Part 35 (1/2)
And so Jimmie Dale had been forced to maintain the role of Larry the Bat for a far longer period than he had antic.i.p.ated when, ten days before, he had a.s.sumed it for the night's work that had so nearly resulted fatally for himself, though it had placed Roessle's murderers behind the bars. For, the next day, unwilling to court the risk of remaining in that neighbourhood, he had left Hanson's, the farmer's, house on Long Island where the Tocsin had carried him in an unconscious state, telephoned Jason that he had been unexpectedly called out of town for a few days, and returned to the Sanctuary in New York. And here, to his grim dismay, he had found the underworld in a state of furious, angry unrest, like a nest of hornets, stirred up, seeking to wreak vengeance on an unseen a.s.sailant.
For years, as the Gray Seal, Jimmie Dale had lived with the slogan of the police, ”The Gray Seal dead or alive--but the Gray Seal!” sounding in his ears; with the newspapers screaming their diatribes, arousing the people against him, nagging the authorities into sleepless, frenzied efforts to trap him; with a price upon his head that was large enough to make a man, not too pretentious, rich for life--but in the underworld, until then, the name of the Gray Seal had been one to conjure with, for the underworld had sworn by the unknown master criminal, and had spoken his name with a reverence that was none the less genuine even if pungently tainted with unholiness. But now it was different. Up and down through the Bad Lands, in gambling h.e.l.ls, in vicious resorts, in the hiding places where thugs and crooks burrowed themselves away from the daylight, through the heart and the outskirts of the underworld travelled the fiat, whispered out of mouths crooked to one side--DEATH TO THE GRAY SEAL!
Gangland differences were forgotten in the larger issue of the common weal. The gang spirit became the spirit of a united whole, and the crime fraternity buzzed and hummed poisonously, spurred on by hatred, thirst for revenge, fear, and, perhaps most potent of all, a hideous suspicion now of each other.
The underworld had received a shock at which it stood aghast, and which, with its terrifying possibilities, struck consternation into the soul of every individual of that brotherhood whose bond was crime, who was already ”wanted” for some offence or other, whether it ranged from murder in the first degree to some petty piece of sneak thievery.
Stangeist, the Indian chief, the lawyer whose cunning brain had stood as a rampart between the underworld and a prison cell, was himself now in the Tombs with the certainty of the electric chair before him; and with him, the same fate equally a.s.sured, were Australian Ike, The Mope, and Clarie Deane! Aristocrats of the Bad Lands, peers of that inglorious realm were those four--and the blow had fallen with stunning force, a blow that in itself would have been enough to have stirred the underworld to its depths. But that was not all--from the cells in the Tombs, from the four came the word, and pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth in that strange underground exchange until all had heard it, that the Gray Seal had ”SQUEALED.” The Gray Seal who, though unknown, they had counted the most eminent among themselves, had squealed! Who was the Gray Seal?
It he had held the secrets of Stangeist and his band, what else might he not know? Who else might not fall next? The Gray Seal had become a snitch, a menace, a source of danger that stalked among them like a ghastly spectre. Who was the Gray Seal? None knew.
”Death to the Gray Seal! Run him to earth!” went the whisper from lip to lip; and with the whisper men stared uncertainly into each other's faces, fearful that the one to whom they spoke might even be--the Gray Seal!
Jimmie Dale's lips twisted queerly as he looked around him at the squalid appointments of the Sanctuary. The police were bad enough, the papers were worse; but this was a still graver peril. With every denizen of the underworld below the dead line suspicious of each other, their lives, the penitentiary, or a prison sentence the stakes against which each one played, the role of Larry the Bat, clever as was the make-up and disguise, was fraught now more than ever before with danger and peril. It seemed as though slowly the net was beginning at last to tighten around him.
The murky, yellow flame of the gas jet flickered suddenly, as though in acquiescence with the quick, impulsive shrug of Jimmie Dale's shoulders--and Jimmie Dale, bending to peer into the cracked mirror that was propped up on the broken-legged table, knotted his dress tie almost fastidiously. The hair, if just a trifle too long, covered the scar on his head now, the wound no longer required a bandage, and Larry the Bat, for the time being at least, had disappeared. Across the foot of the bed, neatly folded, lay his dress coat and overcoat, but little creased for all that they had lain in that hiding-place under the flooring since the night when, hurrying from the club, he had placed them there to a.s.sume instead the tatters of Larry the Bat. It was Jimmie Dale in his own person again who stood there now in Larry the Bat's disreputable den, an incongruous figure enough against the background of his miserable surroundings, in perfect-fitting shoes and trousers, the broad expanse of spotless white s.h.i.+rt bosom glistening even in the poverty-stricken flare from the single, sputtering gas jet.
