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

could be no better place for that final reckoning!

      The doorknob turned, the door began to open slowly. A form, shadowy, a little blacker than the surrounding blackness, bulked in the opening, then stole across the threshold, and the door closed.

      And then Jimmie Dale spoke in a cold, merciless whisper, as the stream of his flashlight cut through the black, and his automatic lifted to a level with the line of light:

      “Put up your——”

      The sentence died on his lips. It seemed to Jimmie Dale that the room was whirling around him, that he was robbed of all power of movement, that his brain had lost the faculty of reason. The light was boring into a pair of brown eyes, startled, it was true, but brave, calm, self-reliant brown eyes that looked out from a wondrously glorious face, the only face in all the world. And then his pulses leaped, and the blood in a furious tide went whipping through his veins. The Tocsin! The Tocsin! Was he mad? Could it be true? The Tocsin!

      “Marie!” he cried out hoarsely.

      “Jimmie! Is it you? I could not see with the light in my eyes. Oh, Jimmie!” Her voice faltered. Relief was there, but relief was not the note he caught; it was love, yearning, the woman's soul that was in her tones.

      The flashlight, the automatic, were thrust into his pockets. She was in his arms. He held her close. Years had gone since he had held her there before! He had fought for this, risked all and everything for this, hoped for it when hope itself seemed dead, and now she was here, close to him, clinging to him—and it was not just for the moment, not just a stolen, pitiful instant out of all eternity, but for always, for all time. He had her now. She would never go again. There was no power on earth would keep him from her side now!

      Half laughing, half crying, she struggled to free herself a little.

      “Jimmie,” she breathed, “don't you know that you are terribly strong, dear?”

      He released her a little, grudgingly, but still he held her close. His lips found hers, her eyes, her hair—the dark silken strands that, playing truant from under her hat, swept his face.

      Her hand had crept up and found his mask, slipped under it, and was resting gently against the strips of plaster on his cheek.

      “I—I know of course about the night when—when you got this,” she said brokenly. “All the underworld has been talking about Smarlinghue. They very nearly caught you, Jimmie. Oh, Jimmie, why will you do it? I have begged you so, done all I could to keep you out of this. And now to-night again! What are you doing here? What brought you here?”

      His arms tightened about her again.

      “To find you,” he said.

      She drew away in amazement, her hands on his shoulders now, holding him at arms'-length.

      “To find me!” she echoed helplessly. “But how could you have expected to find me here? You did not know. I sent you no note, no word, for after I heard about that night at Pedler Joe's and what happened later in the Sanctuary, I made up my mind not to——”

      He laid his hand softly across her lips.

      “I have not been anywhere, done anything, since that night on the East River, Marie,” he said quietly, “except with the one end in view of finding you. And had I not found you again now I should still have kept on in the same way. I'm quite sure you know every move that Smarlinghue has made, and you therefore ought to know that I have already gone too far, that I've already been too close to the Phantom more than once to have let anything you did keep me out of this, Marie. The fewer the notes, the more I should have worried, and the harder I should have worked. But that's all at an end now, thank God! There'll be no more separation. We'll work together from now on until we've found the Phantom.”

      For a moment she did not answer, then she turned her head away.

      “No, Jimmie!” she said firmly. “I cannot! I will not! Nothing has been changed since that night on the East River. I cannot prevent you from doing as you have been doing, but there is a great difference between your actions as the Gray Seal and as one who is known to be working hand in glove with Marie LaSalle. It—it would make it almost impossible for me to go on, for I—I could not do anything then without the fear of putting your life in danger. Oh, Jimmie, you do not know, you do not understand, and—and I cannot tell you!” She turned quickly toward him again. “Go, Jimmie, please—at once. There is something that I must do here.”

      Jimmie Dale reached out for the door.

      “We'll go together, Marie—now,” he said calmly. “I heard Mother Margot talking about Scroff's panel here. I was on the fire escape outside Kerrigan's place. That's what you mean, isn't it? But you are what I came for, so we'll go, for there is nothing else that counts here now against the risk of you being caught by Bunty Myers and his crowd, to say nothing of old Miser Scroff himself turning up any minute to——”

      “Miser Scroff is dead,” she interrupted dully.

      “Dead!” he repeated in a startled way.

      “Murdered,” she said. And then her voice broke again. “Oh, Jimmie, I have failed miserably to-night. I—I have cost a man his life, I am afraid. The least I can do now is to keep them from getting the money—it's in an old leather bag behind the panel—but that I must do. You—you must let me work this out, Jimmie. I have no choice. If you force me out of here, or if you insist on staying to help me, then in an hour, two hours, somehow, Jimmie, I warn you frankly that I will get away from you again.”

      “I don't think you will—not this time, Marie!” said Jimmie Dale grimly. “I've got you now, and I'm going to keep you no matter what happens.”

      She smiled at him wanly.

      “Very well, Jimmie, if you think so,” she said quietly. “Only remember what I have said. Meanwhile there is the panel. I can't go until I have got the money.”

      She started across the room, only to stumble over the broken desk. And then Jimmie Dale's flashlight was in play again, and he followed her.

      “Murdered, you said!” He spoke quickly. “Why? I don't understand. And I don't understand what has happened here. The place has been turned inside out.”

      “The panel, Jimmie!” she answered. “It's near the middle. Get it open! I'll tell you while you work.”

      “I had already found it before you came in,” said Jimmie Dale coolly. He was kneeling by the wall, the “jimmy” in his hand again. “Go on, Marie!”

      A joint in the wood gave with a low, rending, creaking sound. She stood at his shoulder, whispering swiftly:

      “Some of the gang under the Phantom's orders inveigled Miser Scroff down somewhere in the neighbourhood of that old junk yard near Kelly's saloon, with the intention of keeping him out of the way for an hour or two while the rest of them came here and searched for his money. But Scroff was an old man, and the blow he was hit by the black-jack killed him; and the search here resulted in nothing.”

      The “jimmy” pried away a narrow board from top to bottom. Jimmie Dale reached in his hand. Yes, there was something in here, a bag of some kind.

      “How do you know all this?” he demanded. “And if you know it, where was the Phantom all this time?”

      “Under cover,” she answered. “I told you long ago that he was a man with a score of domiciles and a score of aliases. Lately he has been driven from one to another—and robbed of some of them by the Gray Seal.”

      “I thought so!” said Jimmie Dale swiftly. “Well, you've lost your case, now, Marie. It would appear, then, that the Gray Seal has been of service, so why should you attempt to keep him at a distance?”

      Her hand found and touched his shoulder.

      “It's no good, Jimmie,” she said softly. “Shall we call it a woman's inconsistency? I cannot give you any other answer.”