It was three nights later. Old Jason had placed a tray with after-dinner coffee and a liqueur set on the table at Jimmie Dale’s elbow—that was fully an hour ago, and both coffee and liqueur were untouched. Things were not going well. Apart entirely from all lack of success where the Tocsin was concerned, things were not going well. The fate of Frenchy Virat, the fate of the Wolf, and, added to this, the Gray Seal’s intervention in the plans and purposes of one Gentleman Laroque and certain gentlemen still higher up than Laroque, had not passed unmarked or unnoticed in the underworld. And now in the underworld a strange, ominous and far-reaching disquiet reigned. It was an underworld rampant with suspicion, mad with fury, more dangerous than it had ever been before.
Jimmie Dale’s hand reached abstractedly into the pocket of his dinner jacket for his cigarette case. He lighted a cigarette, leaned back once more in the big, leather-upholstered lounging chair, and his eyes, half closed, strayed introspectively around the luxuriously appointed room, his own particular den in his Riverside Drive residence. Once, a very long while ago, years ago, so long ago now that it seemed as though it must have been in some strange previous incarnation, back in those days when the Tocsin had first come into his life, and when he had known her only as the author of those mysterious letters, those “calls to arms” to the Gray Seal, she had written: “Things are a little too warm, aren’t they, Jimmie? Let’s let them cool for a year.”
A blue thread curled lazily upward from the tip of the cigarette. Jimmie Dale’s eyes fastened mechanically on the twisting, wavering spiral, followed it mechanically as it rose and spread out into filmy, undulating, fantastic shapes—and the strong, square jaw set suddenly hard. It was not so very strange that those words should have come back to him to-night! Things were “warm” now—and he could not let them “cool” for a year!
“Warm!” He smiled a little mirthlessly. The comparison was very slight! Then, at the beginning, at the outset of the Gray Seal’s career, the police, it was true, had shown a certain unpleasant anxiety for a closer acquaintanceship, but that was about all. To-day, lashed on and mocked by a virulent press, goaded to madness by their own past failures to “get” the Gray Seal, to whose door they laid a hundred crimes and for whom the bars of a death cell in Sing Sing was the goal if they could but catch their prey, the police, to a man, were waging a ceaseless and relentless war against him; and to-day, joining hands with the police, the underworld in all its thousand ramifications, prompted by fear, by suspicion of one another, reached out to trap him, and to deal out to him a much more speedy, but none the less certain, fate than that prescribed by the statutes of the law!
He shook his head. It could not go on—indefinitely. The role was too hard to play; the dual life, in a sort of grim, ironical self-mockery, brought even in its own successful interpretation added dangers and perils with each succeeding day. As it had been with Larry the Bat, the more he now lived Smarlinghue the more it became difficult to slough off Smarlinghue and live as Jimmie Dale; the more Smarlinghue became trusted and accepted in the inner circles of the underworld, the more he became a figure in those sordid surroundings, and the more dangerous it became to “disappear” at will without exciting suspicion, where suspicion, as it was, was already spread into every nook and corner of the Bad Lands, where each rubbed shoulders with his fellow in the lurking dread that the other was—the Gray Seal!
The police were no mean antagonists, he made no mistake on that score; but the peril that was the graver menace of the two, and the greater to be feared, was—the underworld. And here in the underworld in the last few days, here where on every twisted, vicious lip was the whisper, “Death to the Gray Seal,” there had come even another menace. He could not define it, it was intuition perhaps—but intuition had never failed him yet. It was an undercurrent of which he had gradually become conscious, the sense of some unseen, guiding power, that moved and swayed and controlled, and was present, dominant, in every den and dive in crimeland. There had been many gang leaders and heads of little coteries of crime, cunning, crafty in their way, and all of them unscrupulous, like the Wolf, for instance, who had sworn openly and boastingly through the Bad Lands, and had been believed for a season, that they would bring the Gray Seal to a last accounting—but it was more than this now. There was a craftier brain and a stronger hand at work than the Wolf’s had ever been! Who was it? He shook his head. He did not know. He had gone far into the innermost circles of the underworld—and he did not know. He sensed a power there; and in a dozen different, intangible ways, still an intuition more than anything else, he had sensed this “some one,” this power, creeping, fumbling, feeling its implacable way through the dark, as it were, toward him.
Yes, it was getting “warm”—perilously warm! And inevitably there must come an end—some day. The warning stared him in the face. But he could not stop, could not heed the warning, could not let things “cool” now for a year, and stand aside until the storm should have subsided! Where was the Tocsin? If his peril was great—what was hers!