Jimmie Dale took the watch from his pocket that had not been wound for many days, wound it mechanically, set it by guesswork--it was not far from eight o'clock--and replaced it in his pocket. Carefully then, one at a time, he examined his fingers, long, slim, sensitive, tapering fingers, magical masters of safes and locks and vaults of the most intricate and modern mechanism--no single trace of grime remained, they were metamorphosed hands from the filthy paws of Larry the Bat. He nodded in satisfaction; and picked up the mirror for a final inspection of himself, that, this time, did not miss a single line in his face or neck. Again Jimmie Dale nodded. As though he had vanished into thin air, as though he had never existed, not a trace of Larry the Bat remained--except the heap of rags upon the floor, the battered slouch hat, the frayed trousers, the patched boots with their broken laces, the mismated socks, the grimy flannel s.h.i.+rt, and the old coat that he had just discarded.
The mirror was replaced on the table; and, pus.h.i.+ng the heap of clothes before him with his foot, Jimmie Dale knelt down in the corner of the room where the oilcloth had been turned up and the loose planking of the floor removed, and began to pack the articles away in the hole. Jimmie Dale rolled the trousers of Larry the Bat into a compact little bundle, and stuffed them under the flooring. The gas jet seemed to blink again in a sort of confidential approval, as though the secret lay inviolate between itself and Jimmie Dale. Through the closed window, shade tightly drawn, came, low and m.u.f.fled, the sound of distant life from the Bowery, a few blocks away. The gas jet, suffering from air somewhere within the pipes, hissed angrily, the yellow flame died to a little blue, forked spurt--and Jimmie Dale was on his feet, his face suddenly hard and white as marble.
SOME ONE WAS KNOCKING AT THE DOOR!
For the fraction of a second Jimmie Dale stood motionless. Found as Jimmie Dale in the den of Larry the Bat, and the consequences required no effort of the imagination to picture them; police or denizen of the underworld who was knocking there, it was all the same, the method of death would be a little different, that was all--one legalised, the other not. Jimmie Dale, Larry the Bat, the Gray Seal, once uncovered, could expect as much quarter as would be given to a cornered rat. His eyes swept the room with a swift, critical glance--evidences of Larry the Bat, the clothes, were still about, even if he in the person of Jimmie Dale, alone d.a.m.ning enough, were not standing there himself.
And he was even weaponless--the Tocsin had taken the revolver from his pocket, together with those other telltale articles, the mask, the flashlight, the little blued-steel tools, before she had intrusted him that night, wounded and unconscious, to Hanson's care.
Jimmie Dale slipped his feet out of his low evening pumps, s.n.a.t.c.hed up the old coat and hat from the pile, put them on, and, without a sound, reached the gas jet and turned it off. A second had gone by--no more--the knocking still sounded insistently on the door. It was dark now, perfectly black. He started across the room, his tread absolutely silent as the trained muscles, relaxing, threw the body weight gradually upon one foot before the next step was taken. It was like a shadow, a little blacker in outline than the surrounding blackness, stealing across the floor.
Halfway to the door he paused. The knocking had ceased. He listened intently. It was not repeated. Instead, his ear caught a guarded step retreating outside in the hall. Jimmie Dale drew a breath of relief.
He went on again to the door, still listening. Was it a trap--that step outside?
At the door now, tense, alert, he lowered his ear to the keyhole. There came the faintest creak from the stairs. Jimmie Dale's brows gathered.
It was strange! The knocking had not lasted long. Whoever it was was going away--but it required the utmost caution to descend those stairs, rickety and tumble-down as they were, with no more sound than that!
Why such caution? Why not a more determined and prolonged effort at his door--the visitor had been easily satisfied that Larry the Bat was not within. TOO easily satisfied! Jimmie Dale turned the key noiselessly in the lock. He opened the door cautiously--half inch--an inch, there was no sound of footsteps now. Occasionally a lodger moved about on the floor above; occasionally from somewhere in the tenement came the murmur of voices as from behind closed door--that was all. All else was silence and darkness now.
