"Yes," he said briefly; "I surmised as much."

"Strange as it may seem, in view of the fact that they had not seen each other for twenty years," she went on hurriedly "my father and my uncle were more than ordinarily attached to each other. Letters passed regularly between them, and there was constant talk of one paying the other a visit—but the visit never materialised. My uncle was somewhere in Australia, my father was here, and consequently I never saw my uncle. He was quite a different type of man from father—more restless, less settled, more rough and ready, preferring the outdoor life of the Australian bush to the restrictions of any so-called civilisation, I imagine. Financially, I do not think he ever succeeded very well, for twice, in one way or another, he lost every sheep on his ranch and father set him up again; and I do not think he could ever have had much of a ranch, for I remember once, in one of the letters he wrote, that he said he had not seen a white man in weeks, so he must have lived a very lonely life. Indeed, at about the time father drew the new will, my uncle wrote, saying that he had decided to give up sheep running on his own account as it did not pay, and to accept a very favourable offer that had been made to him to manage a ranch in New Zealand; and his next letter was from the latter country, stating that he had carried out his intentions, and was well satisfied with the change he had made. The long-proposed visit still continued to occupy my father's thoughts, and on his retirement from business he definitely made up his mind to go out to New Zealand, taking me with him. In fact, the plans were all arranged, my uncle expressed unbounded delight in his letters, and we were practically on the eve of sailing, when a cable came from my uncle, telling us to postpone the visit for a few months, as he was obliged to make a buying trip for his new employer that would keep him away that length of time—and then"—her fingers, that had been abstractedly picking out the lines formed by the grain of the wood in the table top, closed suddenly into tight-clenched fists—"and then—my father died."

Jimmie Dale turned away his head. There were tears in her eyes. The old sense of unreality was strong upon him again. He was listening to the Tocsin's story. It was strange that he should be doing that—that it could be really so! It seemed as though magically he had been transported out of the world where for years past he had lived with danger lurking at every turn, where men set watch about his house to trap him, where the denizens of the underworld yowled like starving beasts to sink their fangs in him, where the police were ceaselessly upon his trail to wreak an insensate vengeance upon him; it seemed as though he had been transported away from all that to something that he had dreamed might, perhaps, sometime happen, that he had hoped might happen, that he had longed for always, but now that it was his, that it also was full of the sense of the unreal. And yet as his mind followed the thread of her story, and leaped ahead and vaguely glimpsed what was to come, he was conscious in a sort of premonitory way of a vaster peril than any he had ever known, as though forces, for the moment masked, were arrayed against him whose strength and whose malignity were beyond human parallel. In what a strange, almost incoherent way his brain was working! He roused himself a little and looked around him—and, with a shock, the starkness of the room, the abject, pitiful air of destitution brought home to him with terrific, startling force the significance of the scene in which he was playing a part. His face set suddenly in hard lines. That she should have been brought to assume such a life as this—forced out of her environment of wealth and refinement, forced in her purity to rub shoulders with the vile, the dissolute, forced to exist as such a creature amid the crime and vice, the wretched horror of the underworld that swirled around her! There was anger now upon him, burning, hot—a merciless craving that was a savage, hungry lust for vengeance.

And then she was speaking again:

"Father's death occurred very shortly after my uncle's message advising us to postpone our trip was received. On his death, Travers, very naturally, as father's lawyer, cabled my uncle to come to New York at once; and my uncle replied, saying that he was coming by the first steamer."

She paused again—but only for an instant, as though to frame her thoughts in words.

"I have told you that I had never seen my uncle, that even my father had not seen him for twenty years; and I have told you that the man you know as Henry LaSalle is an impostor—I am using the word 'uncle' now when I refer to him simply to avoid confusion. You are, perhaps, expecting me to say that I took a distinctive dislike to him from the moment he arrived? On the contrary, I had every reason to be predisposed toward him; and, indeed, was rather agreeably surprised than otherwise—he was not nearly so uncouth and unpolished as, somehow, I had pictured his life would have made him. Do you understand, Jimmie? He was kind, sympathetic; and, in an apathetic way, I liked him. I say 'apathetic' because I think that best describes my own attitude toward every one and everything following father's death until—THAT NIGHT."

She rose abruptly from her chair, as though a passive position of any kind had suddenly become intolerable.

"Why tell you what my father and I were to each other!" she cried out in a low, passionate voice. "It seemed as though everything that meant anything had gone out of my life. I became worn out, nervous; and though the days were bad enough, the nights were a source of dread. I began to suffer from insomnia—I could not sleep. This was even before my supposed uncle came. I used to read for hours and hours in my room after I had gone to bed. But"—she flung out her hand with an impatient gesture—"there is no need to dwell on that. One night, about a week after that man had arrived, and a little over a month after father had died, I was in my room and had finished a book I was reading. I remember that it was well after midnight. I had not the slightest inclination to sleep. I picked up another book—and after that another. There were plenty in my room; but, irrationally, of course, none pleased me. I decided to go down to the library—not that I think I really expected to find anything that I actually wanted, but more because it was an impulse, and furnished me for the moment with some definite objective, something to do. I got up, slipped on a dressing gown, and went downstairs. The lights were all out. I was just on the point of switching on those in the reception hall, when suddenly it seemed as though I had not strength to lift my hand, and I remember that for an instant I grew terribly cold with dread and fear. From the room on my right a voice had reached me. The door was closed, but the voice was raised in an outburst of profanity. I—I could hear every word.

"'If she's out of the way, there's no come-back,' the voice snarled. 'I won't listen to anything else! Do you hear! Why, you fool, what are you trying to do—hand me one! Turn everything into cash, and divvy, and beat it—eh? And I'm the goat, and I get caught and get twenty years for stealing trust funds—and the rest of you get the coin!' He swore terribly again. 'Who's taken the risk in this for the last five years! There'll be no smart Aleck lawyer tricks—there'll be no halfway measures! And who are you to dictate! She goes out—that's safe—I inherit as next of kin, with no one to dispute it, and that's all there is to it!'

"I stood there and could not move. It was the voice of the man I knew as my uncle! My heart seemed to have stopped beating. I tried to tell myself that I was dreaming, that it was too horrible, too incredible to be real; that they could not really mean to—to MURDER me. And then I recognised Hilton Travers' voice.

"'I am not dictating, and you are not serious, of course,' he said, with what seemed an uneasy laugh. 'I am only warning you that you are forgetting to take the real Henry LaSalle into account. He is bound to hear of this eventually, and then—'

"Another voice broke in—one I did not recognise.

"'You're talking too loud, both of you! Travers doesn't understand, but he's to be wised up to-night, according to orders, and—'

"The voice became inaudible, muffled—I could not hear any more. I suppose I remained there another three or four minutes, too stunned to know what to do; and then I ran softly along the hall to the library door. The library, you understand, was at the rear of the room they were in, and the two rooms were really one; that is, there was only an archway between them. I cannot tell you what my emotions were—I do not know. I only know that I kept repeating to myself, 'they are going to kill me, they are going to kill me!' and that it seemed I must try and find out everything, everything I could."

She turned away from the table, and began to pace nervously up and down the miserable room.

Jimmie Dale rose impulsively from his chair—but she waved him back again.

"No; wait!" she said. "Let me finish. I crept into the library. It took me a long time, because I had to be so careful not to make the slightest noise. I suppose it was fully six or seven minutes from the time I had first heard my supposed uncle's voice until I had crept far enough forward to be able to see into the room beyond. There were three men there. The man I knew as my uncle was sitting at one end of the table; another had his back toward me; and Travers was facing in my direction—and I think I never saw so ghastly a face as was Hilton Travers' then. He was standing up, sort of swaying, as he leaned with both hands on the table.

"'Now then, Travers,' the man whose back was turned to me was saying threateningly, 'you've got the story now—sign those papers!'

"It seemed as though Travers could not speak for a moment. He kept looking wildly from one to the other. He was white to the lips.

"'You've let me in for—THIS!' he said hoarsely, at last, 'You devils—you devils—you devils! You've let me in for—murder! Both of them! Both Peter and his brother—MURDERED!'"

She stopped abruptly before Jimmie Dale, and clutched his arm tightly.

"Jimmie, I don't know why I did not scream out. Everything went black for a moment before my eyes. It was the first suspicion I had had that my father had met with foul play, and I—"

But now Jimmie Dale swayed up from his chair.

"Murdered!" he exclaimed tensely. "Your father! But—but I remember perfectly, there was no hint of any such thing at the time, and never has been since. He died from quite natural causes."

She looked at him strangely.

"He died from—inoculation," she said. "Did—did you not see something of that laboratory in the Crime Club yourself the night before last—enough to understand?"

"Good God!" muttered Jimmie Dale, in a startled way then: "Go on! Go on! What happened then?"

She passed her hand a little wearily across her eyes—and sank down into her chair again.

"Travers," she continued, picking up the thread of her story, "had raised his voice, and the third man at the table leaned suddenly, aggressively toward him.

"'Hold your tongue!' he growled furiously. 'All you're asked to do is sign the papers—not talk!'

"Travers shook his head.

"'I won't!' he cried out. 'I won't have any hand in another murder—in hers! My God, I won't—I won't, I tell you! It's horrible!'