He surged suddenly upward from his chair, his hands clenched until the knuckles stood out like ivory knobs. The Tocsin! The woman he loved—where was she? Was she safe to-night? Where was she? He could not stop until that question had been answered, be the consequences what they might! Warnings, the realisation of peril—he laughed shortly, in grim bitterness—counted little in the balance after all, did they not! Where was the Tocsin?
The telephone rang. Jimmie Dale stared at the instrument for a moment, as though it were some singular and uninvited intruder who had broken in without warrant upon his train of thought; and then, leaning forward over the table, he lifted the receiver from the hook.
“Yes? Hello! Yes?” inquired Jimmie Dale. “What is it?”
A man’s voice, hurried, and seemingly somewhat agitated, answered him.
“I would like to speak to Mr. Dale—to Mr. Dale in person.”
“This is Mr. Dale speaking,” said Jimmie Dale a little brusquely. “What is it?”
“Oh, is that you, Mr. Dale?” The voice had quickened perceptibly. “I didn’t recognise your voice—but then I haven’t heard it for a long while, have I? This is Forrester. Are—are you very busy to-night, Mr. Dale?”
“Oh, hello, Forrester!” Jimmie Dale’s voice had grown more affable. “Busy? Well, I don’t know. It depends on what you mean by busy.”
“An hour or two,” the other suggested—the tinge of anxiety in his tones growing more pronounced. “The time to run out here in your car. I haven’t any right to ask it, I know, but the truth is I—I want to talk to some one pretty badly, and I need some financial help, and—and I thought of you. I—I’m afraid there’s a mess here. The bank examiners landed in suddenly late this afternoon.”
“The—what?” demanded Jimmie Dale sharply.
“The bank examiners—I—I can’t talk over the ‘phone. Only, for God’s sake, come—will you? I’ll be in my rooms—you know where they are, don’t you—on the cottier over—”
“Yes, I know,” Jimmie Dale broke in tersely; then, quietly: “All right, Forrester, I’ll come.”
“Thank God!” came Forrester’s voice—and disconnected abruptly.
Jimmie Dale replaced the receiver on the hook, stared at the instrument again in a perplexed way; then, called the garage on the private house wire. There was no answer. He walked quickly then across the room and pushed an electric button.
“Jason,” he said a moment later, as the old butler appeared on the threshold in answer to the summons, “Benson doesn’t answer in the garage. I presume he is downstairs. I wish you would ask him to bring the touring car around at once. And you might have a light overcoat ready for me—Jason.”
“Yes, sir,” said the old man. “Yes, Master Jim, sir, at once.” His eyes sought Jimmie Dale’s, and dropped—but into them had come, not the questioning of familiarity, but the quick, anxious questioning inspired by the affection that had grown up between them from the days when, as the old man was so fond of saying, he had dandled his Master Jim upon his knee. “Yes, sir, Master Jim, at once, sir,” Jason repeated—but he still hesitated upon the threshold.
And then Jimmie Dale shook his head whimsically—and smiled.
“No—not to-night, Jason,” he said reassuringly. “It’s quite all right, Jason—there’s no letter to-night.”
The old man’s face cleared instantly.
“Yes, sir; quite so, sir. Thank you, Master Jim,” he said. “Shall I tell Benson that he is to drive you, sir, or—”
“No; I’ll drive myself, Jason,” decided Jimmie Dale.
“Yes, sir—very good, sir”—the door closed on Jason.
Jimmie Dale turned back into the room, began to pace up and down its length, and for a moment the reverie that the telephone had interrupted was again dominant in his mind. Jason was afraid. Jason—even though he knew so little of the truth—was afraid. Well, what then? He, Jimmie Dale, was not blind himself! It had come almost to the point where his back was against the wall at last; to the point where, unless he found the Tocsin before many more days went by, it would be, as far as he was concerned—too late!
And then he shrugged his shoulders suddenly—and his forehead knitted into perplexed furrows. Forrester—and the telephone message! What did it mean? There was an ugly sound to it, that reference to the bank examiners and the need of financial assistance. And it was a little odd, too, that Forrester should have telephoned him, Jimmie Dale, unless it were accounted for by the fact that Forrester knew of no one else to whom he might apply for perhaps a large sum, of ready money. True, he knew Forrester quite well—not as an intimate friend—but only in a sort of casual, off-hand kind of a way, as it were, and he had known him for a good many years; but their acquaintanceship would not warrant the other’s action unless the man were in desperate straits. Forrester had been a clerk in the city bank where his, Jimmie Dale’s, father had transacted his business, and it was there he had first met Forrester. He had continued to meet Forrester there after his father had died; and then Forrester had been offered and had accepted the cashiership of a small local bank out near Bayside on Long Island. He had run into Forrester there again once or twice on motor trips—and once, held up by an accident to his car, he had dined with Forrester, and had spent an hour or two in the other’s rooms. That was about all.
