The Adventures of Jimmie Dale Part 42

"When?" The word came from him with fierce eagerness.

"I do not know," she answered gently. "Soon, perhaps--perhaps sooner than either of us imagine."

"And by that you mean--what?" he asked, and his hand reached out for her again through the blackness.

This time she did not draw away. There was an instant's hesitation; then she spoke again hurriedly, a note of anxiety in her voice.

"You are beginning all over again, aren't you, Jimmie? And I have told you that to-night I can explain nothing. And, besides, it is what has brought me here that counts now, and every moment is of--"

"Yes. I know," he interposed; "but, then, at least you will tell me one thing: Why did you come to-night, instead of sending me a letter as you always have before?"

"Because it is different to-night than it ever was before," she replied earnestly. "Because there is something in what has happened that I cannot explain myself; because there is danger, and where I could not see clearly I feared a trap, and so I dared not send what, in a letter, could at best be only vague and incomplete details. Do you see?"

"Yes," said Jimmie Dale--but he was only listening in an abstracted way.

If he could only see that face, so close to his! He had yearned for that with all his soul for years now! And she was here, standing beside him, and his hand was upon her arm; and here, in his own den, in his own house, he was listening to another call to arms for the Gray Seal from her own lips! Honour! Was he but a poor, quixotic fool! He had only to step to the desk and switch on the light! Why should--he steadied himself with a jerk, and drew away his hand. She was in HIS house. "Go on," he said tersely.

"Do you know, or did you ever hear of old Luther Doyle?" she asked.

"No," said Jimmie Dale.

"Do you know a man, then, named Connie Myers?"

Connie Myers! Who in the Bad Lands did not know Connie Myers, who boasted of the half dozen prison sentences already to his credit? Yes; he knew Connie Myers! But, strangely enough, it was not in the Bad Lands or as Larry the Bat that he knew the man, or that the other knew him--it was as Jimmie Dale. Connie Myers had introduced himself one night several years ago with a blackjack that had just missed its mark as the man had jumped out from a dark alleyway on the East Side, and he, Jimmie Dale, had thrashed the other to within an inch of his life. He had reason to know Connie Myers--and Connie Myers had reason to remember him!

"Yes," he said, with a grim smile; "I know Connie Myers."

"And the tenement across the street from where you live as Larry the Bat--that, of course, you know." He leaned toward her wonderingly now.

"Of course!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Naturally!"

"Listen, then, Jimmie!" She was speaking quickly now. "It is a strange story. This Luther Doyle was already over fifty, when, some eight or nine years ago, his parents died within a few months of each other, and he inherited somewhere in the neighbourhood of a hundred thousand dollars; but the man, though harmless enough, was mildly insane, half-witted, queer, and the old couple, on account of their son's mental defects, took care to leave the money securely invested, and so that he could only touch the interest. During these eight or nine years he has lived by himself in the same old family house where he had lived with his parents, in a lonely spot near Pelham. And he has lived in a most frugal, even miserly, manner. His income could not have been less than six thousand dollars a year, and his expenditures could not have been more than six hundred. His dementia, ironically enough from the day that he came into his fortune, took the form of a most pitiable and abject fear that he would die in poverty, misery, and want; and so, year after year, cas.h.i.+ng his checks as fast as he got them, never trusting the bank with a penny, he kept hiding away somewhere in his house every cent he could sc.r.a.pe and save from his income--which to-day must amount, at a minimum calculation, to fifty thousand dollars."

"And," observed Jimmie Dale quietly. "Connie Myers robbed him of it, and--"

"No!" Her voice was quivering with pa.s.sion, as she caught up his words.

"Twice in the last month Connie Myers TRIED to rob him, but the money was too securely hidden. Twice he broke into Doyle's house when the old man was out, but on both occasions was unsuccessful in his search, and was interrupted and forced to make his escape on account of Doyle's return. To-night, an hour ago, in an empty room on the second floor of that tenement, in the room facing the landing, old Luther Doyle was MURDERED!"

There was silence for an instant. Her hand had closed in a tight pressure on his arm. The darkness seemed to add a sort of ghastly significance to her words.

"In G.o.d's name, how do you know all this?" he demanded wildly. "How do you know all these things?

"Does that matter now?" she answered tensely. "You will know that when you know the rest. Oh, don't you understand, Jimmie, there is not a moment to lose now? It was easy to lure a half-witted creature like that anywhere; it was Connie Myers who lured him to the tenement and murdered him there--but from that point, Jimmie, I am not sure of our ground. I do not know whether Connie Myers is alone in this or not; but I do know that he is going to Doyle's house again to-night to make another search for the money. There is no question but that old Doyle was murdered to give Connie Myers and his accomplices, if there are any, a chance to tear the house inside out to find the money, to give them the whole night to work in without interruption if necessary--but Doyle dead in his own house could have interfered no more with them than Doyle dead in that tenement! Why was he lured to the tenement by Connie Myers when he could much more easily have been put out of the way in his own house?

