The Greatest Crime Novels of Frank L. Packard (14 Titles in One Edition). Frank L. Packard

do you mean?” he stammered.

      “I mean that I want the proof that you are straight,” Jimmie Dale said softly. “I’ve been here in the room all the time. I want to know whether you were stalling on Slimmy Jack, or not. And I want to know, if you were stalling, how you came to be here with him.”

      “That’s a queer spiel,” said Birdie Lee, in a troubled way. “I thought at first you were a bull—but you don’t talk like one. Mabbe you’re playin’ with me; but, whether you are or not, I guess it won’t make much difference what I say. You couldn’t help me if you wanted to now—with him dead there”—he jerked his head toward the form on the floor.

      “Tell me, anyhow,” insisted Jimmie Dale quietly.

      Birdie’s hand lifted and swept across his eyes.

      “Well, all right,” he said, after a moment; “I’ll tell you. Me and Slimmy used to work together all the time in Chicago and out West after I left New York, and until I came back here one day and pulled one alone and got sent up for it. Well, to-day, when they let me out of Sing Sing, Slimmy had come on from Chicago and was waitin’ for me. He had a deal all fixed in Chicago that we was to pull together, a big one, and this little one here was to keep us goin’ until the big one came off. He was with Malay John in this room to-day when a gambler from up the State somewhere blew in with a roll of about three thousand dollars, and handed it over to Malay to keep while he knocked around town for a day or two. Malay put the money in this safe here, and that’s what Slimmy was after for a starter. I told Slimmy I was all through—that I was goin’ straight. He wouldn’t believe me. I guess you don’t. I guess nobody will. I got a record that’s maybe too black to live down, and—oh, well, what’s the use! I meant to live decent, but I guess any chance I had is gone now.” His voice choked. “That’s the way I had doped it out up there in the pen—that I was goin’ straight. That’s all, isn’t it? I told Slimmy I was through—but Slimmy held something over me that was good for twenty years. What could I do? I said I’d come in on this, figurin’ that I could queer the game by stallin’. I—I tried it. If you were here, you saw me. I pretended that I couldn’t open the safe, and—”

      “Can you?” inquired Jimmie Dale gently.

      “That thing!” Birdie Lee smiled mirthlessly. “Why it’s only a double combin—”

      “Open it, then,” prompted Jimmie Dale.

      Birdie Lee stooped impulsively to the dial of the safe; hesitated, then straightened up again, and shook his head.

      “No,” he said. “I guess I’ll take my medicine. I don’t know who you are. I might just as well have opened it for Slimmy as for you. It looks as though you were after the same thing he was.”

      Jimmie Dale smiled.

      “Stand a little away from the safe, Birdie—there,” he instructed. And, as the other obeyed wonderingly, Jimmie Dale knelt to the dial. “You see, I trust you not to move,” he said. The dial was whirling under the sensitive fingers, and, like Birdie before him, his ear was pressed against the face of the safe.

      The moments went by. Birdie Lee was watching in an eager, fascinated, startled way. Came at last a sharp, metallic click, as Jimmie Dale flung the handle over—and the door swung wide. He shut it again instantly—and locked it.

      “It’s your turn, Birdie,” he said calmly. “You see that, as far as I or my intentions are concerned, it doesn’t matter whether you open it or not.”

      “Who are you?” There was awed admiration in Birdie’s voice. “You’re slicker than ever I was, even in the old days. For God’s sake, who are you?”

      “Never mind,” said Jimmie Dale. “Open the safe, if you can.”

      “I can open it all right,” said Birdie, moving slowly forward; “and quicker than you did, because I got the combination when I was workin’ on it with Slimmy watchin’. Throw the light on the knob, will you?”

      It was barely an instant before Birdie Lee swung back the door.

      “Now lock it again,” directed Jimmie Dale. And then, as the other obeyed, he held out his hand to Birdie Lee. “You’re clear, Birdie.”

      A tremor came to the other’s face.

      “Clear?” repeated Birdie unsteadily.

      “Yes—you get your chance. That’s one reason why I came here to-night—to spoil Slimmy Jack’s play, to see that you got your chance if you really wanted it, as”—he added whimsically—“I was informed you did. Go ahead, Birdie—make your get-away—you’re free.”

      But Birdie Lee shook his head.

      “No,” he said, and his voice caught again. “It’s no good.” He pointed to the still form on the floor. “I guess I go up for more than safe-crackin’ this time. I—I guess it’ll be the chair. When they find him here—dead—shot—they’ll call it murder—and they’ll put it onto me. The police know we have been together for years. They know he came here to-day when I got out. We’ve been seen together to-day. We—we were seen quarrelling this afternoon in a saloon over on the Bowery. That was when I was refusin’ to start the old play again. They’d have what looked like an open and shut game against me. I wouldn’t have a hope.”

      It was a moment before Jimmie Dale answered. What the man said was true—he would not have a hope—for an honest life—after five years in the penitentiary. He lifted his flashlight again and played it over Birdie Lee. They showed, those years, in the pallor, the drawn lines, the wan misery in the other’s face.

      And then Jimmie Dale’s lips set firmly under his mask. There was a way to save the man. It was something he had never intended to do again—but it was worth the price—to save this man. It would be like a bombshell exploded in the underworld; it would arouse the police to infuriated activity; it would stir New York to its depths—but, after all, it could not touch Smarlinghue. It would only instill the belief that somehow Larry the Bat had escaped from the tenement fire; it would only mean a hunt for Larry the Bat day and night—but Larry the Bat no longer existed—and it would save this man.

      He clamped the flashlight between his knees, leaving his hands free, and from the leather girdle drew the old-time metal case, thin, like a cigarette case, and from the case, with a pair of little tweezers that precluded the possibility of telltale finger prints, lifted out a small, diamond-shaped, gray-coloured paper seal, adhesive on one side, which he moistened now with his tongue—and, stooping quickly, attached it to the dead man’s sleeve.

      There was a sharp, startled cry from Birdie Lee.

      “The Gray Seal! You’re—you’re Larry the Bat! They passed the word around in Sing Sing that you were dead, and—”

      “And it will be the Gray Seal who is wanted for this—not you,” said Jimmie Dale quietly. Then, almost sharply: “Now make your get-away, Birdie. Hurry! You and I part here. And the greater distance you put between yourself and this place to-night the better.”

      But the man seemed as though robbed of the power of movement—and then his lips quivered, and his eyes filled.

      “But you,” he faltered, “you—you’re doing this for me, and I—I—”

      Jimmie Dale caught the other’s arm in a kindly grip.

      “Good-night, Birdie,” he said significantly. “I’m the last man now that you could afford to be seen with. You understand that. And I guess you can understand that I’ve reasons for not wanting to be seen myself. You’ve got your chance; give me mine to get away—alone.” He pushed the man abruptly toward the door.

      Still Birdie Lee hesitated; then catching Jimmie Dale’s hand, he wrung it hard—and, with a half choked sob, turned and made his way from the room.

      For an instant Jimmie Dale stood looking after the other through the darkness,