Jimmie Dale’s frown grew deeper. He liked Forrester The man was a bachelor and of about his, Jimmie Dale’s, own age, and had always appeared to be a decent, clean-lived fellow, a man who worked hard, and was apparently pushing his way, if not meteorically, at least steadily up to the top, a man who was respected and well-thought of by everybody—and yet just what did it mean? The more he thought of it, the uglier it seemed to become.
He stepped suddenly toward the telephone—and as abruptly turned away again. He remembered that Forrester did not have a telephone in his rooms, for, on the night of the break-down, he, Jimmie Dale, had wanted to telephone, and had been obliged to go outside to do so. Forrester, obviously then, had done likewise to-night. Well, he should have insisted on a fuller explanation in the first place if he had intended to make that a contingent condition; as it was, it was too late now, and he had promised to go.
The sound of a motor car on the driveway leading from the private garage in the rear reached him. Benson was bringing out the car now. Jimmie Dale, as he prepared to leave the room, glanced about him from force of habit, and his eyes held for an instant on the portières behind which, in the little alcove, stood the squat, barrel-shaped safe. Was there anything he would need to-night—that leather girdle, for instance, with its circle of pockets containing its compact little burglar’s kit? He shook his head impatiently. He had already told Jason—if in other words—that there was no “call to arms” to the Gray Seal to-night, hadn’t he? It was habit again that had brought the thought, that was all! For the rest, in the last few days, since this new intuitive danger from the underworld had come to him, an automatic had always reposed in his pocket by day and under his pillow by night; and by way of defence, too, though they might appear to be curious weapons of defence if one did not stop to consider that the means of making a hurried exit through a locked door might easily make the difference between life and death, his pockets held a small, but very carefully selected collection of little steel picklocks. He smiled somewhat amusedly at himself, as he passed out of the room and descended the stairs to the hall below. The contents of the safe could hardly have added anything that would be of any service even in an emergency! His mental inventory of his pockets had been incomplete—there was still the thin, metal insignia case, and the black silk mask, both of which, like the automatic, were never now out of his immediate possession.
He slipped into his coat as Jason held it out for him, accepted the soft felt hat which Jason extended, and, with a nod to the old butler, ran down the steps, dismissed Benson, who stood waiting, and entered his car.
It was three-quarters of an hour later when Jimmie Dale drew up at the curb on the main street of the little Long Island town that was his destination.
“Pretty good run!” said Jimmie Dale to himself, as he glanced at the car’s clock under its little electric bulb. “Halfpast nine.”
He descended from the car, and nodded as he surveyed his surroundings. He had stopped neither in front of the bank, nor in front of Forrester’s rooms—it was habit again, perhaps, the caution prompted by Forrester’s statement relative to the bank examiners. If there was trouble, and the obvious deduction indicated that there was, he, Jimmie Dale, had no desire to figure in it in a public way. Again he nodded his head. Yes, he quite had his bearings now. It was the usual main street of a small town—fairly well lighted, stores and shops flanking the pavements on either side, and of perhaps a distance equivalent to some seven or eight city blocks in length. Two blocks further up, on the same side of the street as that on which he was standing, was the bank—not a very pretentious establishment, he remembered; its staff consisting of but one or two apart from Forrester, as was not unusual with small local banks, though this in no way indicated that the business done was not profitable, or, comparatively, large. Jimmie Dale started forward along the street. On the corner just ahead of him was a two-story building, the second floor of which had been divided into rooms originally designed to be used as offices, as, indeed, most of them were, but two of these Forrester had fitted up as bachelor quarters.
Jimmie Dale turned the corner, walked down the side street to the office entrance that led to the floor above, opened the door, and ran lightly up the stairs. At the head of the stairs he paused to get his bearings once more. Forrester’s rooms were here directly at the head of the stairs, but he had forgotten for the moment whether they were on the right or left of the corridor; and the corridor being unlighted now and without any sign of life left him still more undecided. It seemed, though, if his recollection served him correctly, that the rooms had been on the right. He moved in that direction, found the door, and knocked; but, receiving no answer, crossed the hall again, and knocked on the door on the left-hand side. There was no answer here, either. He frowned a little impatiently, and returned once more to the right-hand door. Forrester probably was up at the bank, and had not expected him to make the run out from the city so quickly. He tried the door tentatively, found it unlocked, opened it a little way, saw that the room within was lighted—and suddenly, with a low, startled exclamation, stepped swiftly forward over the threshold, and closed the door behind him.