"'Look here, you fool!' the man who was posing as my uncle broke in then. 'You're in this too deep to get out now. If you know what's good for you, you'll do as you're told!'

"Jimmie, I shall never forget Travers' face. It seemed to have changed from white to gray, and there was horror in his eyes: and then he seemed to lose all control of himself, shaking his fists in their faces, cursing them in utter abandon.

"'I'm bad!' he cried. 'I've gone everything, everything but the limit—everything but murder. I stop there! I'll have no more to do with this. I'm through! You—you pulled me into this, and—and I didn't know!'

"'Well, you know now!' the third man sneered. 'What are you going to do about it?'

"'I'm going to see that no harm comes to Marie LaSalle,' Travers answered in a dull way.

"The other man now was on his feet—and, I do not know quite how to express it, Jimmie, he seemed ominously quiet in both his voice and his movements.

"'You'd better think that over again, Travers!' he said. 'Do you mean it?'

"'I mean it,' Travers said. 'I mean it—God help me!'

"'You may well add that!' returned the other, with an ugly laugh. He reached out his hand toward the telephone on the table. 'Do you know what will happen to you if I telephone a certain number and say that you have turned—traitor?'

"'I'll have to take my chances,' Travers replied doggedly. 'I'm through!'

"'Take them, then!' flung out the other. 'You'll have little time given you to do us any harm?'

"Travers did not answer. I think he almost expected an attack upon him then from the two men. He hesitated a moment, then backed slowly toward the door. What happened in the next few moments in that room, I do not know. I stole out of the library. I was obsessed with the thought that I must see Travers, see him at all costs, before he got away from the house. I reached the end of the hall as the room door opened, and he came out. It was dark, as I said, and I could not see distinctly, but I could make out his form. He closed the door behind him—and then I called his name in a whisper. He took a quick step toward me, then turned and hurried toward the front door, and I thought he was going away—but the next instant I understood his ruse. He opened the front door, shut it again quite loudly, and crept back to me.

"'Take me somewhere where we will be safe—quick!' he whispered.

"There was only one place where I was sure we would be safe. I led him to the rear of the house and up the servants' stairs, and to my boudoir."

She broke off abruptly, and once more rose from her chair, and once more began to pace the room. Back in his chair, Jimmie Dale, tense and motionless now, watched her without a word.

"It would take too long to tell you all that passed between us," she went on hurriedly. "The man was frankly a criminal—but not to the extent of murder. And in that respect, at least, he was honest with himself. Almost the first words he said to me were: 'Miss LaSalle, I am as good as a dead man if I am caught by the devils behind those two men downstairs.' And then he began to plead with me to make my own escape. He did not know who the man was that was posing as my uncle, had never seen him before until he presented himself as Henry LaSalle; the other man he knew as Clarke, but knew also that 'Clarke' was merely an assumed name. He had fallen in with Clarke almost from the time that he had begun to practise his profession, and at Clarke's instigation had gone from one crooked deal to another, and had made a great deal of money. He knew that behind Clarke was a powerful, daring, and unscrupulous band of criminals, organised on a gigantic scale, of which he himself was, in a sense—a probationary sense, as he put it—a member; but he had never come into direct contact with them—he had received all his orders and instructions through Clarke. He had been told by Clarke that he was to cultivate father following the introduction, to win father's confidence, to get as many of father's affairs into his hands as possible, to reach the position, in fact, of becoming father's recognised attorney—and all this with the object, as he supposed of embezzling from father on a large scale. Then father died, and Travers was instructed to cable my uncle. He knew that the man who answered that summons was an impostor; but he did not know, until they had admitted it to him that night, that both my father and my uncle had been murdered, and that I, too, was to be made away with."

She looked at Jimmie Dale, and suddenly laughed out bitterly.

"No; you don't understand, even yet, the patient, ingenious deviltry of those fiends. It was they, at the time the new will was drawn, who offered to buy out my real uncle's sheep ranch in that lonely, unsettled district in Australia, and offered him that new position in New Zealand. My uncle never reached New Zealand. He was murdered on his way there. And in his place, assuming his name, appeared the man who has been posing as my uncle ever since. Do you begin to see! For five years they were patiently working out their plans, for five years before my father's death that man lived and became known and accepted, and ESTABLISHED himself as Henry LaSalle. Do you see now why he cabled us to postpone our visit? He ran very little risk. The chances were one in a thousand that any of his few acquaintances in Australia would ever run across him in New Zealand; and besides, he was chosen because it seems there was a slight resemblance between him and the real Henry LaSalle—enough, with his changed mode of living and more elaborate and pretentious surroundings, to have enabled him to carry through a bluff had it become necessary. He had all of my uncle's papers; and the Crime Club furnished him with every detail of our lives here. I forgot to say, too, that from the moment my uncle was supposed to have reached New Zealand all his letters were typewritten—an evidence in father's eyes that his brother had secured a position of some importance; as, indeed, from apparently unprejudiced sources, they took pains to assure father was a fact. This left them with only my uncle's signature to forge to the letters—not a difficult matter for them!

"Believing that they had Travers so deeply implicated that he could do nothing, even if he had the inclination, which they had not for a moment imagined, and arrogant in the belief in their own power to put him out of the way in any case if he proved refractory, they admitted all this to him that night when he brought up the issue of the real Henry LaSalle putting in an appearance sooner or later, and when they wanted him to smooth their path by releasing all documents where his power of attorney was involved. Do you see now the part they gave Travers to play? It was to put the stamp of genuineness upon the false Henry LaSalle. Not but that they were prepared with what would appear to be overwhelmingly convincing evidence to prove it if it were necessary; but if the man were accepted by the estate's lawyer there was little chance of any one else questioning his identity."

She halted again by the table—and forced a smile, as her eyes met Jimmie Dale's.

"I am almost through, Jimmie. That night was a terrible one for both of us. Travers' life was not worth a moment's purchase once they found him—and mine was only under reprieve until sufficient time to obviate suspicion should have elapsed after father's death. We had no proof that would stand in any court—even if we should have been given the chance to adopt that course. And without absolute, irrefutable proof, it was all so cleverly woven, stretched over so many years, that our charge must have been held to be too visionary and fantastic to have any basis in fact.

"All Travers would have been able to advance was the statement that the supposed Henry LaSalle had admitted being an impostor and a murderer to him! Who would believe it! On the face of it, it appeared to be an absurdity. And even granted that we were given an opportunity to bring the charge, they would be able to prove by a hundred influential and well-known men in New Zealand that the impostor was really Henry LaSalle; and were we able to find any of my uncle's old acquaintances in Australia, it would be necessary to get them here—and not one of them would have reached America alive.

"But there was not a chance, not a chance, Jimmie, of doing that—they would have killed Travers the moment he showed himself in the open. The only thing we could do that night was to try and save our own lives; the only thing we could look forward to was acquiring in some way, unknown to them, the proof, fully established, with which we could crush them in a single stroke, and before they would have time to strike back.

"The vital thing was proof of my uncle's death. That, if it could be obtained at all, could only be obtained in Australia. Travers was obliged to go somewhere, to disappear from that moment if he wanted to save his life, and he volunteered to go out there. He left the house that night by the back entrance in an old servant's suit, which I found for him—and I never heard from him again until a month ago in the 'personal' column of the MORNING NEWS-ARGUS, through which we had agreed to communicate.

"As for myself, I left the house the next morning, telling my pseudo uncle that I was going to spend a few days with a friend. And this I actually did; but in those few days I managed to turn all my own securities, that had been left me by my mother and which amounted to a considerable sum, into cash. And then, Jimmie, I came to—this, I have lived like this and in different disguises, as a settlement worker, as a widow of means in a fashionable uptown apartment, but mostly as you see me now—for five years. For five years I have watched my supposed uncle, hoping, praying that through him I could get to know the others associated with him; hoping, praying that Travers would succeed; hoping, praying that we would get them all—and watching day after day, and year after year the 'personal' column of the paper, until at last I began to be afraid that it was all useless. And there was nothing, Jimmie, nothing anywhere, and I had no success"—her voice choked a little. "Nothing! Even Clarke never went again to the house. You can understand now how I came to know the strange things that I wrote to the Gray Seal, how the life that I have led, how this life here in the underworld, how the constant search for some clew on my own account brought them to my knowledge; and you can understand now, too, why I never dared to let you meet me, for I knew well enough that, while I worked to undermine my father's and my uncle's murderers, they were moving heaven and earth to find me.

"That is all, Jimmie. The day before yesterday, a month after Travers' first message to let me know that he was coming, there was another 'personal' giving me an hour and a telephone number. He was back! He had everything—everything! We dared not meet; he was afraid, suspicious that they had got track of him again. You know the rest. That package contained the proof that, with Travers' death, can probably never be obtained again. Do you understand why THEY want it—why it is life and death to me? Do you understand why my supposed uncle offered huge rewards for me, why secretly every resource of that hideous organisation has been employed to find me—that it is only by my DEATH the estate can pass into their hands, and now—"

She flung out her hands suddenly toward Jimmie Dale. "Oh, Jimmie, Jimmie, I've—I've fought so long alone! Jimmie, what are we to do?"

