding to his; he could feel the throb, the life in the young, lithe form against his own. She was his—his! The years, the past, all were swept away—and she was his at last—his for always. And there came a mighty sense of kingship upon him, as though all the world were at his feet, and virility, and a great, glad strength above all other men's, and a song was in his soul, a song triumphant—for she was his!
“You!” he cried out—and strained her to him. “You!” he cried again—and kissed her lips and her eyelids and her lips again.
And then her head was buried on his shoulder, and she was crying softly; but after a moment she raised her hands and laid them upon his face, and held them there, and because it was dark, dared to raise her head as well, and her eyes to look into his.
Then for a long time they stood there so, and for a long time neither spoke—and then with a little startled, broken cry, as though the peril and the menace hanging over them, forgotten for the moment, were thrust like a knife stab suddenly upon her, she drew herself away, and ran from him, and went and got a lamp, and lighted it, and set it upon the table.
And Jimmie Dale, still standing there, watched her. How gloriously her eyes shone, dimmed and misty with the tears that filled them though they were! And there was nothing incongruous in the rags that clothed her, in the squalour and poverty of the bare room, in the white furrows that the tears had plowed through the grime and make-up on her cheeks.
“You wonderful, wonderful woman!” Jimmie Dale whispered.
She shook her head as though almost in self-reproach.
“I am not wonderful, Jimmie,” she said, in a low voice. “I”—and then she caught his arm, and her voice broke a little—“I've brought you into this—probably to your death. Jimmie, tell me what happened last night, and since then. I—I've thought at times to-day I should go mad. Oh, Jimmie, there is so much to say to-night, so much to do if—if we are ever to be together for—for always. Last night, Jimmie—the telephone—I knew there was danger—that all had gone wrong—what was it?”
His arms were around her shoulders, drawing her close to him again.
“I found the wires tapped,” he said slowly.
“Yes, and—and the man you met—the chauffeur?”
“He is dead,” Jimmie Dale answered gently.
He felt her hand close with a quick, spasmodic clutch upon his arm; her face grew white—and for a moment she turned away her head.
“And—and the package?” she asked presently.
“I do not know,” replied Jimmie Dale. “He did not have it with him; he—”
“Wait!” she interrupted quickly. “We are only wasting time like this! Tell me everything, everything just as it happened, everything from the moment you received my letter.”
And, holding her there in his arms, softening as best he could the more brutal details, he told her. And, at the end, for a little while she was silent; then in a strained, impulsive way she asked again:
“The chauffeur—you are sure—you are positive that he is dead?”
“Yes,” said Jimmie Dale grimly; “I am sure.” And then the pent-up flood of questions burst from his lips. Who was the chauffeur? The package, the box numbered 428, and John Johansson? And the Crime Club? And the issue at stake? The danger, the peril that surrounded her? And she—above all—more than anything else—about herself—her strange life, its mystery?
She checked him with a strangely wistful touch of her finger upon his lips, with a queer, pathetic shake of her head.
“No, Jimmie; not that way. You would never understand. I cannot—”
“But I am to know—now! Surely I am to know NOW!” he cried, a sudden sense of dismay upon him. Three years! Three years—and always the “next” time! “I must know now, if I am to help you!”
She smiled a little wanly at him, as she drew herself away, and, dropping into a chair, placed her elbows on the rickety table, cupping her chin in her hands.
“Yes; you are to know now,” she said, almost as though she were talking to herself; then, with a swift intake of her breath, impulsively: “Jimmie! Jimmie! I had thought that it would be all so different when—when you came. That—that I would have nothing to fear—for you—for me—because—it would be all over. And now you are here, Jimmie—and, oh, thank God for you!—but I feel to-night almost—almost as though it were hopeless, that—that we were beaten.”
“Beaten!” He stepped quickly to the table, and sat down, and took one of her hands away from her face to hold it in both his own. “Beaten!” he laughed out defiantly; then, playfully, soothingly, to reassure her: “Jimmie Dale and Larry the Bat and the Gray Seal and the Tocsin—BEATEN! And after we have just scored the last trick!”