It was Forrester’s room, this one here at the right of the corridor—his recollection had not been at fault. It was Forrester’s room, and Forrester himself was there—on the floor—dead.
For a moment Jimmie Dale stood rigid and without movement, save that as his eyes swept around the apartment his face grew hard and set, his lips drooping in sharp, grim lines at the corners of his mouth.
“My God!” Jimmie Dale whispered.
There was a faint, almost imperceptible odour in the room, like the smell of peach blossom—he noticed it now for the first time, as his eyes fastened on a small, empty bottle that lay on the floor a few feet away from the dead man’s outstretched arm. Jimmie Dale stepped forward abruptly now, and knelt down beside the man for a hurried; examination. It was unnecessary—he knew that even before he performed the act. Yes—the man was dead He reached out and picked up the bottle. The odour was tell-tale evidence enough. The bottle had contained prussic, or hydrocyanic acid, probably the moist deadly poison in existence, and the swiftest in its action. He replaced the bottle on the spot where he had found it, and stood up.
Again, Jimmie Dale’s eyes swept his surroundings. The room in which he stood was a sort of living room or den. There was a desk over by the far wall, a couch near the door, and several comfortable lounging chairs. Forrester lay with his head against the sharp edge of one of the legs of the couch, as though he had rolled off and struck against it.
Opposite the desk, across the room, was the door leading into the second room of the little apartment. Jimmie Dale moved toward this now, and stepped across the threshold. The room itself was unlighted, but there was light enough from the connecting doorway to enable him to see fairly well. It was Forrester’s bedroom, and in no way appeared to have been disturbed. He remembered it quite well. There was a door here, too, that gave on the hall. He circled around the bed and reached the door. It was locked.
Jimmie Dale returned to the living room—and stood there in a sort of grim immobility, looking down at the form on the floor. He was not callous. Death, as often as he had seen it, and in its most tragic phases, had not made him callous, and he had liked Forrester—but suicide was not a man’s way out, it was the way a coward took, and if it brought pity, it was the pity that was blunted with the sterner, almost contemptuous note of disapproval. What had happened since Forrester had 'phoned, that had driven the man to this extremity? When Forrester had 'phoned he had appeared to be agitated enough, but, at least, he had seemed to have had hopes that the appeal he was then making might see him through, and, as proof of that, there had been unmistakable relief in the man’s voice when he, Jimmie Dale, had agreed to the other’s request. And what had been the meaning of that “financial help”? Had, for instance—for it was pitifully obvious that if the bank had been looted an innocent man would not commit suicide on that account—a greater measure of the depredation been uncovered than had been counted on, so much indeed that, say, the financial assistance Forrester had intended to ask for had now increased to such proportions that he had realised the futility of even a request; or, again, had it for some reason, since he had telephoned, now become impossible to restore the funds even if they were in his possession?
A sheet of note paper lying on the desk caught Jimmie Dale’s eyes. He stepped forward, picked it up—and his lips drew tight together, as he read the two or three miserable lines that were scrawled upon it:
What’s left is in the middle drawer of the desk. There’s only one way out now—I don’t see any other way. I thought that I could get—but what does that matter! God help me! I’m sorry.
I’m sorry! It was a pitiful epitaph for a man’s life! I’m sorry! Jimmie Dale’s face softened a little—the man was dead now. “I’m sorry.... Fleming P. Forrester”—he had seen that signature on bank paper a hundred times in the old days; he had little thought ever to see it on a document such as this!
He stared at the paper for a long time, and then, from the paper, his eyes travelled over the desk, then shifted again to Forrester—and then, for the second time, he knelt beside the other on the floor. For the moment, what was referred to as “being all that was left” in the middle drawer of the desk could wait. There was another matter now. He felt hurriedly through Forrester’s vest and coat pockets—and from one of the pockets drew out a folded piece of paper. It was not what he was looking for, but it was all that rewarded his search. He unfolded the paper. It was dirty and crumpled, and the few lines written upon it were badly penned and illiterate:
The ante’s gone up—get me? Six thousand bucks. You come across with that to-morrow morning by ten o’clock—or I’ll spill the beans. And I ain’t got any more paper to write any more letters on either—savvy? This is the last.