He came slowly to his feet. She had fought so long—alone. But now—now it was his turn to fight—for her. But how? She had not told him all—surely she had not told him all, for everything depended upon that package. There had been so much to tell that she had not thought of all, and she had not told him the details about that.

"That box—No. 428!" he cried quickly. "What is that? What does it mean?"

She shook her head.

"I do not know," she answered.

"Then who is this John Johansson?"

"I do not know," she said again.

"Nor where the Crime Club is?"

"No"—dully.

He stared at her for a moment in a dazed way.

"My God!" Jimmie Dale murmured.

And then she turned away her head.

"It's—it's pretty bad, isn't it, Jimmie? I—I told you that we did not hold many trumps."



CHAPTER X

SILVER MAG

There was silence between them. Minute after minute passed. Neither spoke.

Jimmie Dale dropped back into his chair again, and stared abstractedly before him. "We do not hold many trumps, Jimmie—we do not hold many trumps"—her words were repeating themselves over and over in his mind. They seemed to challenge him mockingly to deny what was so obviously a fact, and because he could not deny it to taunt and jeer at him—to jeer at him, when all that was held at stake hung literally upon his next move!

He looked up mechanically as the Tocsin walked to a broken mirror at the rear of the miserable room; nodded mechanically in approval as she began deftly to retouch the make-up on her face where the tears had left their traces—and resumed his abstracted gaze before him.

Box number four-two-eight—John Johansson—the Crime Club—the identity of the man who was posing as Henry LaSalle! If only he could hit upon a clew to the solution of a single one of those things, or a single phase of one of them—if only he could glimpse a ray of light that would at least prompt action, when every moment of inaction was multiplying the odds against them!

There were the men who were watching his house at that moment on Riverside Drive—he, as Larry the Bat, might in turn keep watch on them. He had though of that. In time, perhaps, he might, by so doing, discover the whereabouts of the Crime Club. In time! It was just that—he had no time! Forty-eight hours, the Tocsin insisted, was all the time that he could count upon before they would become suspicious of Jimmie Dale's "illness," before they would discover that they were watching an empty house!

He might—though this was even more hazardous—make an attempt to trace the wires that tapped those of his telephone through the basement window that gave on the garage driveway. And what then? True, they could not lead very far away; but, even if successful, what then? They would not lead him to the Crime Club, but simply to some confederate, to some man or woman playing the part of a servant, perhaps, in the house next door, who, in turn, would have to be shadowed and watched.

Jimmie Dale shook his head. Better, of the two, to start in at once and shadow those who were shadowing his house. But that was not the way! He knew that intuitively. He hated to eliminate it from consideration, for he had no other move to take its place—but such a move was almost suicide in itself. Time, and time alone, was the vital factor. They, the Tocsin and he, must act quickly—and STRIKE that night if they were to win. His fingers, the grimy fingers, dirty-nailed, of Larry the Bat, that none now would recognise as the slim tapering, wonderfully sensitive fingers of Jimmie Dale, the fingers that had made the name of the Gray Seal famous, whose tips mocked at bars and safes and locks, and seemed to embody in themselves all the human senses, tightened spasmodically on the edge of the table. Time! Time! Time! It seemed to din in his ears. And while he sat there powerless, impotent, the Crime Club was moving heaven and earth to find what HE must find—that package—if he was to save this woman here, the woman whom he loved, she who had been forced, through the machinations of these hell fiends, to adopt the life of a wretched hag, to exist among the dregs of the underworld, whose squalour and vice and wantonness none knew better than he!

Jimmie Dale's face set grimly. Somewhere—somewhere in the past five years of this life of hers in which she had been fighting the Crime Club, pitting that clever brain of hers against it, MUST lie a clew. She had told him her story only in baldest outline, with scarcely a reference to her own personal acts, with barely a single detail. There must be something, something that perhaps she had overlooked, something, just the merest hint of something that would supply a starting point, give him a glimmer of light.

She came back from across the room, and sank down in her chair again. She did not speak—the question, that meant life and death to them both, was in her eyes.

Jimmie answered the mute interrogation tersely.

"Not yet!" he said. Then, almost curtly, in a quick, incisive way, as the keen, alert brain began to delve and probe: "You say this man Clarke never returned to the house after that night?"

She nodded her head quietly.

"You are sure of that?" he insisted.

"Yes," she said. "I am sure."

"And you say that all these years you have kept a watch on the man who is posing as your uncle, and that he never went anywhere, or associated with any one, that would afford you a clew to this Crime Club?"

"Yes," she said again.

It was a moment before Jimmie Dale spoke.

"It's very strange!" he said musingly, at last. "So strange, in fact, that it's impossible. He must have communicated with the others, and communicated with them often. The game they were playing was too big, too full of details, to admit of any other possibility. And the telephone as an explanation isn't good enough."

"And yet," she said earnestly, "possible or impossible, it is nevertheless true. That he might have succeeded in eluding me on occasions was perhaps to be expected; but that in all those years I should not catch him once in what, if you are correct, must have been many and repeated conferences with the same men is too improbable to be thought of seriously."

Jimmie Dale shook his head again.

"If you had been able to watch him night and day, that might be so," he said crisply. "But, at best, you could only watch him a very small portion of the time."

She smiled at him a little wanly.

"Do you think, Jimmie, from what you, as the Gray Seal, know of me, that I would have watched in any haphazard way like that?"

He glanced at her with a sudden start.

"What do you mean?" he asked quickly.

"Look at me!" she said quietly. "Have you ever seen me before? I mean as I am now."

"No," he answered, after an instant. "Not that I know of."

"And yet"—she smiled wanly again—"you have not lived, or made the place you hold in the underworld, without having heard of Silver Mag."

"You!" exclaimed Jimmie Dale. "You—Silver Mag!" He stared at her wonderingly, as, crouch-shouldered now, the hair, gray-threaded, straggling out from under the hood of a faded, dark-blue, seam-worn cloak, she sat before him, a typical creature of the underworld, her role an art in its conception, perfect in its execution. Silver Mag! Yes, he had heard of Silver Mag—as every one in the Bad Lands had heard of her. Silver Mag and her pocketful of coin! Always a pocketful of silver, so they said, that was dispensed prodigally to the wives and children temporarily deprived of support by husbands and fathers unfortunate enough in their clashes with the law to be doing "spaces" up the river—and therefore the underworld swore by Silver Mag. Always silver, never a bill; Silver Mag had never been seen with a banknote—that was her eccentricity. Much or little, she gave or paid out of her pocketful of jangling silver. She was credited with being a sworn enemy of the police, and—yes, he remembered, too—with having done "time" herself. "I don't quite understand," he said, in a puzzled way. "I haven't run across you personally because you probably took care to see that I shouldn't; but—it's no secret—every one says you've served a jail sentence yourself."

"That is simply enough explained," she answered gravely. "The story is of my own making. When I decided to adopt this life, both for my own safety and as the best means of keeping a watch on that man, I knew that I must win the confidence of the underworld, that I must have help, and that in order to obtain that help I must have some excuse for my enmity against the man known as Henry LaSalle. To be widely known in the underworld was of inestimable value—nothing, I knew, could accomplish that as quickly as eccentricity. You see now how and why I became known as Silver Mag. I gained the confidence of every crook in New York through their wives and children. I told them the story of my jail sentence—while I swore vengeance on Henry LaSalle. I told them that he had had me arrested for something I never stole while I was working for him as a charwoman, and that he had had me railroaded to jail. There wasn't one but gave me credit for the theft, perhaps; but equally, there wasn't one but understood, and my eccentricity helped this out, my wanting to 'get' Henry LaSalle. Well—do you see now, Jimmie? I had money, I had the confidence of the underworld, I had an excuse for my hatred of Henry LaSalle, and so I had all the help I wanted. Day and night that man has been watched. He receives no visitors—what social life he has is, as you know, at the club. There is not a house that he has ever entered that, sooner or later, I have not entered after him in the hope of finding the headquarters of the clique. Even the men and women, as far as human possibility could accomplish it, that he has talked to on the streets have been shadowed, and their identity satisfactorily established—and the net result has been failure; utter, absolute, complete failure!"

Jimmie Dale's eyes, that had held steadily on her face, shifted, troubled and perplexed, to the table top.

"You are wonderful!" he said, under his breath. "Wonderful! And—and that makes it all the more amazing, all the more incomprehensible. It is still impossible that he has not been in close and constant touch with his accomplices. He MUST have been! We would be blind fools to argue against it! It could not, on the face of it, have been otherwise!"

"Then how, when, where has he done it?" she asked wearily.

"God knows!" he said bitterly. "And if they have been clever enough to escape you all these years, I'm almost inclined to say what you said a little while ago—that we're beaten."

She watched him miserably, as he pushed back his chair impulsively and, standing up, stared down at her.

"We're against it—HARD!" he said, with a mirthless laugh. Then, his lips tightening: "But we'll try another tack—the chauffeur—Travers. Though even here the Crime Club has a day's start of us, even if last night they knew no more about the whereabouts of that package than we know now. I'm afraid of it! The chances are more than even that they've already got it. If they were able to catch Travers as the chauffeur, they would have had something tangible to work back from"—Jimmie Dale was talking more to himself than to the Tocsin now, as though he were muttering his thoughts aloud. "How did they get track of him? When? Where? What has it led to? And what in Heaven's name," he burst out suddenly, "is this box number four-two-eight!"

