The Adventures of Jimmie Dale Part 43

From a survey of the house, Jimmie Dale gave attention to the details of his surroundings: the trees on either side; the open s.p.a.ce in front, a distance of fifty yards to the road; the absence of any fence. And then, abruptly, he stole forward. There was no light to be seen anywhere about the house. Was it possible that Connie Myers was not yet there? He shook his head again impatiently. Connie Myers would not have wasted any time--as the Tocsin had said, there was always present the possibility that the crime in that tenement might be discovered at ANY moment.

Connie Myers would have lost no time; for, let the discovery be made, let the police identify the body, as they most certainly would, and they would be out here hotfoot. Jimmie Dale stood suddenly still. What did it mean! He had not thought of that before! If old Doyle had been murdered HERE, there would not have been even the possibility of discovery until the morning at the earliest, and Connie Myers would have had all the time he wanted!

WHAT WAS THAT SOUND! A low, m.u.f.fled tapping, like a succession of hammer blows, came from within the house. Jimmie Dale darted forward, reached the side of the house, and dropped on hands and knees. One question at least was answered--Connie Myers was inside.

The plan that she had given him showed an old-fas.h.i.+oned cellarway, closed by folding trapdoors, that was located a little toward the rear and, in a moment, creeping along, he came upon it. His hands felt over it. It was shut, fastened by a padlock on the outside. Jimmie Dale's lips thinned a little, as he took a small steel instrument from his pocket. Either through inadvertence or by intention, Connie Myers had pa.s.sed up an almost childishly simple means of entrance into the house!

One side of the trapdoor was lifted up silently--and silently closed.

Jimmie Dale was in the cellar. The hammering, much more distinct now, heavy, thudding blows, came from a room in the front--the connection between the cellar and the house, as shown on the Tocsin's plan, was through another trapdoor in the floor of the kitchen.

Jimmie Dale's flashlight played on a short, ladderlike stairway, and in an instant he was climbing upward. The sounds from the front of the house continued now without interruption; there was little fear that Connie Myers would hear anything else--even the protesting squeak of the hinges as Jimmie Dale cautiously pushed back the trapdoor in the flooring above his head. An inch, two inches he lifted it; and, his eyes on a level with the opening now, he peered into the room. The kitchen itself was intensely dark; but through an open doorway, well to one side so that he could not see into the room beyond, there struggled a curiously faint, dim glimmer of light. And then Jimmie Dale's form straightened rigidly on the stairs. The blows stopped, and a voice, in a low growl, presumably Connie Myers', reached him.

"Here, take a drive at it from the lower edge!"

There was no answer--save that the blows were resumed again. Jimmie Dale's face had set hard. Connie Myers was not alone in this, then!

Well, the odds were a little heavier, DOUBLED--that was all! He pushed the trapdoor wide open, swung himself up through the opening to the floor; and the next instant, back a little from the connecting doorway, his body pressed closely against the kitchen wall, he was staring, bewildered and amazed, into the next room.

On the floor, presumably to lessen the chance of any light rays stealing through the tightly drawn window shades, burned a small oil lamp. The place was in utter confusion. The right-hand side of a large fireplace, made of rough, untrimmed stone and cement, and which occupied almost the entire end of the room, was already practically demolished, and the wreckage was littered everywhere; part of the furniture was piled unceremoniously into one corner out of the way; and at the fireplace itself, working with sledge and bar, were two men. One was Connie Myers.

An ironical glint crept into Jimmie Dale's eyes. The false beard and mustache the man wore would deceive no one who knew Connie Myers! And that he should be wearing them now, as he knelt holding the bar while the other struck at it, seemed both uncalled for and absurd. The other man, heavily built, roughly dressed, had his back turned, and Jimmie Dale could not see his face.