“But we do not hold many trumps, Jimmie,” she answered gravely. “You have seen something of this Crime Club's power, its methods, its merciless, cruel, inhuman cunning, and you, perhaps, think that you understand—but you have not begun to grasp the extent of either that power or cunning. This horrible organisation has been in existence for many years. I do not know how many. I only know that the men of whom it is composed are not ordinary criminals, that they do not work in the ordinary way—to-day, they set the machinery of fraud, deception, robbery, and murder in motion that ten years from now, and, perhaps, only then, will culminate in the final success of their schemes—and they play only for enormous stakes. But”—her lips grew set—“you will see for yourself. I must not talk any longer than is necessary; we must not take too much time. You count on three days before they begin to suspect that all is not right with Jimmie Dale—I know them better than you, and I give you two days, forty-eight hours at the outside, and possibly far less. Jimmie”—abruptly—“did you ever hear of Peter LaSalle?”
“The capitalist? Yes!” said Jimmie Dale. “He died a few years ago. I know his brother Henry well—at the club, and all that.”
“Do you!” she said evenly. “Well, the man you know is not Peter LaSalle's brother; he is an impostor—and one of the Crime Club.”
“Not—Peter LaSalle's brother!”—Jimmie Dale repeated the words mechanically. And suddenly his brain was whirling. Vaguely, dimly, in little memory snatches, events, not pertinent then, vitally significant now, came crowding upon him. Peter LaSalle had come from somewhere in the West to live in New York; and very shortly afterward had died. The estate had been worth something over eleven millions. And there had been—he leaned quickly, tensely forward over the table, staring at her. “My God!” he whispered hoarsely. “You are not, you cannot be—the—the daughter—Peter LaSalle's daughter, who disappeared strangely!”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I am Marie LaSalle.”
LaSalle! The old French name! That old French inscription on the ring: “SONNEZ LE TOCSIN!” Yes; he began to understand now. She was Marie LaSalle! He began to remember more clearly.
Marie LaSalle! They had said she was one of the most beautiful girls who had ever made her entree into New York society. But he had never met her—as Marie LaSalle; never met her—until now, as the Tocsin, in this bare, destitute, squalid hovel, here at bay, both of them, for their lives.
He had been away when she had come with her father to New York; and on his return there had only been the father's brother in the father's place—and she was gone. He remembered the furor her disappearance had caused; the enormous rewards her uncle had offered in an effort to trace her; the thousand and one speculations as to what had become of her; and that then, gradually, as even the most startling and mystifying of events and happenings always do, the affair had dropped into oblivion and had been forgotten by the public at least. He began to count back. Yes, it must have been nearly five years ago; two years before she, as the Tocsin, and he, as the Gray Seal, had formed their amazing and singular partnership, that—he started suddenly, as she spoke.
“I want to tell you in as few words as I can,” she said abruptly, breaking the silence. “Listen, then, Jimmie. My mother died ten years ago. I was little more than a child then. Shortly after her death, father made a business trip to New York, and, on the advice of some supposed friends, he had a new will drawn up by a lawyer whom they recommended, and to whom they introduced him. I do not know who those men were. The lawyer's name was Travers, Hilton Travers.” She glanced curiously at Jimmie Dale, and added quickly: “He was the chauffeur—the man who was killed last night.”
“You mean,” Jimmie Dale burst out, “you mean that he was—but, first, the will! What was in the will?”
“It was a very simple will,” she answered. “And from the nature of it, it was not at all strange that my father should have been willing to have had it drawn by a comparative stranger, if that is what you are thinking. Summarised in a few words, the will left everything to me, and appointed my Uncle Henry as my guardian and the sole executor of the estate until I should have reached my twenty-fifth birthday. It provided for a certain sum each year to be paid to my uncle for his services as executor; and at the expiration of the trust period—that is, when I was twenty-five—bequeathed to him the sum of one hundred thousand dollars.”
Jimmie Dale nodded. “Go on!” he prompted.