There was no signature. Jimmie Dale read it again—and abruptly put it in his own pocket. Yes, he had liked Forrester—well enough for this anyway! The man might have a mother perhaps—it would be bad enough in any case. And those other things, the empty bottle, the sheet of note paper with its scrawled confession—what about them? He returned with a queer sort of hesitant indecision to the desk. He had no right of course to touch them unless—
He shook his head sharply, as he pulled open the middle drawer of the desk.
“Newspapers—publicity—rotten!” he muttered savagely. “One chance in ten, and—ah!”
From the back of the drawer where it had been tucked in under a mass of papers, he had extracted a little bundle of documents that were held together by an elastic band. He snapped off the band, and ran through the papers rapidly. For the most part they were bonds and stock certificates indorsed by their owners, and evidently had been held by the bank as collateral for loans.
And then suddenly Jimmie Dale straightened up, tense and alert. He had no desire, very far from any desire to be caught here, or to figure publicly in any way in the case. The street door had opened and closed again. Footsteps, those of three men, his acute, trained hearing told him, sounded on the stairs. Again there came that queer, hesitant indecision as he stood there, while his eyes travelled in swift succession from the bank’s securities in his hand to the note on the desk, to the empty bottle on the floor, to the white, upturned face of the silent form huddled against the couch.
“One chance in ten,” muttered Jimmie Dale through his set lips. “One chance in ten—and I guess I’ll take it!”
The footsteps came nearer—they were almost at the head of the stairs now. But now Jimmie Dale was in action—swift as a flash and silent as a shadow in every movement. The bundle of securities was thrust into his pocket, the sheet of note paper followed, and, as a knock sounded on the door, he stooped, picked up the bottle from the floor, and darted into the adjoining room—and in another instant he had reached the locked door and was working at it silently and swiftly with a picklock.
At the other door the knocking still continued—and then it was opened—and there came a chorus of low, horrified, startled cries, and the quick rush of feet into the room.
The picklock went back into Jimmie Dale’s pocket, and crouched, now, his hand on the knob, turning it gradually without a sound, drawing the door ajar inch by inch, he kept his eyes on the doorway connecting with the other room. He could see the three men bending over Forrester. Their voices came in confused, broken, snatches:
“... Dead!... Good God!... Are you sure?... Perhaps he’s only fainted.... No, he’s dead, poor devil!...”
And then one of the men, the youngest of the three, a slight-built, clean-shaven, dark-eyed man of perhaps twenty-eight or thirty, rose abruptly, and glanced sharply around the room.
“Yes, he’s dead!” he said bitterly. “Any one could tell that! But he wouldn’t be dead, and this would never have happened if you’d done what I wanted you to do when you first came to the bank this afternoon. I wanted you to have him arrested then, didn’t I?”
One of the others—and it was obvious that the others were the two bank examiners—a man of middle age, answered soberly.
“You’re upset, Dryden,” he said. “You know we couldn’t do that—”
“On a teller’s word against the cashier’s—of course not!” the young man broke in caustically. “Well, you see now, don’t you?”
“We couldn’t do it then without proof,” amended the bank examiner quietly.
“Proof!” Dryden exclaimed. “My God—proof! Who tipped your people off to have you drop in there this afternoon? I did, didn’t I? Do you think I’d do that without knowing what I was about! Didn’t I tell you that there was nothing but the office fixtures left! Didn’t I? There were only the two of us on the staff, and didn’t I tell you that I had discovered that the books were cooked from cover to cover? Yes, I did! And you had to get your pencils out and start in on a thumb-rule examination, as though nothing were the matter! Well, what did you find? The securities in a mess, what there was left of them—and what was supposed to be twenty thousand dollars that came out from the city yesterday nothing but a package of blank paper!”
“You didn’t know that yourself until half an hour ago when we started to check up the cash,” returned the other a little sharply.
“Well, perhaps, I didn’t,” admitted Dryden; “but I knew about the books.”
“Besides that,” continued the bank examiner, “Mr. Forrester was in town this afternoon when we got to the bank and this is the first time we have seen him, so we could not very well have done anything other than we have done in any case. I mention this because you are talking wildly, and that sort of talk, if it gets out, won’t do any of us any good. You don’t want to blame Mr. Marner here and myself for Mr. Forrester’s death, do you?”