The puzzled frown on Jimmie Dale's forehead deepened. Somewhere in the masonry of the fireplace, of course, was where old Luther Doyle had hidden his money. That was quite plain enough; and that Connie Myers, in some way or other, had made sure of that fact was equally obvious. But how did old Luther Doyle get his money IN there from time to time, as he received the interest and dividends whose acc.u.mulation, according to the Tocsin, comprised his h.o.a.rd! And how did he get it OUT again?

"All right, that'll do!" grunted Connie Myers suddenly. "We can pry this one out now. Lend a hand on the bar!"

The other dropped his sledge, turned sideways as he stooped to help Connie Myers, his face came into view--and, with an involuntary start, Jimmie Dale crouched farther back against the wall, as he stared at the other. It was Hagan! Mrs. Hagan's husband! Mike Hagan!

"My G.o.d!" whispered Jimmie Dale, under his breath.

So that was it! That the murder had been committed in the tenement was not so strange now! A surge of anger swept Jimmie Dale--and was engulfed in a wave of pity. Somehow, the thin, tired face of Mrs. Hagan had risen before him, and she seemed to be pleading with him to go away, to leave the house, to forget that he had ever been there, to forget what he had seen, what he was seeing now. His hands clenched fiercely. How realistically, how importunately, how pitifully she took form before him! She was on her knees, clasping his knees, imploring him, terrified.

From Jimmie Dale's pocket came the black silk mask. Slowly, almost hesitantly, he fitted it over his face--Mike Hagan knew Larry the Bat.

Why should he have pity for Mike Hagan? Had he any for Connie Myers?

What right had he to let pity sway him! The man had gone the limit; he was Connie Myers' accomplice--a murderer! But the man was not a hardened, confirmed criminal like Connie Myers. Mike Hagan--a murderer!

It would have been unbelievable but for the evidence before his own eyes now. The man had faults, brawled enough, and drank enough to have brought him several times to the notice of the police--but this!

Jimmie Dale's eyes had never left the scene before him. Both men were throwing their weight upon the bar, and the stone that they were trying to dislodge--they were into the heart of the masonry now--seemed to move a little. Connie Myers stood up, and, leaning forward, examined the stone critically at top and bottom, prodding it with the bar. He turned from his examination abruptly, and thrust the bar into Hagan's hands.

"Hold it!" he said tersely. "I'll strike for a turn."

Crouched, on his hands and knees, Hagan inserted the point of the bar into the crevice. Connie Myers picked up the sledge.

"Lower! Bend lower!" he snapped--and swung the sledge.

It seemed to go black for a moment before Jimmie Dale's eyes, seemed to paralyse all action of mind and body. There was a low cry that was more a moan, the clang of the iron bar clattering on the floor, and Mike Hagan had pitched forward on his face, an inert and huddled heap. A half laugh, half snarl purled from Connie Myers' lips, as he s.n.a.t.c.hed a stout piece of cord from his pocket and swiftly knotted the unconscious man's wrists together. Another instant, and, picking up the bar, prying with it again, the loosened stone toppled with a crash into the grate.

It had come sudden as the crack of doom, that blow--too quick, too unexpected for Jimmie Dale to have lifted a finger to prevent it. And now that the first numbed shock of mingled horror and amazement was past, he fought back the quick, fierce impulse to spring out on Connie Myers. Whether the man was killed or only stunned, he could do no good to Mike Hagan now, and there was Connie Myers--he was staring in a fascinated way at Connie Myers. Behind the stone that the other had just dislodged was a large hollow s.p.a.ce that had been left in the masonry, and from this now Connie Myers was eagerly collecting handfuls of banknotes that were rolled up into the shape of little cylinders, each one grotesquely tied with a string. The man was feverishly excited, muttering to himself, running from the fireplace to where the table had been pushed aside with the rest of the furniture, dropping the curious little rolls of money on the table, and running back for more. And then, having apparently emptied the receptacle, he wriggled his body over the dismantled fireplace, stuck his head into the opening, and peered upward.

