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

mockery—but the Wolf’s eyes were no longer on Jimmie Dale’s face, they seemed curiously intent upon the floor at Jimmie Dale’s feet. Mechanically Jimmie Dale followed their direction—and his eyes, too, held on the floor. For a moment neither spoke. The game was up! His boot top was soaked with blood, and, trickling down the side of the boot, a little crimson stream was collecting in a pool upon the floor.

      “You painted some of that on the doorstep!” The Wolf’s taunting laugh held a deadly menace. “And you painted a drop or two of it along the street as you ran. I thought when you bust away from the Spider’s and that cursed gang nosed in that I was going to lose out; but I figured that I had hit you, and I was keeping my eyes skinned to see. And then you commenced to do the drip act—savvy? I was still looking for it when I came out of the lane—you remember, Smarlinghue, don’t you?—you got your memory back, ain’t you?—that I was a bit ahead of the rest of ‘em? It didn’t take a second to spot that on the doorstep, and there’s some more of it in the hall. Damned queer, ain’t it—that it led right to Smarlinghue’s room!” The laugh was gone. The Wolf began to come forward across the room. The snarl was in his voice again. “You come across with those sparklers, and you come across—quick!”

      But now Smarlinghue was like a crazed and demented creature, and he shook his fists at the Wolf.

      “I won’t! I won’t!” he screamed. “You went there to do the same thing! I had as much right as you! And I got them—I got them! They said he had them there, they were all talking about them to-day, and I got them! I won! They’re mine now! I won’t give them to you! I won’t! I tell you, I won’t!”

      “Won’t you?” The Wolf had reached Jimmie Dale, and one of the Wolf’s hands found and shook Jimmie Dale’s throat, while the revolver muzzle pressed hard against Jimmie Dale’s breast. “Oh, I guess you will! D’ye hear about a man being murdered to-day with his face cut up? Oh, you did—eh? Well, I happen to know that man was the Spider, and one of these days, mabbe, the police’ll tumble to who it was, too. Get me? Suppose I call some of that gang back, and show ‘em the painting you’ve done along the hall—eh? And then, by and by, when the bulls get wise, it’ll be yours for the juice route, not just a space or two for cracking a box! Get me again?”

      Smarlinghue, struggling weakly, pulled the other’s hand from his throat.

      “You—you were there, too, at—at the Spider’s,” he choked craftily. “You’re—you’re in it as—as bad as I am.”

      “Sure, I was there!” mocked the Wolf, and snatched at Jimmie Dale’s throat again. “Sure, I was there—everybody saw me! The Spider was a friend of mine, and everybody knows that, too. I was just going there to pay a pal a little visit—see? And that’s how I found you there—see? Anything wrong with that spiel? It’s a cinch, aint it?” The fingers closed tighter and tighter on Jimmie Dale’s throat. “And that’s enough talk—give me them sparklers!” He flung Jimmie Dale savagely away. “Get ‘em!”

      Smarlinghue reeled backward in the direction of the disordered canvases on the floor. It was quite true! If the Wolf carried out his threat—which he most certainly would do if he did not get the diamonds for himself—Smarlinghue, and not the Wolf, would be held for the Spider’s murder. Jimmie Dale stooped, fumbled amongst the canvases, and produced the cash-box. Well, the diamonds would have to go, that was all—he had no choice left to him. But he was still “Smarlinghue,” still the half cowed, yet half defiant, pale-faced creature that shook with mingled rage and fear, as he turned again. He clutched the cash-box to him, as though loath to let it go; but, too, as though fascinated by the Wolf’s revolver, he moved reluctantly toward the Wolf, who now stood by the table.

      Smarlinghue’s hands twined and twined over the box, caressing it in hideous greed and avarice; and he mumbled, and his lips worked.

      “Half—give me half?” he whispered feverishly.

      “I’ll give you—nothing!” snarled the Wolf.

      “Half—give me a quarter then?” whimpered Smarlinghue.

      “Drop it!” The Wolf’s revolver jerked forward into Jimmie Dale’s face.

      And then Smarlinghue screamed out in impotent rage, and, wrenching the cover of the cash-box open, flung the jewels in a glittering heap upon the table—and, dancing in demented fashion upon his toes, like a man gone mad, he hurled the cash-box in fury from him. It went through the canvas on the easel, and clattered to the floor.

      The Wolf laughed.

      But Smarlinghue had retreated now, and, crouched upon the cot, was mumbling through twisted lips.

      And again the Wolf laughed, and, gathering up the jewels, dropped them into his pocket, and backed to the door. He stood there an instant, his eyes narrowed on Jimmie Dale.

      “I got the stuff now”—he was snarling low, viciously—“and mabbe that puts it a little more up to me. But if you ever open your mug about this, I’ll do to you what I did to the Spider to-day—and if you want to know what that is, go and ask the police to let you have a look! D’ye understand?”

      Came the brutal, taunting laugh again, and the door closed behind the Wolf, and his step died away along the passage, and rang an instant later on the pavement without.

      It was a moment before Jimmie Dale moved—but into Smarlinghue’s distorted features there came a strange smile. He reeled a little from weakness, as he walked to the door, locked it, and, returning, stooped and picked up the cash-box from the floor. In the false bottom, the Tocsin had said. From the leather girdle came a sharp-pointed tool. He pried with it for an instant inside and around the bottom edges, and loosening a sheet of metal that fitted exactly to the edges of the box, lifted out from beneath it several folded sheets of paper. He glanced at the typewritten sheets, a curious, menacing gleam creeping into the dark eyes, then thrust the papers inside his shirt; and, dropping into a chair, unlaced and kicked off his blood-soaked boot.

      He was very weak; he had lost, he must have lost, a great deal of blood—but there was something to do yet—still something to do. There was still—the Wolf!

      He tore the sheet on the cot into strips, and washed and dressed his wound—a flesh wound, but bad enough, he saw, just above the knee. And then, this done, he took a damp piece of cloth, went to the door again, opened it, and looked out. There was neither any one in sight, nor any sound. The passage was murky; one gas-jet alone lighted it, and that was turned down. There were little spots, dark spots on the floor—but the Wolf had told him that. He passed his hand over his head—he was a little dizzy. Then slowly, laboriously, he removed the spots from the hallway—and one from the doorstep.

      Back in his room once more, he locked the door again. A sense of utter exhaustion was stealing upon him—but there was still something yet to be done. Another gulp of brandy steadied him, steadied his head. He took the papers from his pocket and read them now. Here were the details, minute, exact, with the names of those involved, names of those who would squeal quickly enough to save themselves once they were in the clutches of the law, of two of the most famous murder mysteries that New York had known; the details of two, and, unfinished, the partial details of another. It was the evidence the police had long sought. It was the death sentence upon the Wolf—for murder.

      Jimmie Dale’s face, very white now, was set and hard. The Spider had been too late—to save himself. Beginning to fear the Wolf, as the Tocsin had explained, he had begun to make a record of those days gone by, meaning to hold it over the Wolf’s head in self-protection, deposit it somewhere where it would come to light if any attack were made upon him—only the Wolf had struck before the Spider had finished all he had meant to write, before he had told any one or had warned the Wolf that the papers were in existence. Too late to save himself—and yet, if the Wolf still paid the penalty for murder, did it matter if he were convicted for the taking of another life than that of Spider Webb! It was like some grim, retributive proxy! The Spider, at least, had not been too late—for that!

      For a moment longer,