The Adventures of Jimmie Dale Part 7

"You two ginks open your traps, and I'll run you both in!"

And then the rush pa.s.sed, and swept on up the stairs.

Jimmie Dale looked at the Runt. The cigarette dangled limply; the Runt's eyes were like a hunted beast's.

"Dey got him!" he mumbled. "It's Stace--Stace Morse. He come to me after croakin' Metzer, an' he's been hidin' up dere all afternoon."

Stace Morse--known in gangland as a man with every crime in the calendar to his credit, and prominent because of it! Something seemed to go suddenly queer inside of Jimmie Dale. Stace Morse! Was he wrong, after all? Jimmie Dale drew closer to the Runt.

"Yer givin' me a steer, ain't youse?" He spoke again from the corner of his mouth, almost inaudibly. "Are youse sure it was Stace croaked Metzer? Wot fer? How'd yer know?"

The Runt was listening, his eyes strained toward the stairs. The hall door to the street was closed, but both were quite well aware that there was an officer on guard outside.

"He told me," whispered the Runt. "Metzer was fixin' ter snitch on him ter-night. Dey've got de goods on Stace, too. He made a b.u.m job of it."

"Why didn't he get out of de country den when he had de chanst, instead of hangin' around here all afternoon?" demanded Jimmie Dale.

"He was broke," the Runt answered. "We was gettin' de coin fer him ter fade away wid ter-night, an'--"

A revolver shot from above cut short his words. Came then the sound of a struggle, oaths, the shuffling tread of feet--but in the dance hall the piano still rattled on, the mandolin tw.a.n.ged, voices sang and applauded, and beer mugs thumped time.

They were on the stairs now, the officers, half carrying, half dragging some one between them--and the man they dragged cursed them with utter abandon. As they reached the bottom of the stairs, Jimmie Dale caught sight of the prisoner's face--not a prepossessing one--villainous,--low-browed, contorted with a mixture of fear and rage.

"It's a lie! A lie! A lie!" the man shrieked. "I never seen him in me life--blast you!--curse you!--d'ye hear!"

Inspector Clayton caught Jimmie Dale and the Runt by the collars.

"There's nothing to interest you around here!" he snapped maliciously.

"Go on, now--beat it!" And he pushed them toward the door.

They had heard the disturbance in the dance hall now and the occupants were swarming to the sidewalk. A patrol wagon came around the corner. In the crowd Jimmie Dale slipped away from the Runt.

Was he wrong, after all? A fierce pa.s.sion seized him. It was Stace Morse who had murdered Metzer, the Runt had said. In Jimmie Dale's brain the words began to reiterate themselves in a singsong fas.h.i.+on: "It was Stace Morse. It was Stace Morse." Then his lips drew tight together. WAS it Stace Morse? He would have given a good deal for a chance to talk to the man--even for a minute. But there was no possibility of that now. Later, to-morrow perhaps, if he was wrong, after all!

Jimmie Dale returned to the Sanctuary, removed from his person all evidences of Larry the Bat--and from the Sanctuary went home to Riverside Drive.

In his den there, in the morning after breakfast, Jason, the butler, brought him the papers. Three-inch headlines in red ink screamed, exulted, and shrieked out the news that the Gray Seal, in the person of Stace Morse, fence, yeggman and murderer, had been captured. The public, if it had held any private admiration for the one-time mysterious crook could now once and forever disillusion itself. The Gray Seal was Stace Morse--and Stace Morse was of the dregs of the city's sc.u.m, a pariah, an outcast, with no single redeeming trait to lift him from the ruck of mire and slime that had strewn his life from infancy. The face of Inspector Clayton, blandly self-complacent, leaped out from the paper to meet Jimmie Dale's eyes--and with it a column and a half of perfervid eulogy.

Something at first like dismay, the dismay of impotency, filled Jimmie Dale--and then, cold, leaving him unnaturally calm, the old merciless rage took its place. There was nothing to do now but wait--wait until Carruthers should send that photograph. Then if, after all, he were wrong--then he must find some other way. But was he wrong! The notebook that Carruthers had given him, open at the sketch he had made of Clayton, lay upon the desk. Jimmie Dale picked it up--he had already spent quite a little time over it before breakfast--and examined it again minutely, even resorting to his magnifying gla.s.s. He put it down as a knock sounded at the door, and Jason entered with a silver card tray. From Carruthers already! Jimmie Dale stepped quickly forward--and then Jimmie Dale met the old man's eyes. It wasn't from Carruthers--it was from HER!

"The same shuffer brought it, Master Jim," said Jason.

Jimmie Dale s.n.a.t.c.hed the envelope from the tray, and waved the other from the room. As the door closed, he tore open the letter. There was just a single line:

Jimmie--Jimmie, you haven't failed, have you?