"Kinks in his nut, kinks in his nut!" Connie Myers was muttering. "I'll drop the bar through from the top, mabbe there's some got stuck in the pipe."

He regained his feet, picked up the bar, and ran with it into what was evidently the front hall--then his steps sounded running upstairs.

Like a flash, Jimmie Dale was across the room and at the fireplace. Like Connie Myers, he, too, put his head into the opening; and then, a queer, unpleasant smile on his lips, he bent quickly over the man on the floor.

Hagan was no more than stunned, and was even then beginning to show signs of returning consciousness. There was a rattle, a clang, a thud--and the bar, too long to come all the way through, dropped into the opening and stood upright. Connie Myers' footsteps sounded again, returning on the run--and Jimmie Dale was back once more on the other side of the kitchen doorway.

It was all simple enough--once one understood! The same queer smile was still flickering on Jimmie Dale's lips. There was no way to get the money out, except the way Connie Myers had got it out--by digging it out! With the irrational cunning of his mad brain, that had put the money even beyond his own reach, old Doyle had built his fireplace with a hollow some eighteen inches square in a great wall of solid stonework, and from it had run a two-inch pipe up somewhere to the story above; and down this pipe he had dropped his little string-tied cylinders of banknotes, satisfied that his h.o.a.rd was safe! There seemed something pitifully ironic in the elaborate, insane craftiness of the old man's fear-twisted, demented mind.

And now Connie Myers was back in the room again--and again a puzzled expression settled upon Jimmie Dale's face as he watched the other. For perhaps a minute the man stood by the table sifting the little rolls of money through his fingers gloatingly--then, impulsively, he pushed these to one side, produced a revolver, laid it on the table, and from another pocket took out a little case which, as he opened it, Jimmie Dale could see contained a hypodermic syringe. One more article followed the other two--a letter, which Connie Myers took out of an unsealed envelope. He dropped this suddenly on the table, as Mike Hagan, three feet away on the floor, groaned and sat up.

Hagan's eyes swept, bewildered, confused, around him, questioningly at Connie Myers--and then, resting suddenly on his bound wrists, they narrowed menacingly.

"d.a.m.n you, you smashed me with that sledge on PURPOSE!" he burst out--and began to struggle to his feet.

With a brutal chuckle, Connie Myers pushed Hagan back and shoved his revolver under the other's nose.

"Sure!" he admitted evenly. "And you keep quiet, or I'll finish you now--instead of letting the police do it!" He laughed out jarringly.

"You're under arrest, you know, for the murder of Luther Doyle, and for robbing the poor old nut of his savings in his house here."

Hagan wrenched himself up on his elbow.

"What--what do you mean?" he stammered.

"Oh, don't worry!" said Connie Myers maliciously. "I'M not making the arrest, I'd rather the police did that. I'm not mixing up in it, and by and by"--he lifted up the hypodermic for Hagan to see--"I'm going to shoot a little dope into you that'll keep you quiet while I get away myself."

Hagan's face had gone a grayish white--he had caught sight of the money on the table, and his eyes kept s.h.i.+fting back and forth from it to Myers' face.

"Murder!" he said huskily. "There is no murder. I don't know who Doyle is. You said this house was yours--you hired me to come here. You said you were going to tear down the fireplace and build another. You said I could work evenings and earn some extra money."

"Sure, I did!" There was a vicious leer now on Connie Myers' lips. "But you don't think I picked you out by ACCIDENT, do you? Your reputation, my bucko, was just shady enough to satisfy anybody that it wouldn't be beyond you to go the limit. Sure, you murdered Doyle! Listen to this."

He took up the letter:

"TO THE POLICE: Luther Doyle was murdered this evening in the tenement at 67 ---- Street. You'll find his body in a room on the second floor.

If you want to know who did it, look in Mike Hagan's room on the floor above. There's a paper stuck under the edge of Hagan's table with a piece of chewing gum, where he hid it. You'll know what it is when you go out and take a look at Doyle's house in Pelham. Yours truly, A FRIEND."