"A safety-deposit vault, perhaps, that he has taken somewhere," she hazarded.

Jimmie Dale laughed mirthlessly again.

"That is the one definite thing I do know—that it isn't!" he said positively. "It is nothing of that kind. It was half-past ten o'clock at night when I met him, and he said that he had intended going back for the package if it had been safe to do so. Deposit vaults are not open at that hour. The package is, or was, if they have not already got it, readily accessible—and at any hour. Now go over everything again, every detail that passed between you and Travers. He let you know that he was back in New York by means of a 'personal,' you said. What else was in that 'personal' besides the telephone number and the hour you were to call him? Anything?"

"Nothing that will help us any," she replied colourlessly. "There were simply the words 'northeast corner of Sixth Avenue and Waverly Place,' and the signature that we had agreed upon, the two first and two last letters of the alphabet transposed—BAZY."

"I see," said Jimmie Dale quickly. "And over the 'phone he completed his message. Clever enough!"

"Yes," she said. "In that way, if any one were listening, or overhead the plan, there could be little harm come of it, for the essential feature of all, the place of rendezvous, was not mentioned. It has not been Travers' fault that this happened—and in spite of every precaution it has cost him his life. He wanted nothing to give them a clew to my whereabouts; he was trying to guard against the slightest evidence that would associate us one with the other. He even warned me over the 'phone not to tell him how, where, or the mode of life I was living. And naturally, he dared give me no particulars about himself. I was simply to select a third party whom I could trust, and to follow out his instructions, which were those that I sent to you in my letter."

Jimmie Dale began to pace nervously up and down the room.

"Nothing else?" he queried, a little blankly.

"Nothing else," she said monotonously.

"But since last night, since you knew that things had gone wrong," he persisted, "surely you traced that telephone number—the one you called up?"

"Yes," she said, and shrugged her shoulders in a tired way. "Naturally I did that—but, like everything else, it amounted to nothing. He telephoned from Makoff's pawnshop on that alley off Thompson Street, and—"

"WHERE!" Jimmie Dale, suddenly stock-still, almost shouted the word. "He telephoned from—where! Say that again!"

She looked at him in amazement, half rising from her chair.

"Jimmie, what is it?" she cried. "You don't mean that—"

He was beside her now, his hands pressed upon her shoulders, his face flushed.

"Box number four-two-eight!" He laughed out hysterically in his excitement. "John Johansson—box number four-two-eight! And like a fool I never thought of it! Don't you see? Don't you know now yourself? THE UNDERGROUND POST OFFICE!"

She stood up, clinging to him; a wild relief, that was based on her confidence in him, in her eyes and face, even while she shook her head.

"No," she said frantically. "No—I do not know. Tell me, Jimmie! Tell me quickly! You mean at Makoff's?"

"No! Not Makoff's—at Spider Jack's, on Thompson Street!"—he was clipping off his words, still holding her tightly by the shoulders, still staring into her eyes. "You know Spider Jack! Jack's little novelty store! Ah, you have not learned all of the underworld yet! Spider Jack is the craftiest 'fence' in the Bad Lands—and Makoff is his partner. Spider buys the crooks' stuff, and Makoff disposes of it through the pawnshop—it's only a step through the connecting back yard from one to the other, and—"

"Yes—but," she interrupted feverishly, "the package—you said—"

"Wait!" Jimmie Dale cried. "I'm coming to that! If Travers stood in with Makoff, he stood in with Spider Jack. For years Spider has been a sort of clearing house for the underworld—for years he has conducted, and profitably, too, his underground post office. Crooks from all over the country, let alone those in New York, communicate with each other through Spider Jack. These, for a fee, are registered at Spider's, and given a number—a box number he calls it, though, of course, there are no actual boxes. Letters come by mail addressed to him—the sealed envelope within containing the actually intended recipient's name. These Spider either forwards, or delivers in person when they are called for. Dozens of crooks, too, unwilling, perhaps, to dispose of small ill-gotten articles at ruinous 'fence' prices, and finding it unhealthy for the moment to keep them in their possession, use this means of depositing them temporarily for safe-keeping. You see now, don't you? It's certain that's where Travers left the package. He used the name of John Johansson, not to hoodwink Spider Jack, I should say, but as an added safeguard against the Crime Club. Travers must have known both Makoff and Spider Jack in the old days, and probably had reason, and good reason, to trust them both—possibly, a crook then himself, as he confessed, he may have acted in a legal capacity for them in their frequent tangles with the police."

"Then," she said—and there was a glad, new note in her voice, "then, Jimmie—Jimmie, we are safe! You can get it, Jimmie! It is only a little thing for the Gray Seal to do—to get it now that we know where it is."

"Yes," he said tersely. "Yes—if it is still there."

"Still there!"—she repeated the words quickly, nervously. "Still there! What do you mean?"

"I mean if they, too, have not discovered that he was at Makoff's—if they have not got there first!" he said grimly. "There seems to be no limit to their cleverness, or their power. They penetrated his disguise as a chauffeur, and who knows what more they have learned since last night? We are fighting them in the dark, and—WHAT'S THAT!" he whispered tensely, suddenly—and leaning forward like a flash, as he whipped his automatic from his pocket, he blew out the lamp.

The room was in darkness. They stood there rigid, silent, listening. Her hand found and caught his arm.

And then it came again—a low sound, the sound of a stealthy footstep just outside the window that faced on the storage yard.



CHAPTER XI

THE MAGPIE

A minute passed—another. The automatic at Jimmie Dale's hip, the muzzle just peeping over the table top, held a steady bead on the window. Came the footstep again—and then suddenly, a series of low, quick tappings upon the windowpane. The Tocsin's hand slipped away from his arm. Jimmie Dale's set face relaxed as he read the underground Morse, and he replaced his revolver slowly in his pocket.

"The Magpie!" said Jimmie Dale, in an undertone. "What's he want?"

"I don't know," she answered, in a whisper. "He never came here before. There's a back way out, Jimmie, if you—"

"No," he said quickly. "We've enemies enough, with out making one of the Magpie. He knows some one is here with you—our shadows were on the blind. Don't queer yourself. Let him in. I'll light the lamp."

He struck a match, as she ran from the room, and, lifting the hot lamp chimney with the edge of his ragged coat, lighted the lamp. He turned the wick down a little, shading and dimming the room—and then, as he flirted a bead of moisture from his forehead, whimsically stretched out his hand to watch it in the lamplight.

"That's bad, Jimmie," he muttered gravely to himself, as he noted an almost imperceptible tremour. "Got a start, didn't you! Under a bit of a strain, eh? Well"—grimly—"never mind! It looks as though the luck had turned Makoff and Spider Jack!"

His hand reached up to his hat, jerked the brim at a rakish angle over his eyes—and he sprawled himself out on a chair. He heard the Tocsin's voice at the front door, and a man's voice, low and guarded, answer her. Then the door closed, and their steps approached the room. It was rather curious, that—a visit from the Magpie! What could the Magpie want? What could there be in common between the Magpie and Silver Mag? The Magpie, alias Slimmy Joe, was counted the cleverest safe worker in the United States, barring only and always one—a smile flickered across the lips of Larry the Bat—one whose pre-eminence the Magpie, much to his own chagrin, admitted himself—the Gray Seal!

He looked up, twisting the stub of a cigarette between his grimy fingers and fumbling for a match, as the Tocsin and, behind her, the Magpie, short, slim, and wiry, shrewd-faced, with sharp, quick-glancing little black eyes, entered the room.

"'Ello, Larry!" grinned the Magpie. "Got yer breath back yet? I felt it through de windowpane when youse let go at de lamp!"

"'Ello, Slimmy!" returned Jimmie Dale ungraciously, speaking through the corner of his mouth. "Ferget it!"

"Sure!" said the Magpie unconcernedly. He stared about him, and finally, drawing a chair up to the table, sat down, motioned the Tocsin to do the same, and leaned forward amiably. "I didn't mean to throw no scare into youse," he said, in a conciliating tone. "But I had a little business wid Mag, an' I was kind of interested in whether she was entertainin' company or not—see? I didn't know youse an' Mag was workin' together."

"Mabbe," observed Jimmie Dale, as ungraciously as before, "mabbe dere's some more t'ings youse don't know!"

"Aw, cough up de grouch!" advised the Magpie, with a hint of impatience creeping into his voice. "Youse don't need to be sore all night! I told youse I wasn't tryin' to hand youse one, didn't I?"

"Never mind Larry, Slimmy," put in the Tocsin petulantly. "He's down on his luck, dat's all. He ain't had de price of a pinch of coke fer two days."

"Oho!" exclaimed the Magpie, grinning again. "So dat's wot's givin' youse de pip, eh, Larry? Well, den, say, youse can take it from me dat mabbe youse'll be glad I blew around. I was lookin' fer a guy about yer size fer a little job to-night, an' I was t'inkin' of lettin' Young Dutchy in on it, but seem' youse are here an' in wid Mag, an' dat I got to get Mag in, too, youse are on if youse say de word."