Jimmie, there is something behind this, something more that you must find out. There may be others in this besides Connie Myers, I do not know; but there is something here that I am afraid of. Jimmie, you must get that man, you must get the others if there are others, and you must stop them from getting the money in that house to-night! Do you understand now why I have come here? I could not explain in a letter; I do not quite seem to be explaining now. It would seem as though there were no need for the Gray Seal--that simply the police should be notified. But I KNOW, Jimmie, call it intuition, what you will, I know that there is need for us, for you to-night--that behind all this is a tragedy, deeper, blacker, than even the brutal, cold-blooded murder that is already done."

Her voice, in its pa.s.sionate earnestness, died away; and an anger, cold, grim, remorseless, settled upon Jimmie Dale--settled as it always settled upon him at her call to arms. His brain was already at work in its quick, instant way, probing, sifting, planning. She was right! It was strange, it was more than strange that, with the added risk, the danger, the difficulty, the man should have been brought miles to be done away with in that tenement! Why? Connie Myers took form before him--the coa.r.s.e features, the tawny hair that straggled across the low forehead, the s.h.i.+fty eyes that were an indeterminate colour between brown and gray, the thin lips that seemed to draw in and give the jaw a protruding, belligerent effect. And Connie Myers knew him as Jimmie Dale--it would have to be then as Larry the Bat that the Gray Seal must work. That meant time--to go to the Sanctuary and change.

"The police," he asked suddenly, aloud, "they have not yet discovered the body?"

"Not yet," she replied hurriedly. "And that is still another reason for haste--there is no telling when they will. See--here!" She thrust a paper into his hand. "Here is a plan of old Doyle's house, and directions for finding it. You must get Connie Myers red-handed, you must make him convict himself, for the evidence through which I know him to be guilty can never be used against him. And, Jimmie, be careful--I know I am not wrong, that there is still something more behind all this.

And now go, Jimmie, go! There is no time to lose!" She was pus.h.i.+ng him across the room toward the door.

Go! The word seemed suddenly to bring dismay. It was she again who was dominant now in his mind. Who knew if to-night, when he was taking his life in his hands again, would not be the last! And she was here now, here beside him--where she might never be again!

She seemed to divine his thoughts, for she spoke again, a strange new note of tenderness in her voice that thrilled him.

"You must never let them get you, Jimmie--for my sake. It will not last much longer--it is near the end--and I shall keep my promise. But go, now, Jimmie--go!"

"Go?" he repeated numbly. "Go? But--but you?"

"I?" She slipped suddenly away from him, retreating back down the room.

"I will go--as I came."

"Wait! Listen!" he pleaded.

There was no answer.

She was there--somewhere back there in the darkness still. He stood hesitant at the door. It seemed that every faculty he possessed urged him back there again--to her. Could he let her escape him now when she was so utterly in his power, she who meant everything in his life! And then, like a cold shock, came that other thought--she who had trusted to his honour! With a jerk, his hand swept out, felt for the doork.n.o.b, and closed upon it.

"Good-night!" he said heavily, and stepped out into the hall.

It seemed for a while, even after he had gained the street and made his way again to the subway, that nothing was concrete around him, that he was living through some fantastical dream. His head whirled, and he could not think rationally--and then slowly, little by little, his grip upon himself came back. She had come--and gone! With the roar of the subway in his ears, its raucous note seeming to strike so perfectly in consonance with the turmoil within him, he smiled mirthlessly. After all, it was as it always was! She was gone--and ahead of him lay the chances of the night!

"Dicing with death!" The words, unbidden, came back once more. If they were true before, they were doubly applicable now. It was different to-night from what it had ever been before, as she had said. Usually, to the smallest detail, everything was laid open, clear before him in those astounding letters. To-night, it was vague at best. A man had been murdered. Connie Myers had committed the murder under circ.u.mstances that pointed strongly to some hidden motive behind and beyond the mere chance it afforded him to search his victim's house for the hidden cash. What was it?

Jimmie Dale stared out at the black subway walls. The answer would not come. Station after station pa.s.sed. At Fourteenth Street he changed from the express to a local, got out at Astor Place, and a few minutes later was walking rapidly down the upper end of the Bowery.

The answer would not come--only the fact itself grew more and more deeply significant. The ghastly, callous fiendishness that lured an old, half-witted man to his death had Jimmie Dale in that grip of cold, merciless anger again, and there was a dull flush now upon his cheeks.

Whatever it meant, whatever was behind it, one thing at least was certain--HE WOULD GET CONNIE MYERS!

