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

by a narrow areaway which separated the tenement from another which might have been a duplicate of the first—and halted before the entrance of the second tenement.

      The outer door was unlocked. In a moment he was inside the hallway, and in utter blackness now stood motionless, listening. Then again the black silk mask was slipped over his face, and again it was as though a shadow moved. Shiftel's apartment was the middle one on the ground floor facing the other tenement across the areaway.

      Jimmie Dale passed down the length of the hall, counting the doors on his right by the sense of touch, and, returning, crouched with his ear against the panel of the door he had selected. From within, so faintly as to be indefinable in any concrete way, there came the sound of movement. Still Jimmie Dale listened, even while his fingers worked silently at doorknob and lock. He nodded his head as he completed his work. There had been no sound of voices. Gentleman Laroque had evidently been and gone. Isaac Shiftel was alone.

      And then suddenly Jimmie Dale was on his feet, and in a flash was in the room, the door closed and locked behind him. Through the doorway of a connecting room ahead of him he could see the unkempt, bearded figure of Shiftel as the man, with a cry, sprang wildly to his feet from the chair in which he had been seated, clawing, even as he sprang, at the white, glittering array of diamonds strewn upon the table-top before him.

      “Who's that? Who's there?” the man called out hoarsely.

      Jimmie Dale's automatic covered the other as he moved swiftly forward to Shiftel's side.

      “Quite an elaborate collection you've got here, Isaac,” he said softly. “First water stones of course, or you wouldn't be handling them. And please don't wriggle, Isaac, until I—ah, thanks!” He had laid the portfolio down on the table, and his fingers passing deftly over Shiftel's clothing had whipped out a revolver from the other's pocket and transferred it to his own.

      But now Shiftel seemed to have got a sudden grip upon himself. He leaned forward, peering sharply from behind his spectacles at Jimmie Dale's masked face.

      “No,” he said with a snarl, “I don't know you, because I don't know your kind. But you evidently don't know Isaac Shiftel. Those stones, eh? That's it, is it? Well, you may get out of here with them, but afterwards—eh?—do you think Isaac Shiftel's arm is so short as that?”

      Jimmie Dale made no answer. He retreated a step, and with his free hand began to unfasten the portfolio.

      Shiftel shook his fist virulently now. The first shock once over, he was, through familiarity, apparently quite at his ease again in dealing with—a crook.

      “How'd you get wise to this, eh?” he demanded fiercely. “How'd you——” His glance had travelled to the window that opened on the areaway. “Ah!” he exclaimed. “That's it, eh? The shade's down, but like a fool I left the window open. You had the luck to sneak into that areaway.” He peered again into Jimmie Dale's face, and abruptly his tone and manner changed. He rubbed his hands together ingratiatingly. “I said you didn't know Isaac Shiftel,” he said smoothly; “but you do—everybody in your line of business knows Isaac Shiftel. I'll make a deal with you—a fair share—eh? You don't want Isaac Shiftel as an enemy. I'll give you——”

      “You're getting in ahead of me, Isaac,” interrupted Jimmie Dale plaintively. He coughed slightly—and politely pressed his handkerchief to his moistened lips. “I meant to be the first to offer something.” With a quick jerk of his revolver hand, he plucked a diamond necklace from the top of the portfolio, and tossed it upon the table. “That, for instance—Isaac.”

      The ornament seemed to fascinate Shiftel. As if drawn to it against his will, he leaned forward staring at it; and then, as though actuated by a sort of frightened incredulity, he reached out a hand toward it—but Jimmie Dale's hand that still held the handkerchief was the quicker. It fell and gripped like a vise upon the back of Shiftel's hand.

      “Just a moment, Isaac,” said Jimmie Dale coolly. “There is something else that I want you to have—as a little memento of the occasion.”

      There came a startled cry from Shiftel. Jimmie Dale had withdrawn his hand, and Shiftel was staring now, not at the diamond necklace, but at a diamond-shaped gray paper seal that was pasted on the back of his hand.

      “I'll say it for you!” Jimmie Dale's smile was not inviting. “The Gray Seal! I apologise for the melodrama, but I think it will aid you, Isaac, to see things in a clearer light. You've got a little information that I want, and I imagine it will help to quicken your memory and loosen your tongue to know who wants it.”

      There was no answer. The man, his lips twitching, was still staring at the back of his hand.

      With a sudden movement, Jimmie Dale emptied the contents of the portfolio upon the table. He brushed them into a heap with the diamonds already there.

      “They belong together,” said Jimmie Dale, in a curious monotone, “and I couldn't bear to see them left behind. They'll be found together too, Isaac, for I am afraid it will be impossible to make any one believe now that Jathan Lane's safe has never been disturbed.” His voice hardened suddenly. “You're going up for this, Isaac. I make no bargain with you. The police are going to be tipped off over the phone, and they are going to find you here trussed up in that chair with the diamonds in front of you. But before the police get you, you are going to deal with me. I want to know who the man is you, and those with you, take your orders from. And before we are through you are going to tell me, Isaac—all you know.”

      Shiftel's tongue was circling his lips. He shook his head. He was cringing now, supplicating with his hands.

      “I don't know anything,” he protested wildly. “You're all wrong. You're all wrong about everything. I don't know anything about Jathan Lane. I don't know where the diamonds came from. I never ask questions in my business. They were brought in here for me to shove, and——”

      “That's enough, Isaac!” snapped Jimmie Dale. “The game is up! Your friend, Patrick Denton, alias the Minister, is dead up there on the floor of Jathan Lane's private library, where he——”

      “Dead!” Shiftel's hands had ceased their movements. The man stood rigid. Something stronger than himself seemed to have stripped him of further power to dissimulate. “Dead! You—you killed him?”

      “Never mind about that!” Jimmie Dale bit off his words. “It's enough for you to know for the present that he is dead. You're not quite so innocent as you were—are you, Isaac? And as for the man who brought those stones here, a friend of mine has kindly arranged to have the police pay a little visit at Gentleman Laroque's at just about this time; to be precise”—he drew his watch from his pocket—“at——”

      Jimmie Dale's words ended abruptly. He, too, was suddenly standing tense and rigid. A footstep, guarded, cautious, was coming along the areaway out there. It was coming nearer to the open window—the drawn shade did not hide the sound. Instinctively his eyes sought the dial of his watch.

       It was half past three.

      “At Laroque's!” Shiftel, his ears strained toward the window, was whispering the words. “The police—at Laroque's!” And then he raised both fists in fury and shook them above his head. “You snitch, you cursed snitch”—the low, whispered words seemed but to accentuate the man's sudden flood of passion—“we'll get you yet for this!”

      For an instant Jimmie Dale's brain seemed to reel in turmoil and chaos. That voice was no longer Shiftel's. Those words! Once he had heard those exact words before, and—with a quick step forward, his hand reached out, tearing beard and spectacles from the other's face.

      “Gentleman Laroque!”

      “Yes, you fool!” said Laroque, still whispering. “So you've tripped at last, eh? You didn't know, and you've brought the police here. Well, take the consequences! It's you who's trapped!” He was backing slowly away from both table and window toward the inner wall of the room. “Perhaps you'll explain the possession of those stones! You fool,