"Wot's de lay?" inquired Larry the Bat, unbending a little.

The Magpie cocked his eye, and stuck his tongue in his cheek.

"GOOD-night!" he said tersely. "Nothin' like dat! Are youse on, or ain't youse?"

"Well, den, wot's in it fer me?" persisted Larrry the Bat.

"More'n de price of a coke sneeze!" returned the Magpie pertinently. "Dere's a century note fer youse, an' mabbe two or t'ree of dem fer Mag."

Larry the Bat's eyes gleamed avariciously.

"Aw, quit yer kiddin'!" he said gruffly. "A century note—fer me!"

"Dat's wot I said! Youse heard me!" rejoined the Magpie shortly. "Only if it listens good to youse now, I don't want no squealin' after the divvy. I'm takin' de chances, youse has de soft end of it. One century note fer youse—an' de rest is none of yer business! Dat's puttin' it straight, ain't it? Well, wot do youse say, an' say it quick—'cause if youse ain't comin' in, youse can beat it out of here so's I can talk to Mag."

"Dere ain't nothin' I wouldn't take a chance on fer a hundred plunks!" declared Larry the Bat, with sudden fervency—and stared, anxiously expectant, at the Magpie. "Sure, I'm on Slimmy! Sure, I am! Cut it loose! Spill de story!"

"Well, den," said the Magpie, "I wants—"

"Youse ain't through yet!" interrupted the Tocsin tartly. "I ain't heard youse askin' me nothin'! I ain't on me uppers like Larry, an' mabbe de price don't cut so much ice—see?"

"Aw," said the Magpie, with a smirk, "I don't have to ask youse on dis lay. Dis is where youse'd come in on it fer marbles. Say, dis is where we gets de hook into a guy by de name of Henry LaSalle! Get me?"

HENRY LASALLE! Under the table, Jimmie Dale's hand clenched suddenly; but not a muscle of his face moved, save, as with the tip of his tongue, he shifted the butt of the cigarette that was hanging royally from his lower lip to the other corner of his mouth.

"Sure! She's 'got' youse, Slimmy!" he flung out, with a grin, as the Tocsin wrinkled up her face menacingly and began to mumble to herself. "He's de guy dat handed her one when she was young, an' she's been layin' fer him ever since! Sure! I know! Ain't I worked him fer her till I wears me shoes out tryin' to get somet'ing on him! Sure, she's in on it! Go on, Slimmy, wot's de lay? Wot do I do fer dat century?"

The Magpie hitched his chair closer to the table and, as his sharp, little, ferret eyes glanced around the room, motioned the two to brings their heads nearer.

"One of me influential broker friends down on Wall Street put me wise," he said, with a wink. "Dat's good enough fer youse two, as far as dat goes. But take it from me, I got it dead straight." He lowered his voice "Say, he's one of de richest mugs in New York, ain't he? Well, he's been sellin' stocks an' bonds all day, t'ousands an' t'ousands of dollars' worth—fer cash."

"All dem t'ings is always sold fer cash," remarked Larry the Bat fatuously.

"Aw, ferget it!" said the Magpie earnestly. "Fer CASH, I said—de coin, de long green—understand? He wasn't shovin' no checks fer what he sold into de bank except to get dem cashed. Dat's wot he's been doin' all day—gettin' de checks cashed, an' gettin' de money in big bills—see! I know of one bunch of eighty t'ousand—an' dat's only one!"

"Wot fer?" inquired Larry the Bat. It was the question that was pounding at his brain, as he stared innocently at the Magpie. What did it mean? Why was Henry LaSalle turning, and, if the Magpie was right, feverishly turning every security he could lay his hands on into cash? And then, in a flash, the answer came. THEY HAD NOT FOUND THE PACKAGE! Equally to them, as to the Tocsin, sitting there before him, it meant life and death. If the package were found by the Tocsin instead of themselves, the game was up! They were preparing for eventualities. If they were forced to run at a moment's notice, they at least were not going to run empty-handed! Far from empty-handed, it seemed! It would not be difficult for the estate's executor to realise a vast sum in short order on instantly marketable, gilt-edged securities—say, half a million dollars. Not very bulky, either—in large bills! Five thousand hundred-dollar bills would make half a million. It was astonishing how small a hand bag, say, might hold a fortune! "Wot fer, Slimmy?" he inquired again, wiggling his cigarette butt on his tongue tip. "Wot'd he do dat fer?"

"How de hell do youse suppose I knows!" demanded the Magpie, politely scornful. "Dat's his business—dat ain't wot's worryin' me!"

"No—sure, it ain't!" admitted Larry the Bat ingratiatingly. "But go on, keep movin', Slimmy! Wot's he done wid de stuff?"

"Done wid it!" echoed the Magpie, with a short laugh. "Wot do youse t'ink! He's been luggin' it home to his swell joint up dere on de avenoo, an' crammin' his safe full of it."

Larry the Bat sucked in his breath.

"Gee, dat's soft!" he murmured, and then suddenly, as though with painful inspiration: "Say, Slimmy—say, are youse sure youse ain't been handed a steer?"

The Magpie grinned wickedly.

"I ain't fallin' fer steers!" he said shortly. "Dis is on de level."

Jimmie Dale lurched up from his chair, and, leaning over the lamp chimney, drew wheezily on his cigarette to get a light. His eyes sought the Tocsin's face. To all intents and purposes she was entirely absorbed in the Magpie. He sat down again to gape, with well-stimulated, doglike admiration, at Slimmy Joe. WAS THIS, TOO, A PLANT? Why had the Magpie come to THEM with this story of Henry LaSalle? And then, the next instant, as the Magpie spoke, his suspicions were allayed.

"Let's get down to cases!" the Magpie invited crisply. "I didn't blow in here just by luck. Dis Henry LaSalle is de guy youse worked fer once, ain't he, Mag? Dat's de spiel, ain't it?—he sent youse up fer pinchin' de tacks out of his carpets!"

"I never pinched nothin'!" snarled Silver Mag truculently. "He's a dirty liar! I never did!"

"Cut it out! Cut it out! Can dat!" complained the Magpie patiently. "De point is, youse worked in his house, didn't youse?"

"Sure I did!" snapped the Tocsin, sullenly aggressive; "but—"

"Well, den, dat's wot I want, dat's wot I come fer, Mag—a plan of de house. See?"

Jimmie Dale could feel the Tocsin's eyes upon him, questioning, searching, seeking a cue. A plan of the house—yes or no? And a decision on the instant!

"Sure!" said Larry the Bat brightly. "Dat's wot I was t'inkin' youse were after all de time. Say, youse are all right, Slimmy! Youse are de kind to work wid! Go on, Mag, draw de dope fer Slimmy. Dat's better dan tryin' to put one over on de swell guy. Dis'll make him squeal fer fair!"

The Magpie produced a pencil and a piece of paper from his pocket, and laid them on the table in front of the Tocsin.

"Dere youse are," he announced. "Help yerself, an' go to it, Mag!"

The Tocsin, evidently not quite certain of her part, wet the pencil doubtfully on the end of her tongue.

"I ain't never drawed plans," she said anxiously. "Mabbe"—she glanced at Jimmie Dale—"mabbe I dunno how to do it RIGHT."

"Aw, go ahead!" nodded Larry the Bat. "Youse can do it right, Mag. Youse don't have to make no oil paintin'! All de Magpie wants is de doors an' windows, eh, Slimmy?"

"Sure," agreed the Magpie encouragingly. "Dat's all, Mag. Just mark de rooms out on de first floor, an' de basement. Youse can explain wot youse 're doin' as youse goes along. I'll get youse."

The Tocsin cackled maliciously in assent; and then, while the Magpie got up from his chair and stood peering over her shoulder, she began to draw labouriously, her brows knitted, the pencil hooked awkwardly between cramped-up forefinger and thumb.

Larry the Bat, slouched forward over the table, his chin in his hands, appeared to watch the proceedings with mild interest—but his eyes, like a hawk's, were following every line on the paper, transferring them to his brain, photographing every detail of the plan in his mind. And as he watched, there seemed something that was near to the acme of all that was ironical in the Magpie standing there, his sharp, little, black eyes drinking in greedily the Tocsin's work, in the Tocsin herself aiding and abetting in the projected theft—OF HER OWN MONEY! How far would he let the Magpie go? He did not know. Perhaps—who could tell!—all the way. Between now and then there lay that package! If it were at Makoff's, at Spider Jack's, if he could find it, get it—the Magpie as a temporary custodian of the estate's money would at least preclude its loss by flight if the Crime Club took alarm too quickly. Larry the Bat's eyes, under half-closed lids, rested musingly on the Magpie's face. The Magpie would not get very far away with it! On the other hand, if he failed at Spider Jack's, if, after all, he was wrong, and the package had never been there, or if they had forestalled him, turned the trick upon him, already secured it, then—Larry the Bat's lips, working on his cigarette, formed in a twisted smile—then, well then, that was quite another matter! Perhaps he and the Magpie might not agree so far! A half million dollars was perhaps not much out of eleven millions, but it was a salvage not to be despised! Why did he say half a million! Well, why not? If the Magpie knew of a single transaction of eighty thousand, and there had been many transactions during the day, a half million was little likely to prove an exaggeration—and the less likely in view of the fact that, if those in the Crime Club were preparing for an emergency, they would not stint themselves in the disposal of securities.

