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

the creaking of the board could be heard throughout the building.

      “You said you had failed miserably to-night, and that you were afraid you had cost a man his life,” he said. “You mean Miser Scroff?”

      “No,” she said heavily. “I did not know anything about to-night until after Miser Scroff was killed. That brought the Phantom into it in a personal way. There had been no murder intended, and failure to find anything here would otherwise have ended the matter; but in old Miser Scroff's pocket they found, besides some stock certificates made out in his name, a dirty old piece of paper with a tracing of his room upon it, and a position on the rear wall marked with an arrow, so they knew then where the money was. But this was after the first search had been made and the room torn to pieces as you see it, and though they knew then where the money was, there was a murder that had to be covered up.”

      Jimmie Dale drew out a worn yellow leather bag from the aperture. He opened it, and uttered a sharp exclamation. It was crammed full of loose banknotes.

      “How do you know all this?” he asked for the second time, as he shut the bag.

      The Tocsin shook her head.

      “It is useless to ask me, Jimmie,” she said steadily. “If I told you, I might as well enter into the partnership with you that you are so insistent upon—it would amount to the same thing. I cannot tell you. I can only tell you that I know the Phantom means to plant the crime on some outsider's shoulders, some one he has picked out as suitable, a seedy character who—it's horrible, Jimmie!—will not have a chance for his life. The securities with Scroff's name on them are to be placed under the innocent victim's mattress; then, with the panel rifled here, the police are to be tipped off about the murder, and where to find the 'murderer' and the evidence. I did my best; I did all I could, but—but I lost the trail, and so I came here to save at least the money, and as a sort of last hope that somehow I might pick up the clue again. The only thing I am sure of is that the Phantom was playing the part of an old gentleman with gold spectacles to-night, and——”

      Jimmie Dale had taken the Tocsin's arm, and, carrying the bag, had started back for the door; but now he halted suddenly as though rooted to the spot, and stared at her.

      “An old gentleman with gold spectacles!” he ejaculated sharply.

      She caught at his sleeve.

      “Jimmie!” she whispered tensely. “You—you know something about it! You—you've seen him! You know who it is they mean to railroad to his death for this?”

      The room, his surroundings, even the Tocsin, had fled from Jimmie Dale's consciousness for the moment; instead, there came again the scene in Gypsy Dan's saloon, when Beggar Pete had told his story, which he, Jimmie Dale, had but so short a time ago dismissed almost summarily from his mind as having no personal significance for him. Beggar Pete and the gentleman with the gold spectacles! Beggar Pete and his sudden affluence! He had not believed Beggar Pete then, but he believed him now. There was no shadow of doubt but that Beggar Pete was the Phantom's intended cat's-paw, and that the snare was the low, viciously-cunning handiwork of the Phantom. Beggar Pete's story, once those securities were found beneath his mattress, would, out of its own improbability, only assure the man's conviction. Nobody knew how much or how little cash Miser Scroff had had! So this was what the Phantom wanted that extra time for—to plant those securities. God, if he could catchthe Phantom at Beggar Pete's! No! There was the Tocsin here—he had her now—he would never leave her again. And besides it was too late now. He knew where Beggar Pete lived because of late it had been almost a source of gossip on the East Side, for the simple reason that, for perhaps the first time in his life, Beggar Pete now had a permanent address—the cellar of a somewhat questionable lodging house run by a yegg named Harry the Dip—and this in return for the more than questionable agreement on Beggar Pete's part to make himself generally useful when called upon to do so! It was a long way to Beggar Pete's—almost across the whole of the East Side. The Phantom would have completed his work by now, or at least long before he, Jimmie Dale, could reach Beggar Pete's lodging, and that would——

      “You know! Oh, thank God!” she cried tremulously. “And I—I was so afraid!”

      “It is Beggar Pete,” he answered mechanically.

      “Then quick, Jimmie!” she pleaded. “There is not an instant to lose. You must get those securities before the police do!”

      He did not move.

      She shook frantically at his sleeve.

      “You see that, don't you, Jimmie?” she cried again. “Oh, there's not an instant, not a second to spare—and besides, the rest of them will be here any minute.”

      He looked at her.

      “And you?” he said.

      “I'll take the bag of money and see that it reaches the authorities,” she replied quickly. “You can't be hampered with that. It will be all you can do to win the race against the police.”

      “No!” he said fiercely. “Let you get away out of my life again? Not for a dozen Beggar Petes!”

      A strange smile, wistful, drooped her lips; and suddenly her eyes were wet; and as suddenly she reached up and drew his face to hers and kissed him.

      “You are too big a man for that, Jimmie,” she whispered. “And there is no other way, and—and, besides, you know what I have told you. You are too big a man for that, Jimmie, and that—that is why I love you.”

      He held her close.

      “It's no use!” he said hoarsely. “There's been more planted on him than you know anything about; enough so that the robbery here would almost cast suspicion on Beggar Pete without the securities being found at all. He has been spending more money in the saloons to-night than he ever had in all his life before; and he is accounting for its possession in a manner that no one would believe.”

      “But there's a way out of that,” she answered quickly. “A way that the Gray Seal has taken before. Take it again now, Jimmie—because it's a man's way, my man's way.”

      He knew what she meant, but he did not answer. She was gathered in his arms. He could not let her go. He had given his all to find her—he could not let her go.

      “Jimmie,” she said, steadying her voice with an effort, “every second that we stand here may mean that it has cost a man his life.”

      With a low cry that seemed wrenched from him in agony, Jimmie Dale's hands dropped to his sides. Through the darkness, that was now a strange mist before his eyes, he saw her pick up the leather bag. And then her whisper came to him:

      “Thank God for you, Jimmie! I'll stand guard at the door until you're through.”

      He found himself at the rear of the room again, working with frantic speed in front of the broken panelling. He knew what she meant; it must be his mind, of course, that was functioning, governing him, and yet his actions seemed purely mechanical. From the leather girdle he drew out the thin metallic case; and from the case, with the tiny tweezers, he lifted out a diamond-shaped, gray-paper seal. If he succeeded in getting the securities before the police did, and if the police found here on the scene of the robbery the insignia of the Gray Seal that they knew so well, then Beggar Pete, a worthless, broken hulk, would go free, and——

      Her whisper, from the door now, reached him again:

      “Quick, Jimmie! They're coming now. I hear them downstairs. Quick, Jimmie, and—and—good-bye!”

      It took an instant, no more, to moisten the adhesive side of the paper seal, and stick it into place on the edge of the broken panelling; and then Jimmie Dale was across the room, and, the door closed behind him, was standing in the blackness of the hallway.

      She was gone! His face was set and rigid. Perhaps she was still somewhere here in the hall; but he could not see, and he did not dare call out. The stealthy tread of two or three men was distinctly audible coming up the stairs. He drew farther back along the hall and