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

a moment into each other’s faces, and from each other’s faces stared at the rifled box upon the floor—and then a look of wan misery crept gray upon the little old lady, and she swayed backward.

      With a cry, that to Jimmie Dale seemed one of more poignant anguish than he had ever heard before, the old gentleman caught her in his arms and supported her to a chair; then running quickly to the hall, called loudly for the maid below.

      There was a merciless smile on Jimmie Dale’s lips. He was retreating now further back into the room toward the door that gave on the hall.

      “I wonder,” said Jimmie Dale to himself through set teeth, “I wonder if a man wouldn’t be justified in putting an end for keeps to that devil Thorold for this!”

      He heard the maid come rushing up the stairs. He could no longer see into the other room now, but a confused mingling of voices reached him:

      “… The police … next door and telephone … the light … while we were at dinner….”

      Jimmie Dale opened the door, slipped across the hall, made his way silently and swiftly down the stairs, and with the single precaution of pulling his slouch hat far down over his eyes, stepped boldly out of the front door, walked quietly down the steps, walked briskly, but without apparent haste, along the street—and turned the first corner.

      Chapter V.

       “Death to the Gray Seal!”

       Table of Contents

      Jimmie Dale hurried now, making his way to the nearest subway station, and took a downtown train. “There should be no danger,” the Tocsin had written. His eyes darkened with a flash of passion. Danger! Danger was a small, pitiful factor now! He had been too late through no fault either of his or the Tocsin’s—but he still knew where the pendant was, or would be! Time was counting again; he was afraid now only that he might be too late a second time. Old Attic would not let any grass grow under his feet in disposing of the diamonds through one of the many channels at his command, and once they had passed out of that scoundrel’s hands they were as good as hopelessly lost. Also there was Thorold to reckon with. Thorold would naturally get the pendant first, then turn it over to Jake Kisnieff. Had Thorold already done so? It depended, of course, on when the theft had been committed. That snatch of conversation—“the light … when we were at dinner”—came back to him. His brows gathered. He crouched a little in his seat, staring abstractedly at the black tunnel walls without. Station after station was passed. Jimmie Dale’s hand, resting on the window sill, was so tightly clenched that it seemed the skin must crack across the knuckles.

      But he was smiling when he left the subway—only it was that same merciless smile once more. It was not alone the mere act of robbery that fanned his anger to a white heat. Again and again, he was picturing in his mind that fine old gray-haired couple; again and again he saw the old colonel bend and lift that sweet face to his, and saw them look into each other’s eyes. There was something holy, something reverent in that love which the years had ripened and mellowed with tenderness; something that was profound, that made of this night’s work a sacrilege in touching them—and that poor jewel, clung to all too obviously through adversity for its past associations, was probably the last real thing of intrinsic value they possessed!

      “I am not sure,” muttered Jimmie Dale—he was fingering the automatic in his pocket, “I am not sure that I can trust myself to-night!”

      Ten minutes’ walk from the subway brought him before a dingy and dilapidated three-story tenement on the East Side. The Nest, they called it in the underworld; and worthily so, for its roof sheltered more of the cheaper and petty class of criminals probably than any other single dwelling in New York—the steerers, the hangers-on, the stalls, those of the lesser breed of vultures, and the more vicious therefore, who at best made but a precarious livelihood from their iniquitous pursuits.

      One of Jimmie Dale’s shoulders was hunched forward, giving a crude and ill-fitting set to his fashionably tailored, Fifth Avenue coat; he staggered slightly, and the flap of his collar protruded, while his tie, pulled out, sprawled over his vest; also his slouch hat, badly crushed and looking as though it had rolled in the mire of the street, was tilted forward at an unhappy angle until it was balanced on the bridge of his nose. Men, women, and children passed him by—for the street was crowded—paying him not the slightest attention. He lurched in through the front door of the tenement, swayed up against the hallway inside—and stood there, still swaying a little.

      It was dark here, and the atmosphere was musty and fetid; a murmur pervaded the place as of voices behind many closed doors, but apart from that the tenement might have been empty and deserted for all the signs of life it evidenced. And then the spot where Jimmie Dale had stood was vacant, and he was along the narrow hallway without a sound, and, opening a door at the rear, stood peering out. After a moment, he closed the door again without fastening it; and, back once more toward the front of the hallway, began to creep silently up the stairs.

      He reached the top landing. Old Attic had two miserable rooms here, where he conducted his even more miserable business! Jimmie Dale dropped on his knees before the door that faced the head of the stairs, and placed his ear to the panel. Noiselessly he tried the door. It was locked. He was smiling that merciless smile again in the darkness, as his deft, slim fingers worked at the keyhole. He was not too late this time! Old Jake was there, and—yes, Thorold, too. They were even now haggling over the pendant—he could hear them quite distinctly now with the door open a crack.

      He pushed the door open a little wider, but very slowly, scarcely an inch at a time. He was in luck again! They were in the inner room. He opened the door still a little wider, stepped softly over the threshold, and closed the door behind him.

      Save for a dim light that filtered out through the half open door of the inner room, it was dark here. Slowly, with that almost uncanny, silent tread that he had acquired on the creaky, rickety stairs of the old Sanctuary, Jimmie Dale began to move forward, the weight of his body wholly and firmly on one foot before the other was lifted from the floor; and, as he advanced, the black silk mask, from a pocket in the leather girdle, was drawn over his face.

      He could see them now quite plainly—the twisted, crunched-up form of old Jake, with his tawny-bearded face, and narrow, shifting little black eyes; the smooth-shaven, suave, oily, cunning countenance of Thorold, the super-crook. Both were sitting at a table in the miserly appointed room, whose only other articles of furniture were a cheap iron bed and a few chairs. Old Jake was whining; Thorold’s voice held an angry rasp.

      “Four thousand, you cursed miser, and not a cent less,” Thorold was saying.

      “Three,” whined the other. “You ain’t splitting fair. I got to take the stones out of their setting, and sell ‘em for what I can get. Stolen stuff’s got to go cheap. You know that.”

      “It’s worth ten or twelve, and you’ll get at least eight for it,” growled Thorold. “That’s four apiece—and I’ve got to split mine again with the guy that pinched it. Hurry up, d’yer hear—I’ve got a date with him in half an hour over in my office.”

      “Ha, ha!” cackled old Jake. “Are you trying to be funny? All the thief gets out of it from you won’t make much of a hole in your share!”

      “That’s my business!” snapped Thorold. “You come across!”

      “Three!” whined old Jake again.

      “Four!” Thorold flung back angrily.

      “Well, let’s have a look at it then; I ain’t seen it for years,” grumbled old Jake. “I ain’t trying to do you. We went into this thing so’s we’d each get the same out of it; but I tell you it ain’t easy to shove big stones when there’ll be a police description out against them, and there ain’t no big prices for ‘em, either.”

      Thorold reached into his pocket—and even in the dull light of the single gas-jet that alone