The Magpie was keeping up a running fire of questions, as the Tocsin toiled on with her pencil. Where did the hall lead to? How many windows in the library? Did she remember the kind of fastenings? Did the servants sleep in the basement, or above? And finally, twice over, as she finished the clumsy drawing and pushed it toward him, he demanded minute details of the position of the safe.

"Aw, dat's all right, Slimmy!" Larry the Bat cut in airily. "If youse ferget anyt'ing when youse get in dere, youse can ask me. I got it cinched!"

The Magpie folded the paper and stowed it carefully away in his pocket.

"Ask youse, eh!" he grunted sarcastically. "An' where do youse t'ink youse'll be about dat time?"

"In dere wid youse, of course," replied Larry the Bat promptly. "Dat's wot youse said."

"Yes, youse will—NOT!" announced the Magpie, with cold finality. "Do youse t'ink I want to queer myself! A hot one youse'd be on an inside job! Youse'll be OUTSIDE, wid yer peepers skinned for de bulls—youse an' Mag here, too. See! Get dat straight. While I'm on de job youse two plays de game. Now youse listen to me, both of youse. Don't start nothin' unless youse has to. If it's a cinch I got to make a get-away, youse two start a drunk fight. Get me? Youse know de lay. T'row de talk loud—an' I'll fade. Dat's all! We'll crack de crib early—it'll be quiet enough up dere by one o'clock."

One o'clock! Larry the Bat shook his head. What time was it now? It was about nine when he had first met the Tocsin, then the Sanctuary, then the long walk as he had followed her—say a quarter of ten for that. And he had certainly been here with her not less than an hour and a half. It must be after eleven, then. One o'clock! And before that must come Makoff and Spider Jack! The night that half an hour ago had seemed so sterile, was crowding a program of events upon him now—too fast!

"Nothin' doin'!" he said thoughtfully. "Youse are in wrong dere, Slimmy. One o'clock don't go! Say, take it from me, I've watched dat guy too many nights fer Mag. 'Tain't often he leaves de club before one o'clock—an' he ain't never in bed before two."

"All right," agreed the Magpie, after a moment's reflection. "Youse ought to know. Make it three o'clock." He pulled a cigar from his pocket, lighted it, and, leaning back in his chair, stuck his feet up on the table. "If youse don't mind, Mag, I'll stick around a while," he decided calmly. "Mabbe de less I'm seen to-night de better—an' I guess dere won't be nobody lookin' fer me here."

Larry the Bat coughed suddenly, and rose up a little heavily from his chair. He had not counted on that! If the Magpie was settling down for a prolonged stay, it devolved upon him, Jimmie Dale, to get away, and at once—and without exciting the Magpie's suspicions. He coughed again, looked nervously from the Tocsin to the Magpie—stammered—swallowed hard—and coughed once more.

"Well, wot's bitin' youse?" inquired the Magpie ironically.

"Nothin'," said Larry the Bat—and hesitated. "Nothin', only—" He hesitated again; and then, the words in a rush:

"Say, Slimmy, couldn't youse come across wid a piece of dat century now?"

"Wot fer?" demanded the Magpie, a little aggressively.

Larry the Bat cleared his throat with a desperate effort.

"Youse knows," he admitted sheepishly. "Just gimme de price of one, Slimmy—just one."

"Coke!" exploded the Magpie. "An' get soaked to de eyes—not by a damn sight!"

"No! Honest to Gawd, no, Slimmy—just one!" pleaded Larry the Bat.

"Nix!" said the Magpie shortly.

Larry the Bat thrust out a hand before the Magpie's eyes that shook tremulously.

"I got to have it!" he declared, with sudden fierceness. "I GOT to—see! Look at me! I ain't goin' to be no good to-night if I don't. I tell youse, I got to! I ain't goin' to t'row youse down, Slimmy—honest, I ain't! Just one—an' it'll set me up. If I don't get none I'll be on de rocks before mornin'! Dat's straight, Slimmy—ask Mag, she knows."

"Aw, let him go get it!" broke in the Tocsin wearily. "Dat's de best t'ing youse can do, Slimmy—dey're all alike when dey gets in his class."

"Youse cocaine sniffers gives me de pip!" snorted the Magpie, in disgust. He dug down into his pocket, produced a bill, and flung it across the table to Larry the Bat. "Well, dere youse are; but youse can take it from me, Larry, dat if youse gets whiffed"—he swore threateningly—"I'll crack every bone in yer face! Get me?"

"Slimmy," said Larry the Bat fervently, grabbing at the bill with a hungry hand, "youse can count on me. I'll be up dere on de job before youse are. Three o'clock, eh? Well, so long, Slimmy"—he slouched eagerly to the door. "So long, Mag"—he paused on the threshold for a single, quick-flung, significant glance. "See youse on de avenoo, Mag—I'll be up dere before youse are. So long!"

"Oh, so long!" said the Tocsin contemptuously.

And, an instant later, Jimmie Dale closed the outer door behind him.



CHAPTER XII

JOHN JOHANSSON—FOUR-TWO-EIGHT

Nearly midnight already! It was even later than he had thought. Larry the Bat pressed his face against a shop's windowpane on the Bowery for a glance at a clock that had caught his eye on the wall within. Nearly midnight!

He slouched on again hurriedly, still debating in his mind, as he had been debating it all the way from the Tocsin's, the question of returning again to the Sanctuary. So far, the way both to Spider Jack's and the Sanctuary had been in the same direction—but the Sanctuary was on the next street.

Jimmie Dale reached the corner—and hesitated. It was strange how strong was the intuition upon him to-night that bade him go on and make all speed to Spider Jack's—while equally strong was the cold, stubborn logic that bade him go first to the Sanctuary. There were things that he needed there that would probably be absolutely essential to him before the night was out, things without which he might be so badly handicapped as to invite failure from the start; and yet—it was already midnight!

Ostensibly both Makoff and Spider Jack closed their places at eleven. But that might mean anything—depending upon their own respective inclinations, or on what of their own peculiar brand of deviltry might be afoot. If they were still about, still in evidence, he was still too early, midnight though it was; though, on the other hand, if the coast was clear, he could ill afford to lose a moment of the time between now and the hour that the Magpie had planned for the robbery of Henry LaSalle, for it would not be an easy matter, even once inside Spider Jack's, to find that package—since it was Spider's open boast that things committed to his care were where the police, or any one else, might as well whistle and suck their thumbs as try to find them!

And then, with sudden decision, taking his hesitation, as it were, by the throat, Jimmie Dale hurried on again—to the Sanctuary. At most, it could delay him but another fifteen minutes, and by half-past twelve, or a quarter to one at the latest, he would be at Spider Jack's.

Disdaining the secrecy of the side door on the alley, for who had a better right or was better known there than Larry the Bat, a tenant of years, he entered the tenement by the front door, scuffled up the stairs to the first landing, and let himself into his disreputable room. He locked the door behind him, lighted the choked and wheezy gas jet, in a single, sharp-flung glance assured himself that the blinds were tightly shut, and, kneeling in the far corner, threw back the oilcloth and lifted up the loose section of the flooring beneath. He reached inside, fumbling under the neatly folded clothes of Jimmie Dale, and in a moment laid his leather girdle with its kit of burglar's tools on the floor beside him; and beside that again an electric flashlight, a black silk mask, and—what he had never expected to use again when, early the night before, he had, as he had believed, put it away forever—the thin, metal insignia case of the Gray Seal. Another moment, and, with the flooring replaced, the oilcloth rolled back into position, he had stripped off his coat and was pulling his spotted, greasy shirt off over his head; then, stooping quickly, he picked up the girdle, put it on, put on his shirt again over it, put on his coat, put the metal case, the flashlight, and the mask in his pockets—and once more the Sanctuary was in darkness.

It was perhaps fifteen minutes later that Jimmie Dale turned into the upper section of Thompson Street. Here he slowed his pace, that had been almost a run since he had left the Sanctuary, and began to shuffle leisurely along; for the street, that a few hours before would have been choked with its pushcarts and venders, its half naked children playing where they could find room in the gutters, its sidewalks thronged with shawled women and picturesquely dressed, earringed, dark-visaged men, a scene, as it were, transported from some foreign land, was still far from deserted; the quiet, if quiet it could be called, was but comparative, there were many yet about, and he had no desire to attract attention by any evidence of undue haste. And, besides, Spider Jack's was just ahead, making the corner of the alleyway a few hundred feet farther on, and he had very good reasons for desiring to approach Spider's little novelty store at a pace that would afford him every opportunity for observation.

On he shuffled along the street, until, reaching Spider Jack's, a little two-storied, tumble-down brick structure, a muttered exclamation of satisfaction escaped him. The shop was closed and dark; and, though Spider Jack lived above the store, there were no lights even in the upper windows. Spider Jack presumably was either out, or in bed! So far, then, he could have asked for nothing more.

Jimmie Dale edged in close to the building as he slouched by, so close that his hat brim seemed to touch the windowpane. It was possible that from a room at the rear of the store there might be a light with a telltale ray perhaps filtering through, say, a door crack. But there was nothing—only blackness within.