Mike Hagan did not speak--his lips were twitching, and there was horror creeping into his eyes.

"D'ye get me!" sneered Connie Myers. "Tell your story--who'd believe it!

I got you cinched. Twice I tried to get this old dub's coin out here, and couldn't find it. But the second time I found something else--a piece of paper with a drawing of the fireplace on it, and a place in the drawing marked with an X. That was good enough, wasn't it? That's the paper I stuck under your table this afternoon when your wife was out--see? Somebody's got to stand for the job, and if it's somebody else it won't be me--get me! When I had a look at that fireplace I knew I couldn't do the job alone in a week, and I didn't dare blast it with 'soup' for fear of spoiling what was inside. And since I had to have somebody to help me, I thought I might as well let him help me all the way through--and stand for it. I picked you, Mike--that's why I croaked old Doyle in your tenement to-night. I wrote this letter while I was waiting for you to show up at the station to come out here with me, and I'm going to see that the police get it in the next hour. When they find Doyle in the room below yours, and that paper in your room, and the busted fireplace here--I guess they won't look any farther for who did it. And say"--he leaned forward with an ugly grin--"mabbe you think I'm soft to be telling you all this? But don't you fool yourself. You don't know me--you don't know who I am. So tell 'em the TRUTH! They won't believe you anyway with evidence like that against you--and the neater the story the more they'll think it shows brains enough on your part to have pulled a job like this!"

"My G.o.d!" Hagan was rocking on his knees, beads of sweat were starting out on his forehead. "You wouldn't plant a man like that!" he cried brokenly. "You wouldn't do it, would you? My G.o.d--you wouldn't do that!"

Jimmie Dale's face under his mask was white and rigid. There was something primal, elemental in the savagery that was sweeping upon him.

He had it all now--ALL! She had been right--there was need to-night for the Gray Seal. So that was the game, inhuman, h.e.l.lish, the whole of it, to the last filthy dregs--Connie Myers, to protect himself, was railroading an innocent man to death for the crime that he himself had committed! There was a cold smile on Jimmie Dale's lips now, as he took his automatic from his pocket. No, it wasn't quite all the game--there was still HIS hand to play! He edged forward a little nearer to the door--and halted abruptly, listening. An automobile had stopped outside on the road. Hagan was still pleading in a frenzied way; Connie Myers was callously folding his letter, while he watched the other warily--neither of the men had heard the sound.

And then, quick, almost on the instant, came a rush of feet, a crash upon the front door--an imperative command to open in the name of the law. THE POLICE! Jimmie Dale's brain was working now with lightning speed. Somehow the police had stumbled upon the crime in that tenement; and, as he had foreseen in such an event, had identified Doyle. But they could not be sure that any one was present here in the house now--they could not see a light any more than he had. He must get Mike Hagan away--must see that Connie Myers did NOT get away. Myers was on his feet now, fear struck in his turn, the letter clutched in a tight-closed fist, his revolver swung out, poised, in the other hand. Hagan, too, was on his feet, and, unheeded now by Connie Myers, was wrenching his wrists apart.

Another crash upon the door--another. Another demand in a harsh voice to open it. Then some one running around to the window at the side of the house--and Jimmie Dale sprang forward.

There was the roar of a report, a blinding flash almost in Jimmie Dale's eyes, as Connie Myers, whirling instantly at his entrance, fired--and missed. It happened quick then, in the s.p.a.ce of the ticking of a watch--before Jimmie Dale, flinging himself forward, had reached the man. Like a defiant challenge to their demand it must have seemed to the officers outside, that shot of Connie Myers at Jimmie Dale, for it was answered on the instant by another through the side window. And the shot, fired at random, the interior of the room hidden from the officers outside by the drawn shades, found its mark--and Connie Myers, a bullet in his brain, pitched forward, dead, upon the floor.