“It is hard to tell it in logical sequence,” she said, hesitating a moment. “So many things seem to overlap each other. You must understand a little more about Hilton Travers. During the five years following the signing of the will father came frequently to New York, and became, not only intimate with Travers, but so much impressed with the other's cleverness and ability that he kept putting more and more of his business into Travers' hands. At the end of that five years, we moved to New York, and father, who was then quite an old man, retired from all active business, and turned over a great many of his personal affairs to Travers to look after for him, giving Travers power of attorney in a number of instances. So much for Travers. Now about my uncle. He was my father's only brother; in fact, they were the only surviving members of their family, apart from very distant connections in France, from where, generations back, the family originally came.” Her hand touched Jimmie Dale's for an instant. “That ring, Jimmie, with its crest and inscription, is the old family coat of arms.”
“Yes,” he said briefly; “I surmised as much.”
“Strange as it may seem, in view of the fact that they had not seen each other for twenty years,” she went on hurriedly “my father and my uncle were more than ordinarily attached to each other. Letters passed regularly between them, and there was constant talk of one paying the other a visit—but the visit never materialised. My uncle was somewhere in Australia, my father was here, and consequently I never saw my uncle. He was quite a different type of man from father—more restless, less settled, more rough and ready, preferring the outdoor life of the Australian bush to the restrictions of any so-called civilisation, I imagine. Financially, I do not think he ever succeeded very well, for twice, in one way or another, he lost every sheep on his ranch and father set him up again; and I do not think he could ever have had much of a ranch, for I remember once, in one of the letters he wrote, that he said he had not seen a white man in weeks, so he must have lived a very lonely life. Indeed, at about the time father drew the new will, my uncle wrote, saying that he had decided to give up sheep running on his own account as it did not pay, and to accept a very favourable offer that had been made to him to manage a ranch in New Zealand; and his next letter was from the latter country, stating that he had carried out his intentions, and was well satisfied with the change he had made. The long-proposed visit still continued to occupy my father's thoughts, and on his retirement from business he definitely made up his mind to go out to New Zealand, taking me with him. In fact, the plans were all arranged, my uncle expressed unbounded delight in his letters, and we were practically on the eve of sailing, when a cable came from my uncle, telling us to postpone the visit for a few months, as he was obliged to make a buying trip for his new employer that would keep him away that length of time—and then”—her fingers, that had been abstractedly picking out the lines formed by the grain of the wood in the table top, closed suddenly into tight-clenched fists—“and then—my father died.”
Jimmie Dale turned away his head. There were tears in her eyes. The old sense of unreality was strong upon him again. He was listening to the Tocsin's story. It was strange that he should be doing that—that it could be really so! It seemed as though magically he had been transported out of the world where for years past he had lived with danger lurking at every turn, where men set watch about his house to trap him, where the denizens of the underworld yowled like starving beasts to sink their fangs in him, where the police were ceaselessly upon his trail to wreak an insensate vengeance upon him; it seemed as though he had been transported away from all that to something that he had dreamed might, perhaps, sometime happen, that he had hoped might happen, that he had longed for always, but now that it was his, that it also was full of the sense of the unreal. And yet as his mind followed the thread of her story, and leaped ahead and vaguely glimpsed what was to come, he was conscious in a sort of premonitory way of a vaster peril than any he had ever known, as though forces, for the moment masked, were arrayed against him whose strength and whose malignity were beyond human parallel. In what a strange, almost incoherent way his brain was working! He roused himself a little and looked around him—and, with a shock, the starkness of the room, the abject, pitiful air of destitution brought home to him with terrific, startling force the significance of the scene in which he was playing a part. His face set suddenly in hard lines. That she should have been brought to assume such a life as this—forced out of her environment of wealth and refinement, forced in her purity to rub shoulders with the vile, the dissolute, forced to exist as such a creature amid the crime and vice, the wretched horror of the underworld that swirled around her! There was anger now upon him, burning, hot—a merciless craving that was a savage, hungry lust for vengeance.