“No—of course, I don’t!” said Dryden, in a more subdued voice. “I don’t mean that at all. I guess you’re right—I’m excited. I—well”—he motioned jerkily toward the form on the floor—“I’m not used to walking into a room and finding that.”
It was Marner, the other bank examiner, who broke a moment’s silence.
“We none of us are,” he said, and brushed his hand across his forehead. “A doctor can’t do any good, of course, but I suppose we should call one at once, and notify the police, too. I—”
Jimmie Dale had slipped through the door and out into the hall. A moment more and he had descended the stairs and gained the street, still another and he had stepped nonchalantly into his car. The car started forward, passed out of the lighted zone of the town’s main street—and in the darkness, headed toward New York, Jimmie Dale, his nonchalance gone now, leaned forward over the wheel, and the big sixty horse-power car leaped into its stride like a thoroughbred at the touch of the spur, and tore onward at dare-devil speed through the night.
His lips twisted in a smile that held little of humour. Back there in that room they would call a doctor, and they would call the police. And the doctor would establish the fact that Forrester had died from the effects of a dose of prussic acid; and the police would establish—what? Prussic acid was swift in its effect. If Forrester had died from that cause, how had he taken it himself, and out of what had he taken it? What the police would see would be quite a different thing from what he, Jimmie Dale, had seen when he opened the door of that room! Instead of the evidence of suicide, there was now every evidence of murder. The bank examiners on entering the room, started at what they saw, obsessed with the wreckage of the bank, might still for the moment have jumped to the conclusion, natural enough under the circumstances, of suicide; but the police, after ten minutes of unemotional investigation, would father a very different theory.
Jimmie Dale’s jaws clamped, as his eyes narrowed on the flying thread of gray road under the dancing headlights. Well, the die was cast now! For good or bad, his response to Forrester’s telephone appeal had become the vital factor in the case. For good or bad! He laughed out sharply into the night. He would see soon enough—old Kronische, the wizened, crafty, little chemist, who burrowed like a fox in its hole deep in the heart of the Bad Lands, would answer that question. Old Kronische had a record that was known to police and underworld alike—and was trusted by neither one, and feared by both. But he was clever—clever with a devilish cleverness. God alone knew what he was up to in the long hours of day and night amongst his retorts and test tubes in his abominable smelling little hole; but every one knew that from old Kronische anything of a chemical nature could be obtained if the price, not a small one, was forthcoming, and if old Kronische was satisfied with the credentials of his prospective client.
Yes—old Kronische! Old Kronische was the man, the one than; there was no possible hesitancy or question there—the question was how to reach old Kronische. Jimmie Dale shook his head in a quick, impatient gesture, as though in irritation because his brain would not instantly respond to his demand to formulate a plan. It seemed simple enough, old Kronische was perfectly accessible—but it was, nevertheless, far from simple. He could not go to old Kronische as Jimmie Dale, there was an ugly turn that had been taken in that room of Forrester’s now. If, as Jimmie Dale, he had had reason to keep out of the affair before, it was imperative that he should do so now—or he might find himself in a very awkward situation, so awkward, in fact, that the consequences might lead anywhere, and “anywhere” to Jimmie Dale, to the Gray Seal, to Smarlinghue, might mean ruin, wreckage and disaster. Nor, much less, could he risk going to old Kronische as Smarlinghue. He could not trust old Kronische. How, if old Kronische chose to “talk,” could Smarlinghue account for any connection with what had transpired in Forrester’s room? How long would it be, even if Smarlinghue were no more than put under surveillance, before the discovery would be made that Smarlinghue was but a role that covered—Jimmie Dale!
And then Jimmie Dale’s strained, set face relaxed a little. His brain had repented of its stubbornness, it seemed, and was at work again. There was a way, a very sure way as far as old Kronische being “talkative” was concerned, but a very dangerous way from every other point of view. Suppose he went to old Kronische—as Larry the Bat!
The car tore on through the night; towns and villages flashed by; the long, deserted stretches of road began to give way to the city’s outskirts—and Jimmie Dale began to drive more cautiously. Larry the Bat! Yes, it was perfectly feasible, as far as feasibility went. The clothes that he had duplicated at such infinite trouble were still hidden there in the Sanctuary. But to be caught as Larry the Bat meant—the end. That was the one thing the underworld knew, the one thing the police knew—that Larry the Bat was, or had been, the Gray Seal. Still, he had done it once before, and it could be done again. He could reach old Kronische’s without much fear of discovery after all, he would take good care to secure the few minutes necessary to make a “getaway” from the old chemist’s, and afterwards old Kronische could talk as much as he liked about—Larry the Bat! Yes, that was the way! Old Kronische—and Larry the Bat. He, Jimmie Dale, would drive, say, to Marlianne’s restaurant, and telephone Jason to send Benson for the car—Marlianne’s, besides being a very natural stopping place, possessed the added advantage of being quite close to the Sanctuary.
