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

ajar, the car swerved, took the corner—and Jimmie Dale stepped out on the running board, hung there negligently for a moment as though chatting with Benson, and then with an airy "good-night" dropped nonchalantly to the ground, and the next instant had mingled with the throng of pedestrians on the sidewalk.

      A half minute later, a large gray automobile turned the corner and followed Benson—and Jimmie Dale, stepping out into the street again, swung on a downtown car. The road to the Sanctuary was open!

      In his impatience, now, the street car seemed to drag along every foot of the way; but a glance at his watch, as he finally reached the Bowery, and, walking then, rapidly approached the cross street a few steps ahead that led to the Sanctuary, told him that it was still but a quarter to nine. But even at that he quickened his steps a little. He was free now! There was a sort of savage, elemental uplift upon him. He was free! He could strike now in his own defense—and hers! In a few moments he would be at the Sanctuary; in a few more he would be Larry the Bat, and by to-morrow at the latest he would see—The Tocsin. After all, that "hour" was not to be taken from him! It was not, perhaps, the hour that she had meant it should be, thought and prayed, perhaps, that it might be! It was not the hour of victory. But it was the hour that meant to him the realisation of the years of longing, the hour when he should see her, see her for the first time face to face, when there should be no more barriers between them, when—

      "Fer Gawd's sake, mister, buy a pencil!"

      A hand was plucking at his sleeve, the thin voice was whining in his ear. He halted mechanically. A woman, old, bedraggled, ragged, was thrusting a bunch of cheap pencils imploringly toward him—and then, with a stifled cry, Jimmie Dale leaned forward. The eyes that lifted to his for an instant were bright and clear with the vigor of youth, great eyes of brown they were, and trouble, hope, fear, wistfulness, ay, and a glorious shyness were in their depths. And then the voice he knew so well, the Tocsin's was whispering hurriedly:

      "I will be waiting here, Jimmie—for Larry the Bat."

      Chapter VIII.

       The Tocsin

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      It was only a little way back along the street from the Sanctuary to the corner on the Bowery where as Jimmie Dale he had left her, where as Larry the Bat now he was going to meet her again; it would take only a moment or so, even at Larry the Bat's habitual, characteristic, slouching, gait—but it seemed that was all too slow, that he must throw discretion to the winds and run the distance. His blood was tingling; there was elation upon him, coupled with an almost childlike dread that she might be gone.

      "The Tocsin! The Tocsin!" he kept saying to himself.

      Yes; she was still there, still whiningly imploring those who passed to buy her miserable pencils—and then, with a quick-flung whisper to him to follow as he slouched up close to her, she had started slowly down the street.

      "The Tocsin! The Tocsin! The Tocsin!"—his brain seemed to be ringing with the words, ringing with them in a note clear as a silver bell. The Tocsin—at last! The woman who so strangely, so wonderfully, so mysteriously had entered into his life, and possessed it, and filled it with a love and yearning that had come to mold and sway and actuate his very existence—the woman for whom he had fought; for whom he had risked, and gladly risked, his wealth, his name, his honour—everything; the woman for whose sake he, the Gray Seal, was sought and hounded as the most notorious criminal of the age; she whose cleverness, whose resourcefulness, whose amazing intimacy with the hidden things of the underworld had seemed, indeed, to border on the supernatural; she, the Tocsin—the woman whose face he had never seen before! The woman whose face he had never seen before—and who now was that wretched hag that hobbled along the street before him, begging, whining, and importuning the passers-by to purchase of her pitiful wares!

      He laughed a little—buoyantly. He had never pictured a first meeting such as this! A hag? Yes! And one as disreputable in appearance as he himself, as Larry the Bat, was disreputable! But he had seen her eyes! Inimitable as was her disguise, she could not hide her eyes, or hide the pledge they held of the beauty of form and feature beneath the tattered rags and the touch of a master in the make-up that brought haggard want and age into the face—and dimly he began to divine the source, the means by which she had acquired the information that for years had enabled her to plan their coups, that had enabled him to execute them under the guise of crime, that for years had seemed beyond all human reach.

      Where was she going? Where was she taking him? But what did it matter! The years of waiting were at an end—the years of mystery in a few moments now would be mystery no more!

      Ah! She had turned from the Bowery, and was heading east. He shuffled on after her, guardedly, a half block behind. It was well that Jimmie Dale had disappeared, that he was Larry the Bat again—the neighbourhood was growing more and more one that Jimmie Dale could not long linger in without attracting attention; while, on the other hand, it was the natural environment of such as Larry the Bat and such as she, who was leading him now to the supreme moment of his life. Yes, it was that—the fulfillment of the years! The thought of it alone filled his mind, his soul; it brushed aside, it blotted out for the time being the danger, the peril, the deadly menace that hung over them both. It was only that she, the Tocsin, was here—only that at last they would be together.

      On she went, traversing street after street, the direction always trending toward the river—until finally she halted before what appeared to be, as nearly as he could make out in the almost total darkness of the ill-lighted street, a small and tumble-down, self-contained dwelling that bordered on what seemed to be an unfenced store yard of some description. He drew his breath in sharply. She had halted—waiting for him to come up with her. She was waiting for him—WAITING for him! It seemed as though he drank of some strange, exhilarating elixir—he reached her side eagerly—and then—and then—her hand had caught his, and she was leading him into the house, into a black passage where he could see nothing, into a room equally black over whose threshold he stumbled, and her voice in a low, conscious way, with a little tremour, a half sob in it that thrilled him with its promise, was in his ears:

      "We are safe here, Jimmie, for a little while—but, oh, Jimmie, what have I done! What have I done to bring you into this—only—only—I was so sure, so sure, Jimmie, that there was nothing more to fear!"

      The blood was beating in hammer blows at his temples. It seemed all unreal, untrue that this moment could be his, that it was not a dream—a dream which was presently to be snatched from him in a bitter awakening. And then he laughed out wildly, passionately. No—it was true, it was real! Her breath was on his cheek, it was a living, pulsing hand that was still in his—and then soul and mind and body seemed engulfed and lost in a mad ecstasy—and she was in his arms, crushed to him, and he was raining kisses upon her face.

      "I love you! I love you!" he was crying hoarsely; and over and over again: "I love you! I love you!"

      She did not struggle. The warm, rich lips were yielding to his; he could feel the throb, the life in the young, lithe form against his own. She was his—his! The years, the past, all were swept away—and she was his at last—his for always. And there came a mighty sense of kingship upon him, as though all the world were at his feet, and virility, and a great, glad strength above all other men's, and a song was in his soul, a song triumphant—for she was his!

      "You!" he cried out—and strained her to him. "You!" he cried again—and kissed her lips and her eyelids and her lips again.

      And then her head was buried on his shoulder, and she was crying softly; but after a moment she raised her hands and laid them upon his face, and held them there, and because it was dark, dared to raise her head as well, and her eyes to look into his.

      Then for a long time they stood there so, and for a long time neither spoke—and then with a little startled, broken cry, as though the peril and the menace hanging over them, forgotten for the moment, were thrust like a knife stab suddenly upon her, she drew herself away, and ran from him, and went and got a lamp,