The door, on its well-oiled hinges, swung wide open. Jimmie Dale thrust out his head into the hall--and something fell upon the threshold with a little thud--but for a moment Jimmie Dale did not move. Listening, trying to pierce the darkness, he was as still as the silence around him; then he stooped and groped along the threshold. His hand closed upon what seemed like a small box wrapped in paper. He picked it up, closed and locked the door again, and retreated back across the room. It was strange--unpleasantly strange--a box propped stealthily against the door so that it would fall to the threshold when the door was opened!
And why the stealth? What did it mean? Had the underworld with its thousand eyes and ears already succeeded in a few days where the police had failed signally for years--had they sent him this, whatever it was, as some grim token that they had run Larry the Bat to earth? He shook his head. No; gangland struck more swiftly, with less finesse than that--the ”cat-and-mouse” act was never one it favoured, for the mouse had been known to get away.
Jimmie Dale lighted the gas again, and turned the package over in his hands. It was, as he had surmised, a small cardboard box; and it was wrapped in plain paper and tied with a string. He untied the string, and still suspicious, as a man is suspicious in the knowledge that he is stalked by peril at every turn, removed the wrapper a little gingerly.
It was still without sign or marking upon it, just an ordinary cardboard box. He lifted off the cover, and, with a short, sudden laugh, stared, a little out of countenance, at the contents.
On the top lay a white, unaddressed envelope. HERS! Beneath--he emptied the box on the table--his black silk mask, his automatic revolver, the kit of fine, small blued-steel burglar's tools, his pocket flashlight, and the thin metal insignia case. The Tocsin! Impulsively Jimmie Dale turned toward the door--and stopped. His shoulders lifted in a shrug that, meant to be philosophical, was far from philosophical. He could not, dared not venture far through the tenement dressed as he was; and even if he could there were three exits to the Sanctuary, a fact that now for the first time was not wholly a source of unmixed satisfaction to him; and besides--she was gone!
Jimmie Dale opened the letter, a grim smile playing on his lips. He had forgotten for the moment that the illusion he had cherished for years in the belief that she did not know Larry the Bat as an alias of Jimmie Dale was no more than--an illusion. Well, it had been a piece of consummate egotism on his part, that was all. But, after all, what did it matter? He had had his innings, tried in the role of Larry the Bat to solve her ident.i.ty, devoted weeks on end to the attempt--and failed.
Some day, perhaps, his turn would come; some day, perhaps, she would no longer be able to elude him, unless--the letter crackled suddenly in his fingers--unless the house that they had built on such strange and perilous foundations crashed at some moment, without an instant's warning, in disaster and ruin to the ground. Who knew but that this letter now, another call to the Gray Seal to act, another peril invited, would be the LAST? There must be an end some day; luck and nerve had their limitations--it had almost ended last week!
”Dear Philanthropic Crook”--it was the same inevitable beginning. ”You are well enough again, aren't you, Jimmie?--I am sending these little things back to you, for you will need them to-night.”--Jimmie Dale read on, muttering s.n.a.t.c.hes of the letter aloud: ”Michael Breen prospecting in Alaska--map of location of rich mining claim--Hamvert, his former partner, had previously fleeced him of fifteen thousand dollars--his share of a deal together--Breen was always a very poor man--Breen later struck a claim alone; but, taking sick, came back home--died on arrival in New York after giving map to his wife--wife in very needy circ.u.mstances--lives with little daughter of seven in New Roch.e.l.le--works out by the day at Henry Mittel's house on the Sound near-by--wife intrusted map for safe-keeping and advice to Mittel--Hamvert after map--telephone wires cut--room one hundred and forty-eight, corner, right, first floor, Palais-Metropole Hotel, unoccupied--connecting doors--quarter past nine to-night--the Weasel--Mittel's house later--the police--look out for both the Weasel and the police, Jimmie--”
There was more, several pages of it, explanations, specific details down to a minute description of the locality and plan of the house on the Sound. Jimmie Dale, too intent now to mutter, read on silently. At the end he shuffled the sheets a little abstractedly, as his face hardened.
Then his fingers began to tear the letter into little shreds, tearing it over and over again, tearing the shreds into tiny particles. He had not been far wrong. From what the night promised now, this might well be the last letter. Who knew? There would be need of all the wit and luck and nerve to-night that the Gray Seal had ever had before.