He paused at the corner of the building by the alleyway. Down here, adjoining the high board fence of Spider Jack's back yard, Makoff made pretense at pawnbrokering in a small and dingy wooden building, that was little more pretentious than a shed—and in Makoff's place, so far as he could see, there was no light, either.

Jimmie Dale's fingers were industriously rolling a cigarette, as, under the brim of his slouch hat, his eyes were noting every detail around him. A yard in against the wall of Spider Jack's, the wall cutting off the rays of the street lamp at a sharp angle, it was shadowy and black—and beyond that, farther in, the alleyway was like a pit. It would take less, far less, than the fraction of a second to gain that yard, but some one was approaching behind him, and a little group of people loitered, with annoying persistency, directly across the way on the other side of the street. Jimmie Dale stuck the cigarette between his lips, fumbled in his pockets, and finally produced a box of matches. The group opposite was moving on now; the footsteps he had heard behind him, those of a man, drew nearer, the man passed by—and the box of matches in Jimmie Dale's hand dropped to the ground. He reached to pick them up, and in his stooping posture, without seeming to turn his head, flung a quick glance behind him up the street. No one, for that fraction of a second that he needed, was near enough to see—and in that fraction of a second Jimmie Dale disappeared.

A dozen yards down the lane, he sprang for the top of the high fence, gripped it, and, lithe and active as a cat, swung himself up and over, and dropped noiselessly to the ground on the other side. Here he stood motionless for a moment, close against the fence, to get his bearings. The rear of Spider Jack's building loomed up before him—the back windows as unlighted as those in front. Luck so far, at least, was with him! He turned and looked about him, and, his eyes growing accustomed to the darkness, he could just make out Makoff's place, bordering the end of the yard—nor, from this new vantage point, could he discover, any more than before, a single sign of life about the pawnbroker's establishment.

Jimmie Dale stole forward across the yard, mounted the three steps of the low stoop at Spider Jack's back door, and tried the door cautiously. It was locked. From his pocket came the small steel instrument that had stood Larry the Bat in good stead a hundred times before in similar circumstances. He inserted it in the keyhole, worked deftly with it for an instant—and tried the door again. It was still locked. And then Jimmie Dale smiled almost apologetically. Spider Jack did not use ordinary locks on his back door!

The discountenanced instrument went back into his pocket, and now Jimmie Dale's hand slipped inside his shirt, and from one of the little, upright pockets of the leather belt, and from still another, and from after that a third, came the vicious little blued-steel tools. The sensitive fingers travelled slowly up and down the side of the door—and then he was at work in earnest. A minute passed—another—there was a dull, low, grating sound, a snick as of metal yielding suddenly—and Jimmie Dale was coolly stowing away his tools again inside his shirt.

He pushed the door open an inch, listened, then swung it wide, stepped inside, and closed it behind him. A round, white beam of light flashed in a quick circle—and went out. It was a sort of storeroom, innocent enough and orderly enough in appearance, bare-floored, with boxes and packing cases piled neatly against the walls. In one corner a staircase led to the story above—and from above, quite audibly now, he caught the sound of snoring. Spider Jack was in bed, then!

Directly facing him was the open door of another room, and Jimmie Dale, moving softly forward, entered it. He had never been in Spider Jack's before, and his first concern was to form an intimate acquaintanceship with his surroundings. Again the flashlight circled, and again went out.

"No windows!" muttered Jimmie Dale under his breath. "Nothing very fancy about the architecture! Three rooms in a row! Store in front of this room through that door of course. Wonder if the door's locked, though it's a foregone conclusion the package wouldn't be in there."

Not a sound, his tread silent, he crossed to the closed door that he had noticed. It was unlocked, and he opened it tentatively a little way. A faint glow of light diffused itself through the opening. Jimmie Dale nodded his head and closed the door again. The street lamp, shining through the shop windows, accounted for the light.

And now the flashlight played with steady inquisitiveness about him. The room in which he stood seemed to combine a sort of office, with a lounging room, in which Spider Jack, no doubt, entertained his particular cronies. There was table in the centre, cards still upon it, chairs about it. Against the wall farthest away from the shop stood a huge, old-fashioned cabinet; and a little farther along, anglewise, partitioning off the corner, as it were, hung, for some purpose or other, a cretonne curtain. Also, against the wall next to the lane, bringing a commiserating smile to Jimmie Dale's lips as his eyes fell upon it, was a clumsy, lumbering, antique safe.

Jimmie Dale's eyes returned to the curtain. What was it doing there? What was it for? Instinctively he stepped over to examine it. A single glance, however, as he lifted it aside, sufficed. It was nothing but a make-shift clothes closet. He turned from it, switched off the flashlight, and stood staring meditatively into the darkness. In a strange house, with the knowledge to begin with that what he sought was carefully hidden, it was no sinecure to find that package. He had never for a moment imagined that it would be. But of one thing, however, there was no uncertainty in his mind—he would get the package!—by search if possible, by other means if search failed. It was now close to one o'clock. If by two o'clock his efforts had been fruitless, Spider Jack would hand over the package—at the revolver point! It was quite simple! Meanwhile—Jimmie Dale shrugged his shoulders, and, going over to the safe, knelt down in front of it—meanwhile, as well begin here as anywhere else.

The trained fingers closed on the handle—and on the instant, as though in startled amazement, shifted to the dial. They came back to the handle—a wrench—then a low, amused chuckle—and the door swung open. The great, unwieldy thing was only a monumental bluff! It not only had not been locked, but it COULD NOT be locked—the mechanism was out of order, the bolts could not be moved by so much as a hair's breadth!

Still chuckling, Jimmie Dale shot the flashlight's ray into the interior of the safe—and the chuckle died on his lips, and into his face came a look of strained bewilderment. Inside, everything was in chaos, books, papers, a miscellany of articles, as though they had first been ruthlessly pulled out on the floor, then gathered up in an armful and crammed back inside again. For an instant he did not move, and then a queer, hard, mirthless smile drew down the corners of his mouth. With a sort of bitter, expectant nod of his head, he turned the light upon the door of the safe. Yes, there were the scratches that the tools had left; and, as though in sardonic jest, the holes, where the steel bit had bored, were plugged with putty and rubbed over with some black substance that was still wet and came off, smearing his finger, as he touched it. It could not have been done long ago, then! How long? A half hour—an hour? Not more than that!

Mechanically he closed the door of the safe, rose to his feet and, almost heedless of noise now, the flashlight ray dancing before him, he jumped across to the old-fashioned cabinet and pulled the door open. Here, as within the safe, all inside, plain evidence of thorough, if hasty, search, was scattered and tossed about in hopeless confusion.

He shut the cabinet door; the flashlight went out; and he stood like a man stunned, the sense of some abysmal disaster upon him. He was too late! The game was up! If it had ever been here, the package was gone now—GONE! The Crime Club had been here before him!

"The game was up! The game was up!"—his mind seemed to keep on repeating that. The Crime Club had beaten him by an hour, at most, and had been here, and had searched. It was strange, though, that they should have been at such curious pains to cover their tracks by leaving the room in order, by such paltry efforts to make the safe appear untouched when the first glance that was at all critical would disclose immediately what had been done! Why should they need to cover their tracks at all; or, if it was necessary, why, above all, in such a pitifully inadequate way! His mind barked back to the same ghastly refrain—"the game was up!"

NO! Not yet! There was still a chance! There was still Spider Jack! Suppose, in spite of their search, they had failed to find the package! Jimmie Dale's lips set in a thin line, as he started abruptly toward the door. There was still that chance, and one thing was grimly certain—Spider Jack would, at least, show him where the package HAD BEEN!

And then, halfway to the door, he halted suddenly, and stood still—listening. An electric bell was ringing loudly, imperiously, somewhere upstairs. Followed almost immediately the sound of some one, Spider Jack presumably, moving hurriedly about overhead; and then, a moment later, steps coming down the staircase in the adjoining room.

Jimmie Dale drew back, flattening himself against the wall. Spider Jack entered the room, stumbled across it, in the darkness, fumbled for the door that led into his little shop, opened it, passed through, fumbled around in there again, for matches evidently, then lighted a gas jet in the store, and, going to the street door, opened it.

Jimmie Dale had edged along the wall a little to a position where he had an unobstructed view through the open doorway connecting the shop and the room in which he stood. Spider Jack, in trousers and shirt, hastily donned, no doubt, as he had got out of bed, was standing in the street doorway, and beyond him loomed the forms of several men. Spider Jack stepped aside to allow his visitors to enter—and suddenly, a cry barely suppressed upon his lips, Jimmie Dale involuntarily strained forward. Three men had entered, but his eyes were fixed, fascinated, upon only one—the first of the three. Was it an hallucination? Was he mad—-dreaming? It was Hilton Travers, THE CHAUFFEUR—the man whom he could have sworn he had last seen dead, lashed in that chair, in that ghastly death chamber of the Crime Club!

"Rather rough on you, Spider, to pull you out of bed at this hour," the chauffeur was saying apologetically.

"Oh, that's all right, seein' it's you, Travers," Spider Jack answered, gruffly amiable. "Only I was kind of lookin' for you last night."