And then she was speaking again:
“Father's death occurred very shortly after my uncle's message advising us to postpone our trip was received. On his death, Travers, very naturally, as father's lawyer, cabled my uncle to come to New York at once; and my uncle replied, saying that he was coming by the first steamer.”
She paused again—but only for an instant, as though to frame her thoughts in words.
“I have told you that I had never seen my uncle, that even my father had not seen him for twenty years; and I have told you that the man you know as Henry LaSalle is an impostor—I am using the word 'uncle' now when I refer to him simply to avoid confusion. You are, perhaps, expecting me to say that I took a distinctive dislike to him from the moment he arrived? On the contrary, I had every reason to be predisposed toward him; and, indeed, was rather agreeably surprised than otherwise—he was not nearly so uncouth and unpolished as, somehow, I had pictured his life would have made him. Do you understand, Jimmie? He was kind, sympathetic; and, in an apathetic way, I liked him. I say 'apathetic' because I think that best describes my own attitude toward every one and everything following father's death until—THAT NIGHT.”
She rose abruptly from her chair, as though a passive position of any kind had suddenly become intolerable.
“Why tell you what my father and I were to each other!” she cried out in a low, passionate voice. “It seemed as though everything that meant anything had gone out of my life. I became worn out, nervous; and though the days were bad enough, the nights were a source of dread. I began to suffer from insomnia—I could not sleep. This was even before my supposed uncle came. I used to read for hours and hours in my room after I had gone to bed. But”—she flung out her hand with an impatient gesture—“there is no need to dwell on that. One night, about a week after that man had arrived, and a little over a month after father had died, I was in my room and had finished a book I was reading. I remember that it was well after midnight. I had not the slightest inclination to sleep. I picked up another book—and after that another. There were plenty in my room; but, irrationally, of course, none pleased me. I decided to go down to the library—not that I think I really expected to find anything that I actually wanted, but more because it was an impulse, and furnished me for the moment with some definite objective, something to do. I got up, slipped on a dressing gown, and went downstairs. The lights were all out. I was just on the point of switching on those in the reception hall, when suddenly it seemed as though I had not strength to lift my hand, and I remember that for an instant I grew terribly cold with dread and fear. From the room on my right a voice had reached me. The door was closed, but the voice was raised in an outburst of profanity. I—I could hear every word.
“'If she's out of the way, there's no come-back,' the voice snarled. 'I won't listen to anything else! Do you hear! Why, you fool, what are you trying to do—hand me one! Turn everything into cash, and divvy, and beat it—eh? And I'm the goat, and I get caught and get twenty years for stealing trust funds—and the rest of you get the coin!' He swore terribly again. 'Who's taken the risk in this for the last five years! There'll be no smart Aleck lawyer tricks—there'll be no halfway measures! And who are you to dictate! She goes out—that's safe—I inherit as next of kin, with no one to dispute it, and that's all there is to it!'
“I stood there and could not move. It was the voice of the man I knew as my uncle! My heart seemed to have stopped beating. I tried to tell myself that I was dreaming, that it was too horrible, too incredible to be real; that they could not really mean to—to MURDER me. And then I recognised Hilton Travers' voice.
“'I am not dictating, and you are not serious, of course,' he said, with what seemed an uneasy laugh. 'I am only warning you that you are forgetting to take the real Henry LaSalle into account. He is bound to hear of this eventually, and then—'
“Another voice broke in—one I did not recognise.
“'You're talking too loud, both of you! Travers doesn't understand, but he's to be wised up to-night, according to orders, and—'
“The voice became inaudible, muffled—I could not hear any more. I suppose I remained there another three or four minutes, too stunned to know what to do; and then I ran softly along the hall to the library door. The library, you understand, was at the rear of the room they were in, and the two rooms were really one; that is, there was only an archway between them. I cannot tell you what my emotions were—I do not know. I only know that I kept repeating to myself, 'they are going to kill me, they are going to kill me!' and that it seemed I must try and find out everything, everything I could.”
She turned away from the table, and began to pace nervously up and down the miserable room.
Jimmie Dale rose impulsively from his chair—but she waved him back again.