His decision made, Jimmie Dale gave his undivided attention to his car, and ten minutes later, stopping in the shabby street that harboured Marlianne’s, he entered the restaurant, threaded his way through the small crowded rooms—for Marlianne’s, despite its spotted linen, was crowded at all hours—to a sort of hallway at the rear of the place, and entered the telephone booth.
He called his residence, and, as he waited for the connection, glanced at his watch. He smiled grimly. He could congratulate himself for the second time that night on having made a record run. It was not yet quite half-past ten, and he must have been at least a good twenty minutes in Forrester’s rooms. He rattled the hook impatiently. They were a long time in getting the connection! Halfpast ten! He could be at the Sanctuary in another few minutes, ten minutes at the outside; then, say, another twenty to rehabilitate Larry the Bat, and by eleven he—
“Yes—hello!”—he was speaking quickly into the ‘phone, as Jason’s voice reached him. “Jason, I am down here at Marlianne’s. Tell Benson to come for the car, and—” He stopped abruptly. Jason was talking excitedly, almost incoherently at the other end.
“Master Jim, sir! Is that you, sir, Master Jim! It—it came, sir, not ten minutes after you left to-night, and—”
“Jason,” said Jimmie Dale sharply, “what’s the matter with you? What are you talking about? What came?”
“Why—why, sir—I beg your pardon, sir, but I’ve been a bit uneasy ever since, sir. It’s—it’s one of those letters, Master Jim, sir.”
A sudden whiteness came into Jimmie Dale’s face, as he stared into the mouthpiece of the telephone. A “call to arms” from the Tocsin—now—to-night! What was he to do! It was not a trivial thing which that letter would contain—it never had been, and it never would be, and no matter under what circumstances it found him, he—
Jason’s voice faltered over the wire:
“Are you there, sir, Master Jim?”
“Yes,” said Jimmie Dale quietly. “Bring the letter with you, Jason, and come down with Benson. I will wait for you here—in the car outside Marlianne’s. And hurry, Jason—take a taxi down.”
“Yes, sir,” said Jason, his voice trembling a little. “At once, Master Jim.”
Jimmie Dale hung up the receiver, returned to the street, and seated himself in his car. How long would it take them to get here? Half an hour? Well then, for half an hour his hands were tied, and he could do nothing but wait. He glanced around him. It was curious! It was here in this very place that he had once found a letter from her in his car; it was even here that, without knowing it at the moment, he had really seen her for the first time. And now—what did it hold, this letter, this “call to arms” that he sat here waiting for, while out there in that little town a man lay dead on the floor of his room, and around whom, where there had once been the evidence of a coward’s guilt, crowned with the sorriest epitaph that ever man had written, there was now the evidence of a still blacker crime—the crime of murder.
He lighted a cigarette and smoked it through. Could it be that—in her letter! Intuition again? Well, why not—if old Kronische should answer the question as the chances were one in ten that old Kronische might answer it! Yes—why not! It would not be strange. Intuition—because somehow the feeling that it was so grew stronger with each moment that passed—well, once before to-night he had said that intuition had never failed him yet!
The minutes dragged by interminably. He smoked another cigarette, and after that another. The clock under the hood showed five minutes past eleven; the minute hand crept around to eight, nine, ten minutes past the hour—and then a taxi swerved on little better than two wheels around the corner—and Jimmie Dale, springing from his seat, jumped to the pavement as the taxi drew up at the curb.
Jason, palpably agitated, and followed by Benson, descended from the taxi. Jimmie Dale dismissed the cab, and motioned Benson to the car.
“Well, Jason?” he said quickly.
“It’s here, sir, Master Jim”—the old butler fumbled in an inner pocket, and produced an envelope—“I—”
“Thank you! That’s all—Jason.” Jimmie Dale’s quick smile robbed his curt dismissal of any sting. “Benson, of course, will drive you home.”
“Yes, sir.” The old man went slowly to the car, and climbed in beside the chauffeur. “Good-night, sir!” Jason ventured wistfully. “Good-night, Master Jim!”