Jimmie Dale stared at it. Failed! Failed--HER! The haggard look was in his face again. It was the bond between them that was at stake--the Gray Seal--the bond that had come, he knew for all time in that instant, to mean his life.

"G.o.d knows!" he muttered hoa.r.s.ely, and flung himself into a lounging chair, still staring at the note.

The hours dragged by. Luncheon time arrived and pa.s.sed--and then by special messenger the little package from Carruthers came.

Jimmie Dale started to undo the string, then laid the package down, and held out his hands before him for inspection. They were trembling visibly. It was a strange condition for Jimmie Dale either to witness or experience, unlike him, foreign to him.

"This won't do, Jimmie," he said grimly, shaking his head.

He picked up the package again, opened it, and from between two pieces of cardboard took out a large photographic print. A moment, two, Jimmie Dale examined it, used the magnifying gla.s.s again; and then a strange gleam came into the dark eyes, and his lips moved.

"I've won," said Jimmie Dale, with ominous softness. "I've WON!"

He was standing beside the rosewood desk, and he reached for the phone.

Carruthers would be at home now--he called Carruthers there. After a moment or two he got the connection.

"This is Jimmie, Carruthers," he said. "Yes, I got it. Thanks. . . .

Yes. . . . Listen. I want you to get Inspector Clayton, and bring him up here at once. . . . What? No, no--no! . . . How? . . . Why--er--tell him you're going to run a full page of him in the Sunday edition, and you want him to sit for a sketch. He'd go anywhere for that. . . . Yes. . . .

Half an hour. . . . YES. . . . Good-bye."

Jimmie Dale hung up the receiver; and, hastily now, began to write upon a pad that lay before him on the desk. The minutes pa.s.sed. As he wrote, he scored out words and lines here and there, subst.i.tuting others. At the end he had covered three large pages with, to any one but himself, an indecipherable scrawl. These he shoved aside now, and, very carefully, very legibly, made a copy on fresh sheets. As he finished, he heard a car draw up in front of the house. Jimmie Dale folded the copied sheets neatly, tucked them in his pocket, lighted a cigarette, and was lolling lazily in his chair as Jason announced: "Mr. Carruthers, sir, and another gentleman to see you."

"Show them up, Jason," instructed Jimmie Dale.

Jimmie Dale rose from his chair as they came in. Jason, well-trained servant, closed the door behind them.

"h.e.l.lo, Carruthers; h.e.l.lo, inspector," said Jimmie Dale pleasantly, and waved them to seats. "Take this chair, Carruthers." He motioned to one at his elbow. "Glad to see you, inspector--try that one in front of the desk, you'll find it comfortable."

Carruthers, trying to catch Jimmie Dale's eye for some sort of a cue, and, failing, sat down. Inspector Clayton stared at Jimmie Dale.

"Oh, it's YOU, eh?" His eyes roved around the room, fastened for an instant on some of Jimmie Dale's work on an easel, came back finally to Jimmie Dale--and he plumped himself down in the chair indicated.

"Thought you was more'n a cub reporter," he remarked, with a grin.

"You were too slick with your pencil. Pretty fine studio you got here.

Carruthers says you're going to draw me."

Jimmie Dale smiled--not pleasantly--and leaned suddenly over the desk.

"Yes," he said slowly, a grim intonation in his voice, "going to draw you--TRUE TO LIFE."

With an exclamation, Clayton slued around in his chair, half rose, and his s.h.i.+fty eyes, small and cunning, bored into Jimmie Dale's face.

"What d'ye mean by that?" he snapped out

"Just exactly what I say," replied Jimmie Dale curtly. "No more, no less. But first, not to be too abrupt, I want to join with the newspapers in congratulating you on the remarkable--shall I call it celerity, or ac.u.men?--with which you solved the mystery of Metzer's death, and placed the murderer behind the bars. It is really remarkable, inspector, so remarkable, in fact, that it's almost--SUSPICIOUS. Don't you think so? No? Well, that's what Mr. Carruthers was good enough to bring you up here to talk over--in an intimate and confidential way, you know."

Inspector Clayton surged up from his chair to his feet, his fists clenched, the red sweeping over his face--and then he shook one fist at Carruthers.

"So that's your game, is it!" he stormed. "Trying to crawl out of that twenty-five thousand reward, eh? And as for you"--he turned on Jimmie Dale--"you've rigged up a nice little plant between you, eh? Well, it won't work--and I'll make you squirm for this, both of you, d.a.m.n you, before I'm through!" He glared from one to the other for a moment--then swung on his heel. "Good-afternoon, gentlemen," he sneered, as he started for the door.