“No; wait!” she said. “Let me finish. I crept into the library. It took me a long time, because I had to be so careful not to make the slightest noise. I suppose it was fully six or seven minutes from the time I had first heard my supposed uncle's voice until I had crept far enough forward to be able to see into the room beyond. There were three men there. The man I knew as my uncle was sitting at one end of the table; another had his back toward me; and Travers was facing in my direction—and I think I never saw so ghastly a face as was Hilton Travers' then. He was standing up, sort of swaying, as he leaned with both hands on the table.
“'Now then, Travers,' the man whose back was turned to me was saying threateningly, 'you've got the story now—sign those papers!'
“It seemed as though Travers could not speak for a moment. He kept looking wildly from one to the other. He was white to the lips.
“'You've let me in for—THIS!' he said hoarsely, at last, 'You devils—you devils—you devils! You've let me in for—murder! Both of them! Both Peter and his brother—MURDERED!'”
She stopped abruptly before Jimmie Dale, and clutched his arm tightly.
“Jimmie, I don't know why I did not scream out. Everything went black for a moment before my eyes. It was the first suspicion I had had that my father had met with foul play, and I—”
But now Jimmie Dale swayed up from his chair.
“Murdered!” he exclaimed tensely. “Your father! But—but I remember perfectly, there was no hint of any such thing at the time, and never has been since. He died from quite natural causes.”
She looked at him strangely.
“He died from—inoculation,” she said. “Did—did you not see something of that laboratory in the Crime Club yourself the night before last—enough to understand?”
“Good God!” muttered Jimmie Dale, in a startled way then: “Go on! Go on! What happened then?”
She passed her hand a little wearily across her eyes—and sank down into her chair again.
“Travers,” she continued, picking up the thread of her story, “had raised his voice, and the third man at the table leaned suddenly, aggressively toward him.
“'Hold your tongue!' he growled furiously. 'All you're asked to do is sign the papers—not talk!'
“Travers shook his head.
“'I won't!' he cried out. 'I won't have any hand in another murder—in hers! My God, I won't—I won't, I tell you! It's horrible!'
“'Look here, you fool!' the man who was posing as my uncle broke in then. 'You're in this too deep to get out now. If you know what's good for you, you'll do as you're told!'
“Jimmie, I shall never forget Travers' face. It seemed to have changed from white to gray, and there was horror in his eyes: and then he seemed to lose all control of himself, shaking his fists in their faces, cursing them in utter abandon.
“'I'm bad!' he cried. 'I've gone everything, everything but the limit—everything but murder. I stop there! I'll have no more to do with this. I'm through! You—you pulled me into this, and—and I didn't know!'
“'Well, you know now!' the third man sneered. 'What are you going to do about it?'
“'I'm going to see that no harm comes to Marie LaSalle,' Travers answered in a dull way.
“The other man now was on his feet—and, I do not know quite how to express it, Jimmie, he seemed ominously quiet in both his voice and his movements.
“'You'd better think that over again, Travers!' he said. 'Do you mean it?'
“'I mean it,' Travers said. 'I mean it—God help me!'
“'You may well add that!' returned the other, with an ugly laugh. He reached out his hand toward the telephone on the table. 'Do you know what will happen to you if I telephone a certain number and say that you have turned—traitor?'
“'I'll have to take my chances,' Travers replied doggedly. 'I'm through!'
“'Take them, then!' flung out the other. 'You'll have little time given you to do us any harm!'
“Travers did not answer. I think he almost expected an attack upon him then from the two men. He hesitated a moment, then backed slowly toward the door. What happened in the next few moments in that room, I do not know. I stole out of the library. I was obsessed with the thought that I must see Travers, see him at all costs, before he got away from the house. I reached the end of the hall as the room door opened, and he came out. It was dark, as I said, and I could not see distinctly, but I could make out his form. He closed the door behind him—and then I called his name in a whisper. He took a quick step toward me, then turned and hurried toward the front door, and I thought he was going away—but the next instant I understood his ruse. He opened the front door, shut it again quite loudly, and crept back to me.
