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

Dale glanced around the room. It was the caution of habit, that glance; the habit of years in which his life had hung on little things. He was alone in one of the club's private library rooms. He picked up the envelope, tore it open, took out the folded sheets inside, and began to read. At the first words he leaned forward, suddenly tense in his chair. He read on, turning the pages hurriedly, incredulity, amazement, and, finally, a strange menace mirroring itself in turn upon his face.

      He stood up—the letter in his hand.

      "My God!" whispered Jimmie Dale.

      It was a call to arms such as the Gray Seal had never received before—such as the Tocsin had never made before. And if it were true it—True! He laughed aloud a little gratingly. True! Had the Tocsin, astounding, unbelievable, mystifying as were the means by which she acquired her knowledge not only of this, but of countless other affairs, ever by so much as the smallest detail been astray. If it were true!

      He pulled out his watch. It was half-past nine. Benson, his chauffeur, had sent the letter into the club. Benson had been waiting outside there ever since dinner. Jimmie Dale, for the first time since the first communication that he had ever received from the Tocsin, did not immediately destroy her letter now. He slipped it into his pocket—and stepped quickly from the room.

      In the cloakroom downstairs he secured his hat and overcoat, and, though it was a warm evening, put on the latter since he was in evening clothes, then walked leisurely out of the club.

      At the curb, Benson, the chauffeur, sprang from his seat, and, touching his cap, opened the door of a luxurious limousine.

      Jimmie Dale shook his head.

      "I shall not keep you waiting any longer, Benson," he said. "You may take the car home, and put it up. I shall probably be late to-night."

      "Very good, sir," replied the chauffeur.

      "You sent in a letter a moment or so ago, Benson?" observed Jimmie Dale casually, opening his cigarette case.

      "Yes, sir," said Benson. "I hope I didn't do wrong, sir. He said it was important, and that you were to have it at once."

      "He?" Jimmie Dale was lighting his cigarette now.

      "A boy, sir," Benson amplified. "I couldn't get anything out of him. He just said he'd been told to give it to me, and tell me to see that you got it at once. I hope, sir, I haven't—"

      "Not at all, Benson," said Jimmie Dale pleasantly. "It's quite all right. Good-night, Benson."

      "Good-night, sir," Benson answered, climbing back to his seat.

      There was a queer little smile on Jimmie Dale's lips, as he watched the great car swing around in the street and glide noiselessly away—a queer little smile that still held there even after he himself had started briskly along the avenue in a downtown direction. It was invariably the same, always the same—the letters came unexpectedly, when least looked for, now by this means, now by that, but always in a manner that precluded the slightest possibility of tracing them to their source. Was there anything, in his intimate surroundings, in his intimate life, that she did not know about him—who knew absolutely nothing about her! Benson, for instance—that the man was absolutely trustworthy—or else she would never for an instant have risked the letter in his possession. Was there anything that she did not—yes, one thing—she did not know him in the role he was going to play to-night. That at least was one thing that surely she did not know about him; the role in which, many times, for weeks on end, he had devoted himself body and soul in an attempt to solve the mystery with which she surrounded herself; the role, too, that often enough had been a bulwark of safety to him when hard pressed by the police; the role out of which he had so carefully, so painstakingly created a now recognised and well-known character of the underworld—the role of Larry the Bat.

      Jimmie Dale turned from Fifth Avenue into Broadway, continued on down Broadway, across to the Bowery, kept along the Bowery for several more blocks—and finally headed east into the dimly lighted cross street on which the Sanctuary was located.

      And now Jimmie Dale became cautious in his movements. As he approached the black alleyway that flanked the miserable tenement, he glanced sharply behind and about him; and, at the alleyway itself, without pause, but with a curious lightning-like side step, no longer Jimmie Dale now, but the Gray Seal, he disappeared from the street, and was lost in the deep shadows of the building.

      In a moment he was at the side door, listening for any sound from within—none had ever seen or met the lodger or the first floor either ascending or descending, except in the familiar character of Larry the Bat. He opened the door, closed it behind him, and in the utter blackness went noiselessly up the stairs—stairs so rickety that it seemed a mouse's tread alone would have set them creaking. There seemed an art in the play of Jimmie Dale's every muscle; in the movements, lithe, balanced, quick, absolutely silent. On the first landing he stopped before another door, there was the faint click of a key turning in the lock; and then this door, too, closed behind him. Sounded the faint click of the key as it turned again, and Jimmie Dale drew a long breath, stepped across the room to assure himself that the window blind was down, and lighted the gas jet.

      A yellow, murky flame spurted up, pitifully weak, almost as though it were ashamed of its disreputable surroundings. Dirt, disorder, squalour, the evidence of low living testified eloquently enough to any one, the police, for instance, in times past inquisitive until they were fatuously content with the belief that they knew the occupant for what he was, that the place was quite in keeping with its tenant, a mute prototype, as it were, of Larry the Bat, the dope fiend.

      For a little space, Jimmie Dale, immaculate in his evening clothes, stood in the centre of the miserable room, his dark eyes, keen, alert, critical, sweeping comprehensively over every object about him—the position of a chair, of a cracked drinking glass on the broken-legged table, of an old coat thrown with apparent carelessness on the floor at the foot of the bed, of a broken bottle that had innocently strewn some sort of white powder close to the threshold, inviting unwary foot tracks across the floor. And then, taking out the Tocsin's letter, he laid it upon the table, placed what money he had in his pockets beside it, and began rapidly to remove his clothes. The Sanctuary had not been invaded since his last visit there.

      He turned back the oilcloth in the far corner of the room, took up the piece of loose flooring, which, however, strangely enough, fitted so closely as to give no sign of its existence even should it inadvertently, by some curious visitor again be trod upon; and from the aperture beneath lifted out a bundle of clothes and a small box.

      Undressed now, he carefully folded the clothes he had taken off, laid them under the flooring, and began to dress again, his wardrobe supplied by the bundle he had taken out in exchange—an old pair of shoes, the laces broken; mismated socks; patched trousers, frayed at the bottoms; a soiled shirt, collarless, open at the neck. Attired to his satisfaction, he placed the box upon the table, propped up a cracked mirror, sat down in front of it, and, with a deft, artist's touch, began to apply stain to his hands, wrists, neck, throat, and face—but the hardness, the grim menace that now grew into the dominant characteristic of his features was not due to the stain alone.

      "Dear Philanthropic Crook"—his eyes were on the Tocsin's letter that lay before him. He read on—for once, even to Jimmie Dale's keen, facile mind, a first reading had failed to convey the full significance of what she had written. It was too amazing, almost beyond belief—the series of crimes, rampant for the past few weeks, at which the community had stood aghast, the brutal murder of Roessle but a few hours old, lay bare before his eyes. It was all there, all of it, the details, the hellish cleverness, the personnel even of the thugs, all, everything—except the proof.

      "Get him, Jimmie—the man higher up. Get him, Jimmie—before another pays forfeit with his life"—the words seemed to leap out at him from the white page in red, dancing lines—"Get him—Jimmie—the man higher up."

      Jimmie Dale finished the second reading of the letter, read it again for the third time, then tore it into tiny fragments. His fingers delved into the box again, and the transformation of Jimmie Dale, member of New York's most exclusive social set, into a low, vicious-featured