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

quizzical became ironic. It would afford the police another little, bewildering reminder of the Gray Seal, and give Carruthers, good old Carruthers of the MORNING NEWS-ARGUS, so innocently ignorant that the Gray Seal was his old college pal, yet the one editor of them all who was not forever barking and yelping at the Gray Seal's heels, a chance to vindicate himself a little, too! Jimmie Dale moistened the adhesive side of the gray seal, and, still mindful of tell-tale finger prints, laid it with the tweezers on the flap of the envelope, and pressed it firmly into place with his elbow.

      And then, suddenly, every faculty instantly on the alert, he snatched up the envelope from the desk, and listened. Was it imagination, a trick of nerves, or—no, there it was again!—a footfall on the gravel walk at the front of the house. The sound became louder, clearer—two footfalls instead of one. It was Stangeist, and somebody was with him.

      In an instant Jimmie Dale was across the room and kneeling again before the safe. His fingers were flying now. The envelope shot back into the pigeonhole from which he had taken it—the inner door of the safe closed silently and swiftly.

      A dry chuckle came from Jimmie Dale's lips. It was just like fiction, just precisely time enough to have accomplished what he had come for before he was interrupted, not a second more or less, the villain foiled at the psychological moment! The key was rattling in the front door now—they were in the hall—he could hear Stangeist's voice—there came a dull glow from the hallway, following the click of an electric-light switch. The outer door of the safe swung shut, the bolts slid into place, the dial whirled under Jimmie Dale's fingers. It was only a step to the portieres, the open window—and escape. He straightened up, stepped back, the portieres closed behind him—and the chuckle died on Jimmie Dale's lips.

      He was trapped—caught without so much as a corner in which to turn! Stangeist was even then coming into the room—and OUTSIDE, darkly outlined, two forms stood just beneath the window. Instinctively, quick as a flash, Jimmie Dale crouched below the sill. Who were they? What did it mean? Questions swept in swift sequence through his brain. Had they seen him? It would be very dark against the background of the portieres, but yet if they were watching—he drew a breath of relief. He had not been seen. Their voices reached him in low, guarded whispers.

      "Say, youse, Ike, pipe it! Dere's a window open in the snitch's room. Come on, we'll get in dere. It'll make the hair stand up on the back of his neck fer a starter."

      "Aw, ferget it!" replied another voice. "Can the tee-ayter stunt! Clarie leaves the front door unfastened, don't he? An' dey'll be in dere in a minute now. Wotcher want ter do? Crab the game? He might hear us an' fix Clarie before we had a chanst, the skinny old fox! An' dere's the light now—see! Beat it on yer toes fer the front of the house!"

      The room was flooded with light. Through the portieres, that Jimmie Dale parted by the barest fraction of an inch, he could see Stangeist and another man, a thick-set, ugly-faced-looking customer—Clarie Deane, according to that brief, whispered colloquy that he had heard outside. He looked again through the window. The two dark forms had disappeared now, but they had disappeared just a few seconds too late—with the two other men now in the room, and one of them so close that Jimmie Dale could almost have reached out and touched him, it was impossible to get through the window without being detected, when the slightest sound would attract instant attention and equally instant suspicion. It was a chance to be taken only as a last resort.

      Jimmie Dale's face grew hard, as his fingers closed around his automatic and drew the weapon from his pocket. It was all plain enough. That last act in the drama which he had speculatively anticipated was being staged with little loss of time—and in a grim sort of way the thought flashed across his mind that, perilous as his own position was, Stangeist at that moment was in even greater peril than himself. Australian Ike, The Mope, and Clarie Deane, given the chance, and they seemed to have made that chance now, were not likely to deal in half measures—Clarie Deane had dropped into a chair beside the desk; and The Mope and Australian Ike were creeping around to the front door!

      The parting in the portieres widened a little more, a very little more, slowly, imperceptibly, until Jimmie Dale, by the simple expedient of moving his head, could obtain an unobstructed view of the entire room.

      Stangeist tossed a bag he had been carrying on the desk, pulled up a chair opposite to Clarie Deane, and sat down. Both men were side face to Jimmie Dale.

      "You tell the boys," said Stangeist abruptly, "to fade away after this for a while. Things are getting too hot. And you tell The Mope I dock him five hundred for that extra crunch on Roessle's skull. That sort of thing isn't necessary. That's the kind of stunt that gets the public sore—the man was dead enough as it was. See?"

      "Sure!" Clarie Deane's ejaculation was a grunt.

      Stangeist opened the bag, and dumped the contents on the desk—pile after pile of banknotes, the pay roll of the Martindale-Kensington Mills.

      "Some haul!" observed Clarie Deane, with a hoarse chuckle. "The papers said over twenty thousand."

      "You can't always believe what the papers say," returned Stangeist curtly; and, taking a scribbling pad from the desk, began to check up the packages.

      Clarie Deane's cigar had gone out. He rolled the short stub in his mouth, and leaned forward.

      The bills were evidently just as they had been delivered to the murdered paymaster at the bank, done up with little narrow paper bands in packages of one hundred notes each, save for a small bundle of loose bills which latter, with the rolls of silver, Stangeist swept to one side of the desk.

      Package by package, Stangeist went on jotting the amounts down on the pad.

      "Nix!" growled Clarie Deane suddenly. "Cut that out! Them's fivers in that wad. Make that five hundred instead of one—I'm onter yer!"

      "Mistake," said Stangeist suavely, changing the figures with his pencil. "You're pretty wide awake for this time of night, aren't you, Clarie?"

      "Oh, I dunno!" responded Clarie Deane gruffly. "Not so very!"

      Stangeist, finished with the packages, picked up the loose bills, and, with a short laugh, tossed them into the bag and followed them with the rolls of silver. He pushed the bag toward Clarie Deane.

      "That's a little extra for you," he said. "The trouble with you fellows is that you don't know when you're well off—but the sooner you find it out the better, unless you want another lesson like yesterday." He made the addition on the pad. "Fifteen thousand, eight hundred dollars," he announced softly. "That's seven thousand, nine hundred for the three of you to divide, less five hundred from The Mope."

      Clarie Deane's eyes narrowed. His hands were on his knees, hidden by the desk.

      "There's more'n twenty there," he said sullenly—and drew a match across the under edge of the desk with a long, crackling noise.

      Stangeist's face lost its suavity, a snarl curled his lips; but, about to reply, he sprang suddenly to his feet instead, his head turned sharply toward the door.

      "What's that!" he said hoarsely. "It's not the servants, they wouldn't dare to—"

      Stangeist's words ended in a gulp. He was staring into the muzzle of a heavy-calibered revolver that Clarie Deane had jerked up from under the desk.

      "You sit down, or I'll blow your block off!" said Clarie Deane, with a sudden leer.

      It happened then almost before Jimmie Dale could grasp the details; before even Clarie Deane himself could interfere. The door burst open, two men rushed in—and one, with a bound, flung himself at Stangeist. The man's hand, grasping a clubbed revolver, rose in the air, descended on Stangeist's head—and Stangeist went down in a limp heap, crashed into the chair, and slid from the chair with a thud to the floor.

      There was an oath from Clarie Deane. He jumped from his seat, and with a violent shove sent the man reeling half across the room.

      "Blast you, Mope!" he snarled. "You're too blamed fly! D'ye wanter queer the whole biz?"

      "Aw, wot's the matter wid youse!" The Mope, purple-faced with rage, little black eyes glittering,