“'Take me somewhere where we will be safe—quick!' he whispered.
“There was only one place where I was sure we would be safe. I led him to the rear of the house and up the servants' stairs, and to my boudoir.”
She broke off abruptly, and once more rose from her chair, and once more began to pace the room. Back in his chair, Jimmie Dale, tense and motionless now, watched her without a word.
“It would take too long to tell you all that passed between us,” she went on hurriedly. “The man was frankly a criminal—but not to the extent of murder. And in that respect, at least, he was honest with himself. Almost the first words he said to me were: 'Miss LaSalle, I am as good as a dead man if I am caught by the devils behind those two men downstairs.' And then he began to plead with me to make my own escape. He did not know who the man was that was posing as my uncle, had never seen him before until he presented himself as Henry LaSalle; the other man he knew as Clarke, but knew also that 'Clarke' was merely an assumed name. He had fallen in with Clarke almost from the time that he had begun to practise his profession, and at Clarke's instigation had gone from one crooked deal to another, and had made a great deal of money. He knew that behind Clarke was a powerful, daring, and unscrupulous band of criminals, organised on a gigantic scale, of which he himself was, in a sense—a probationary sense, as he put it—a member; but he had never come into direct contact with them—he had received all his orders and instructions through Clarke. He had been told by Clarke that he was to cultivate father following the introduction, to win father's confidence, to get as many of father's affairs into his hands as possible, to reach the position, in fact, of becoming father's recognised attorney—and all this with the object, as he supposed of embezzling from father on a large scale. Then father died, and Travers was instructed to cable my uncle. He knew that the man who answered that summons was an impostor; but he did not know, until they had admitted it to him that night, that both my father and my uncle had been murdered, and that I, too, was to be made away with.”
She looked at Jimmie Dale, and suddenly laughed out bitterly.
“No; you don't understand, even yet, the patient, ingenious deviltry of those fiends. It was they, at the time the new will was drawn, who offered to buy out my real uncle's sheep ranch in that lonely, unsettled district in Australia, and offered him that new position in New Zealand. My uncle never reached New Zealand. He was murdered on his way there. And in his place, assuming his name, appeared the man who has been posing as my uncle ever since. Do you begin to see! For five years they were patiently working out their plans, for five years before my father's death that man lived and became known and accepted, and ESTABLISHED himself as Henry LaSalle. Do you see now why he cabled us to postpone our visit? He ran very little risk. The chances were one in a thousand that any of his few acquaintances in Australia would ever run across him in New Zealand; and besides, he was chosen because it seems there was a slight resemblance between him and the real Henry LaSalle—enough, with his changed mode of living and more elaborate and pretentious surroundings, to have enabled him to carry through a bluff had it become necessary. He had all of my uncle's papers; and the Crime Club furnished him with every detail of our lives here. I forgot to say, too, that from the moment my uncle was supposed to have reached New Zealand all his letters were typewritten—an evidence in father's eyes that his brother had secured a position of some importance; as, indeed, from apparently unprejudiced sources, they took pains to assure father was a fact. This left them with only my uncle's signature to forge to the letters—not a difficult matter for them!
“Believing that they had Travers so deeply implicated that he could do nothing, even if he had the inclination, which they had not for a moment imagined, and arrogant in the belief in their own power to put him out of the way in any case if he proved refractory, they admitted all this to him that night when he brought up the issue of the real Henry LaSalle putting in an appearance sooner or later, and when they wanted him to smooth their path by releasing all documents where his power of attorney was involved. Do you see now the part they gave Travers to play? It was to put the stamp of genuineness upon the false Henry LaSalle. Not but that they were prepared with what would appear to be overwhelmingly convincing evidence to prove it if it were necessary; but if the man were accepted by the estate's lawyer there was little chance of any one else questioning his identity.”
She halted again by the table—and forced a smile, as her eyes met Jimmie Dale's.