“Good-night, Jason—good-night, Benson!” Jimmie Dale answered—and, turning, started briskly along the street. Jason’s “good-night” had been eloquent of the old man’s anxiety. He would have liked to reassure Jason—but he had neither the time, nor, for that matter, the ability to do so. The old man would be reassured when he saw his Master Jim enter the house again—and not until then!
Jimmie Dale glanced about him up and down the street. The car had gone, and he was well away from the entrance to Marlianne’s. The street itself was practically deserted. He nodded quickly, and stepped forward toward a street lamp that was close at hand. As well here as anywhere! There was nothing remarkable in the fact that a man should stand under a street lamp and read a letter—even if he were observed.
He tore the envelope open, and, standing there, leaned in apparent nonchalance against the post—but into the dark eyes had leaped a sudden flash. One word seemed to stand out from all the rest on the written page he held in his hand—“Forrester.” He laughed a little in a low, grim way. His intuition had been right again then, and that meant—what? If she, the Tocsin, knew, then—his mind was working subconsciously, leaping from premise to a dimly seen, half formed conclusion, while his eyes travelled rapidly over the written lines.
“Dear Philanthropic Crook:—You will have to hurry, Jimmie.... I do not know what may happen.... Forrester ... bank cashier at”—yes, he knew all that! But this—what was this? “Money lender.... Abe Suviney... bled him ... early days in city bank ... fellow clerk’s defalcation.... Forrester borrowed the money to cover it and save the other.... Suviney used it as a club for blackmail.... Forrester was trapped ... could not extricate himself without inculpating his friend ... friend died ... Suviney put on the screws ... to say anything then was to have it look like a dishonourable method of covering a theft of his own ... would ruin his career ... original amount four thousand ... Forrester has been paying blackmail in the shape of exorbitant interest ever since ... Suviney finally demanded six thousand to-day to be paid at once ... this has nothing to do with the bank robbery, but would look black ... added evidence....” He read on, his mind seeming to absorb the contents of the letter faster than his eyes could decipher the words. “English Dick ... confession forged ... organisation widespread ... enormously powerful ... leadership a mystery ... rendezvous that English Dick visits is at Marlopp’s ... Reddy Mull’s room ... rear room ... leaves cash and securities there under loose board, right-hand corner from door ... twenty thousand cash to-night....”
Jimmie Dale was walking on down the street, his fingers picking and tearing the sheets of paper in his hand into minute fragments. There was a sort of cold, unemotional, unnatural calm upon him. It was all here, all, the Tocsin had—no, not all! She had not known of the last act in the brutal drama, for her letter had been written prior to that. She had not known that there was—murder. But apart from that, to the last detail, in all its hideous, relentless craft, the whole plot was clear. There was no need to go to old Kronische now, no need to assume the role of Larry the Bat. The question was answered—the confession was a forgery—the evidence, not of suicide, but of murder, that he, Jimmie Dale, had left behind him in that room, was the evidence of fact.
He walked on—rapidly now—heading over in the direction of the Bowery. There had been neither ink nor pen upon the desk where he had found the confession, nor had there been a fountain pen in Forrester’s pocket when he had searched the other! He laughed out a little harshly. A strange oversight on some one’s part if there had been foul play—so strange that he had hesitated to believe it possible! And so it had been—one chance in ten, for there was nothing to have prevented Forrester from having written the note elsewhere than in his own room. But if Forrester had written it, he must of necessity have written it very recently, certainly after he had telephoned, that is, within an hour; whereas, if it had been written by some one else and brought there, if it was forged, if it was murder and not suicide, the note must have taken long and painstaking effort to prepare beforehand. That was the question that old Kronische, the chemist, was to have answered, a question that was very much in the cunning old fox’s line—did the condition of the ink show that the note had been written within the hour? It was a very simple question for old Kronische, the man would have answered it instantly, for even to him, Jimmie Dale, the writing had not looked fresh. But there was no need of old Kronische now! And he, Jimmie Dale, understood now, too, the reason for Forrester’s appeal over the telephone. In some way Forrester, without going to the bank itself, had learned that the bank examiners had suddenly put in an appearance, had either discovered or deduced that something was wrong, and had realised that should Suviney’s demand for money, or Suviney’s blackmailing story become known, it would appear as damning evidence of a past record looming up to point suspicion toward him now. That was what he had meant by saying he needed financial help.
Jimmie Dale slipped suddenly into a lane, edged along the wall of the tenement that made the corner, pushed aside a loose board in the fence, passed into the little courtyard beyond, and, still hugging the shadows of the building, opened a narrow French window, and stepped through into a room. He was in the Sanctuary.