He was close to the Sanctuary now--it was down the next cross street. He reached the corner and turned it, heading east; but his brisk walk had changed to a nonchalant saunter--there were some people coming toward him. It was the Gray Seal now, alert and cautious. The little group pa.s.sed by. Ahead, the tenement bordering on the black alleyway loomed up--the Sanctuary, with its three entrances and exits; the home of Larry the Bat. And across from it was that other tenement, that held a new interest for him now, where, in an empty room on the second floor, she had said, old Doyle still lay. Should he go there? He was thinking quickly now, and shook his head. It would take what he did not have to spare--time. It was already ten o'clock; and, granted that Connie Myers had committed the crime only a little over an hour ago, the man by this time would certainly be on his way to Doyle's house near Pelham, if, indeed, he were not already there. No, there was no time to spare--the question resolved itself simply into how long, since he had already searched twice and failed on both occasions, it would take Connie Myers to unearth old Doyle's hiding place for the money.

Jimmie Dale glanced sharply around him, slipped into the alleyway, and, crouching against the tenement wall, moved noiselessly along to the side entrance. A moment more, and he had negotiated the rickety stairs with practiced, soundless tread, was inside the squalid quarters of Larry the Bat, and the door of the Sanctuary was locked and bolted behind him.

Perhaps five minutes pa.s.sed--and then, where Jimmie Dale, the millionaire, had entered, there emerged Larry the Bat, of the aristocracy and the elite of the Bad Lands. But instead of leaving by the side door and the alleyway, as he had entered, he went along the lower hallway to the front entrance. And here, instinctively, he paused a moment at the top of the steps, as his eyes rested upon the tenement on the opposite side of the street.

It was strange that the crime should have been committed there!

Something again seemed to draw him toward that empty room on the second story. He had decided once that he would not go, that there was not time; but, after all, it would not take long, and there was at least the possibility of gaining something more valuable even than time from the scene of the crime itself--there might even be the evidence he wanted there that would disclose the whole of Connie Myers' game.

He went down the steps, and started across the street; but halfway over, he hesitated uncertainly, as a child's cry came petulantly from the doorway. It was dark in the street; and, likewise, it was one of those hot, suffocating evenings when, in the crowded tenements of the poorer cla.s.s, miserable enough in any case, misery was added to a hundredfold for lack of a single G.o.d-given breath of air. These two facts, apparently irrelevant, caused Jimmie Dale to change his mind again.

He had not noticed the woman with the baby in her arms, sitting on the doorstep; but now, as he reached the curb, he not only saw, but recognised her--and he swung on down the street toward the Bowery. He could not very well go in without pa.s.sing her, without being recognised himself--and that was a needless risk.

He smiled a little wanly. Once the crime was discovered, she would not have hesitated long before informing the police that she had seen him enter there! Mrs. Hagan was no friend of his! One could not live as he had lived, as Larry the Bat, and not see something in an intimate way of the pitiful little tragedies of the poor around him; for, bad, tough, and dissolute as the quarter was, all were not degraded there, some were simply--poor. Mrs. Hagan was poor. Her husband was a day labourer, often out of a job--and sometimes he drank. That was how he, Jimmie Dale, or rather, Larry the Bat, had come to earn Mrs. Hagan's enmity. He had found Mike Hagan drunk one night, and in the act of being arrested, and had wheedled the man away from the officer on the promise that he would take Hagan home. And he was Larry the Bat, a dope fiend, a character known to all the neighbourhood, and Mrs. Hagan had laid her husband's condition to HIS influence and companions.h.i.+p! He had taken Mike Hagan home--and Mrs. Hagan had driven Larry the Bat from the door of her miserable one-room lodging in that tenement with the bitter words on her tongue that only a woman can use when shame and grief and anger are breaking her heart.

He shrugged his shoulders, as, back along the Bowery, he retraced his steps, but now, with the hurried shuffle of Larry the Bat where before had been the brisk, athletic stride of Jimmie Dale.

At Astor Place again, he took the subway, this time to the Grand Central Station--and, well within an hour from the time he had left the Sanctuary, including the train journey to Pelham, he was standing in a clump of trees that fringed a deserted roadway. He had pa.s.sed but few houses, once he was away from Pelham, and, as well as he could judge, there was none now within a quarter of a mile of him--except this one of old Luther Doyle's that showed up black and shadowy just beyond the trees.

Jimmie Dale's eyes narrowed as he surveyed the place. It was little wonder that, known to have money, an attempt to rob old Doyle should have been made in a place like this! It was even more grimly significant than ever of some deeper meaning that, in its loneliness an ideal place for a murder, the man should have been lured from there for that purpose to a crowded tenement in the city instead! What did it mean? Why had it been done? He shook his head. The answer would not come now any more than it had come before in the subway, or in the train on the way out, when he had set his brain so futilely to solve the problem.