“I am almost through, Jimmie. That night was a terrible one for both of us. Travers' life was not worth a moment's purchase once they found him—and mine was only under reprieve until sufficient time to obviate suspicion should have elapsed after father's death. We had no proof that would stand in any court—even if we should have been given the chance to adopt that course. And without absolute, irrefutable proof, it was all so cleverly woven, stretched over so many years, that our charge must have been held to be too visionary and fantastic to have any basis in fact.
“All Travers would have been able to advance was the statement that the supposed Henry LaSalle had admitted being an impostor and a murderer to him! Who would believe it! On the face of it, it appeared to be an absurdity. And even granted that we were given an opportunity to bring the charge, they would be able to prove by a hundred influential and well-known men in New Zealand that the impostor was really Henry LaSalle; and were we able to find any of my uncle's old acquaintances in Australia, it would be necessary to get them here—and not one of them would have reached America alive.
“But there was not a chance, not a chance, Jimmie, of doing that—they would have killed Travers the moment he showed himself in the open. The only thing we could do that night was to try and save our own lives; the only thing we could look forward to was acquiring in some way, unknown to them, the proof, fully established, with which we could crush them in a single stroke, and before they would have time to strike back.
“The vital thing was proof of my uncle's death. That, if it could be obtained at all, could only be obtained in Australia. Travers was obliged to go somewhere, to disappear from that moment if he wanted to save his life, and he volunteered to go out there. He left the house that night by the back entrance in an old servant's suit, which I found for him—and I never heard from him again until a month ago in the 'personal' column of the MORNING NEWS-ARGUS, through which we had agreed to communicate.
“As for myself, I left the house the next morning, telling my pseudo uncle that I was going to spend a few days with a friend. And this I actually did; but in those few days I managed to turn all my own securities, that had been left me by my mother and which amounted to a considerable sum, into cash. And then, Jimmie, I came to—this, I have lived like this and in different disguises, as a settlement worker, as a widow of means in a fashionable uptown apartment, but mostly as you see me now—for five years. For five years I have watched my supposed uncle, hoping, praying that through him I could get to know the others associated with him; hoping, praying that Travers would succeed; hoping, praying that we would get them all—and watching day after day, and year after year the 'personal' column of the paper, until at last I began to be afraid that it was all useless. And there was nothing, Jimmie, nothing anywhere, and I had no success”—her voice choked a little. “Nothing! Even Clarke never went again to the house. You can understand now how I came to know the strange things that I wrote to the Gray Seal, how the life that I have led, how this life here in the underworld, how the constant search for some clew on my own account brought them to my knowledge; and you can understand now, too, why I never dared to let you meet me, for I knew well enough that, while I worked to undermine my father's and my uncle's murderers, they were moving heaven and earth to find me.
“That is all, Jimmie. The day before yesterday, a month after Travers' first message to let me know that he was coming, there was another 'personal' giving me an hour and a telephone number. He was back! He had everything—everything! We dared not meet; he was afraid, suspicious that they had got track of him again. You know the rest. That package contained the proof that, with Travers' death, can probably never be obtained again. Do you understand why THEY want it—why it is life and death to me? Do you understand why my supposed uncle offered huge rewards for me, why secretly every resource of that hideous organisation has been employed to find me—that it is only by my DEATH the estate can pass into their hands, and now—”
She flung out her hands suddenly toward Jimmie Dale. “Oh, Jimmie, Jimmie, I've—I've fought so long alone! Jimmie, what are we to do?”
He came slowly to his feet. She had fought so long—alone. But now—now it was his turn to fight—for her. But how? She had not told him all—surely she had not told him all, for everything depended upon that package. There had been so much to tell that she had not thought of all, and she had not told him the details about that.
“That box—No. 428!” he cried quickly. “What is that? What does it mean?”
She shook her head.
“I do not know,” she answered.
“Then who is this John Johansson?”
“I do not know,” she said again.
“Nor where the Crime Club is?”
“No”—dully.
He stared at her for a moment in a dazed way.
“My God!” Jimmie Dale murmured.
And then she turned away her head.
“It's—it's pretty bad, isn't it, Jimmie? I—I told you that we did not hold many trumps.”
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