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

Minister. “It's—it's safe enough.” He stifled a cough. “The rest are all asleep; and on account of what happened this afternoon, I had every shade in the house drawn. I——” He broke off with a quick gasp, as coincident with the faint click of an electric-light switch, a single, shaded incandescent on the desk in front of the safe went on. “You!” he exclaimed. “I—I thought it was to be Hunchback Joe.”

      The fold of the portière in Jimmie Dale's hand drew closer in against the edge of the wall projection until there was left but the veriest crack. A pucker came and nested in little wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. He was not so sure, after all, that he had begun to understand. In view of the Tocsin's letter, he did not understand at all. The man who stood there in the room beside the Minister, the man with the cool, contemptuous black eyes, the thin, cunning lips parted in a grim smile, was Gentleman Laroque.

      “So it was,” said Laroque coolly. “You've got it straight. Hunchback Joe was to come here for the sparklers, smear the trail by bringing them back to me, and then I was going to slip them to old Isaac Shiftel. But Hunchback Joe couldn't come, and as it's a rather fussy job I didn't dare trust any one else, so I came myself. I'll take them direct from here to Shiftel's.”

      The pucker cleared from Jimmie Dale's eyes. Shiftel—old Isaac Shiftel—the fence! The man was an outstanding figure in the underworld! Yes, he did begin to understand. But for once, for the first time since those days in the years gone by when the Tocsin had begun to sound those “calls to arms,” the Tocsin was astray. It was not her fault. It was nothing that she could by any possibility have foreseen. Only as matters now stood the police trap at Laroque's would be abortive—it should have been at Isaac Shiftel's! Jimmie Dale's lips pressed together. Well, he knew where Isaac Shiftel lived, and instead of the police, it would perhaps be——

      Jimmie Dale's mental soliloquy ended abruptly. The Minister was walking with weak, unsteady steps across the room, groping at the desk for support, and speaking as he went.

      “There isn't anything the matter, is there?” he asked anxiously. “I mean nothing's gone wrong with that other thing to keep Hunchback Joe away? He's safe, isn't he?”

      An oath fell softly from Gentleman Laroque's lips. He still smiled; but the cool contempt had gone from his eyes, and in its place was a smouldering passion.

      “Wrong?” he echoed. “No; nothing's gone wrong, except that the whole plant is blown, the papers pinched by the police, and Hunchback Joe is dead.”

      “What's that, you say?” The old man swayed on his feet, his face a ghastly white. “Dead! You said—dead? I——”

      Jimmie Dale straightened up involuntarily. The old man was undeniably ill, desperately ill. He had reeled and would have fallen had not Laroque caught him and placed him in a chair.

      “Brandy!” the old man gasped. “Over there—on—on that cabinet.”

      Laroque procured the stimulant. The Minister gulped it down eagerly. It seemed to revive him. He stared anxiously at Laroque.

      “How—what—what happened?” he whispered hoarsely.

      “The police were tipped off by some one you don't know, and by some one you do,” said Laroque between his teeth. “The some one you know was—the Gray Seal.”

      “My God!” The white face was set with fear. “The police—and—Hunchback Joe dead! We—we can't go on with this—we'd——”

      “We couldn't if Joe weren't either trapped or dead,” Laroque broke in sharply. “Pull yourself together! We've no time to waste. Don't you understand? It's safer than ever it was! If Klanner, the bank janitor, had got his, and the fake evidence had been found the way we planted it, this little deal here to-night was all tucked away neat enough. But Klanner's skin was saved, by luck as we thought then, though we know better now, and that put everything up in the air as far as this was concerned—until the police copped Joe with the goods, and Joe snuffed out. That gave them the motive again for the murder this afternoon, and gave them the man who did it. The case is closed now tighter than we figured it could be sewed up even in the first place. Get me?”

      The old man shook his head. He looked furtively around him.

      “I'm afraid,” he said huskily. “If the Gray Seal's in this, it—it ain't safe.”

      “But I tell you the Gray Seal isn't in this,” snapped Laroque impatiently. “That's what I'm trying to get through your thick head! He and every one else will think the curtain rolled down on the last act when they got Hunchback Joe. It's safe enough! It's so safe there isn't anything to it, if your end is safe. And you ought to know about that—you've been a year getting the dope.”

      “I—I ain't afraid of that,” said the old man. “There's no one in the world knows how many he had. The family knew he had a lot, of course, and knew it was his hobby, and that he kept 'em here where he could look at 'em instead of in a safety deposit vault—though I guess he figured no safety deposit vault had anything on his—but they just knew he had a lot, they didn't know how many.”

      A strange light came dawning suddenly in Jimmie Dale's eyes. Had the Tocsin been right in this respect? Was this the realmotive for the murder—not the bank's papers? Jathan Lane's hobby! It was no secret. Jathan Lane was a fellow member of that most exclusive organization, the St. James Club. Dimly there came back to memory a conversation one afternoon when four or five members, Jathan Lane and himself amongst them, were gathered around one of the smoking room tables, and——

      “Sure!” said Gentleman Laroque brusquely. “Well, then, what's the matter with you? There's no sign of any robbery; no sign of any entry into the house, not so much as an unlocked door or a scratch on a window sill; and Jathan Lane, the only man who could know that anything had been taken—is dead. And his death”—Laroque grinned—“occurred in such a way as to make what's done here secure from even suspicion. The bank game's a blind. This is what we've been after, and now it's open and shut. And your share is the biggest haul you ever made in your life.”

      The old man stared around him. Colour crept into his cheeks and glowed in hectic spots. His eyes, deep in their sockets, began to burn with a feverish light. He pulled himself up to his feet.

      “Yes, yes!” he mumbled fiercely. “Rich—ha, ha!—rich! It cannot fail; I am a fool”—he caught his breath, and swayed again on his feet. “Come on! Come on! Hurry!” he choked out.

      Jimmie Dale watched them, his lips suddenly tight. They had passed by the safe, and were coming directly toward where he stood. Another yard and they would reach the portières. His automatic swung silently upward in his hand. And then the old man halted in front of an oil painting that hung from the wall a little less than shoulder high.

      For an instant the man stood there breathing heavily, as though even the exertion of crossing the room had taxed him beyond his strength; and then with a quick movement he jerked at the edge of the frame, and the painting itself, as though it were the grooved cover of a box, slid to one side, exposing the wall, which was as bare and as innocent in appearance behind, or, rather, through the frame, as anywhere else in the room.

      “Jathan Lane's safe deposit vault,” coughed the Minister. He laughed. His cheeks were burning; his eyes were brighter. He leaned suddenly down toward the floor. “This knot in the wainscoting—see?”

      Behind the empty frame, a door in the wall swung open—and the light from the room fell upon the nickel dial of a safe.

      “That's the boy!” applauded Gentleman Laroque.

      “Yes, yes!” whispered the old man. “I'll open it! Wait! A—a long time it took to get the combination, but—but I got it“—his fingers were working at the dial—“there—there it is!”

      “Just a second!” said Laroque coolly, as the door of the little wall safe swung open. He glanced around him, then darted across the room to a small, square table on which stood a heavy bronze vase. “Here, this will do!” he said,