"I know," the chauffeur replied; "but I couldn't connect with my friends here. Shake hands with them, Spider—Bob Marvin—Harry Stead."

"Glad to know you, gents," said Spider Jack, with a handgrip apiece.

The chauffeur lowered his voice a little.

"I suppose we're alone here, eh, Spider? Yes? Well, then, you know what I've come for—that package—Marvin and Stead, here, are the ones that are in on it with me. Get it for me, will you, Spider?"

"Sure—Mr. Johansson!" Spider grinned. "Sure! Come on into the back room and make yourselves comfortable. I'll be mabbe five minutes, or so."

Jimmie Dale's brain was whirling. What did it mean? He could not seem to understand. His mind seemed to refuse its functions. Travers, the chauffeur—ALIVE! He drew in his breath sharply. That curtain in the corner! He must see this out now! They were coming! Quick, noiseless, he stole along the side of the wall, reached the corner, and slipped in behind the curtain, as Spider Jack, striking a match, entered the room.

Spider Jack lighted the gas, and, as the others followed behind him, waved them toward the chairs around the table.

"I'll just ask you gents not to leave the room," he said meaningly, over his shoulder, as he stepped toward the rear door. "It's kind of a fad of mine to keep some things even from my wife!"

"All right, Spider—I understand," the chauffeur returned readily.

Jimmie Dale's knife cut a tiny slit in the cretonne on a level with his eyes. The three men had seated themselves at the table, and appeared to be listening intently. Spider Jack's footsteps echoed back as he crossed the rear room, sounded dull and muffled descending the stoop outside, and died away.

"I told you it wasn't in the house!" the man who had been introduced as Stead laughed shortly. "We wasted the hour we had here."

The third man spoke crisply, incisively, to the chauffeur.

"Turn down that gas jet a little! You've got across with it so far—but you can't stand a searchlight, Clarke!"

And at the words, in a flash, the meaning of it, all of it, to the last detail that was spelling death, ruin, and disaster for her, the Tocsin, for himself as well, burst upon Jimmie Dale. That VOICE! He would have known it, recognised it, among a thousand—it was the masked man of the night before, the leader, the head of the Crime Club! And it was not Travers there at all! He remembered now, too well, that second room they had showed him in the Crime Club—its multitude of disguises, though in this case they had the dead man's clothes ready to their hands—the leader's boast that impersonation was but child's play to them! And now he understood why they had covered up the traces of their search in only so curiously inadequate a manner. They had failed to find the package, and, as a last resort, had adopted the ruse of impersonating Hilton Travers, the chauffeur, which made it necessary that when they called Spider Jack from his bed, as they had just done, that Spider Jack, at a CASUAL glance, should notice nothing amiss—but it would be no more than a casual glance, for, who should know better than they, he would not have to go for the package to any place that they had disturbed! And he, Jimmie Dale, could only stand here and watch them, helpless, powerless to move! Three of them! A step out into the room was to invite certain death. It would not matter, his death—if he could gain anything for her, for the Tocsin, by it. But what could he gain—by dying? He clenched his hands until the nails bit into the flesh.

Spider Jack re-entered the room, carrying what looked like a large, bulky, manila envelope, heavily sealed, in his hand. He tossed it on the table.

"There you are, Travers!" he said.

"I wonder," suggested the leader pleasantly, "if, now that we're here, Travers, your friend would mind letting us have this room for a few minutes to ourselves to clean up the business?"

"Sure!" agreed Spider Jack cordially. "You're welcome to it! I'll wait out here in the store until you say the word."

He went out, closing the door after him. The leader picked up the package.

"We'll take no chances with this," he said grimly. "It's been too close a call. After we've had a look at it, we'll put it out of harm's way on the spot, here, while we've got it—before we leave!"

He ripped the package open, and disclosed perhaps a dozen official-looking documents, besides a miscellaneous number of others. He took up the first of the papers, glanced through it hurriedly, then tossed it to the pseudo chauffeur.

"Tear it up, and tear it up—SMALL!" he ordered tersely. The next, after examining it as he had the first, he tossed to the other man. "Go ahead!"—curtly. "Work fast! From the looks of these, Travers had us cold! There's proof enough here of LaSalle's murder to send us all to the chair!"

He went on glancing through the documents; and then suddenly, joining the others in their work, began to rip and tear at the papers himself.

A sort of cold horror had settled upon Jimmie Dale, and his forehead was clammy wet. The inhuman irony of it! That he should stand there and watch, impotent to prevent it, the destruction of what he would have given his life to secure! And then slowly, a grim, hard, merciless smile came to his lips. He had recognised the leader's voice—now he would recognise the leader's FACE. At least, that was left to him—perhaps the master trump of all. It would not be very hard to find the Crime Club now—with that man to lead the way!

The scraps of paper, tiny shreds, mounted into a heap on the table—and with the last of the contents of the package destroyed, the leader stood up.

"Put these pieces in your pockets; we don't want to leave them here," he directed quietly. "And then let's get out."

In scarcely a moment, the last scrap of paper had vanished. The three men walked to the door, passed through it, and joined Spider Jack in the store—and Jimmie Dale, slipping out from behind the curtain, gained the door of the rear room, crept through it, reached the stoop, and then, darting like the wind across the yard, was over the fence in a second, and in another was out of the alleyway and on the street.

He was in time—in plenty of time. They had just left Spider Jack's, and were, perhaps, fifty yards or so ahead of him. He slouched on behind them—the cold, grim smile on his lips once more. It was the Crime Club now, that hell's cradle where their devil's schemes were hatched, that was the one thing left to him; they would lead him to that, and then—and then it would be his turn to STRIKE!

They turned the first corner. And suddenly, as the racing engine of an automobile caught his ear, he broke into a run, and dashed around the corner after them—in time to see them jump into a car, and the car speed off along the street! He halted, as though he were suddenly dazed—started involuntarily to run forward again—stopped with a hollow laugh at the futility of it—and stood still and motionless on the sidewalk.

And then he swayed a little, and his face grew gray. Failure, defeat, ruin—in that moment he knew them all to their bitterest dregs. How could he go to her! How could he face her, and tell her that they were beaten, that the last hope was gone, that he had failed!

"God!" he cried aloud, and clenched his hands.

Then deep in his consciousness a thought stirred, and he swept a shaking hand across his eyes. Why had it come again, that thought! Did it mean that HE must play—the last card! There was a way—there had always been a way. The way the Crime Club took—MURDER. It was their own weapon! If the man who posed as Henry LaSalle were killed! If that man—were killed!

"The Magpie was to be there at three!" he muttered—and started mechanically back along the street.



CHAPTER XIII

THE ONLY WAY

It was a horrible thing—and it grew upon him. In a blind, mechanical way, his brain receptive to nothing else, Jimmie Dale walked on along the street. To kill a man! Death he had faced himself a hundred times, witnessed it a hundred times in its most violent forms, had seen murder done before his eyes, had been in straits where, to save his own life, it had seemed the one last desperate chance—and yet his hands were still clean! To kill a man in fair fight, in struggle, when the blood was hot, was terrible enough, a possibility that was always before him, the one thing from which he shrank, the one thing that, as the Gray Seal, he had always feared; but to kill a man deliberately, to creep upon his victim with hideous, cold-blooded premeditation—he shivered a little, and his hand shook as he drew it nervously across his eyes.

But there was no other way! Again and again, insidiously grappling with his revulsion, with the horror that the impulse to murder inspired, came that other thought—there was no other way. If the man who posed as Henry LaSalle were DEAD! If he were dead! If he were dead! See, now, what would happen if that man were dead! How clear his brain was on that point! The whole plot would tumble like a house of cards about the heads of the Crime Club. The courts would require an auditing of the estate by a trustee of the courts' own appointing, who would continue to administer it until the Tocsin's twenty-fifth birthday, or until there was tangible evidence of her death—but the Tocsin, automatically with her pseudo uncle's death, could publicly appear again. Her death could no longer benefit the Crime Club, since it, the Crime Club, with the supposed uncle dead, could not profit through the false Henry LaSalle inheriting as next of kin! It was the weak link, the vulnerable point in the stupendous scheme of murder and crime with which these hell fiends had played for and won, so far, the stake of eleven millions. Not that they had overlooked or been blind to this, they were too clever, too cunning for that—it was only that they had planned to accomplish the Tocsin's death, as they had her father's and uncle's, and ESTABLISH the false Henry LaSalle in undisputed possession and ownership of the estate—and had failed in that—up to the present. But the material results remained the same, so long as the Tocsin, to save her life, was forced to remain in hiding, so long as proof that would convict the Crime Club was not forthcoming—SO LONG AS THAT MAN LIVED!

Time passed to which Jimmie Dale was oblivious. At times he walked slowly, scarcely moving; at times his pace was a nervous, hurried stride, that was almost a run. And as he was oblivious to time, so was he oblivious to his surroundings, to the direction which he took. At times his forehead was damp with moisture that was not there from physical exertion; at times his face, deathly white, was full as of the vision of some shuddering, abhorrent sight; at times his lips were thinned into a straight line, and there was a glitter in the dark eyes that was not good to see, while his hands at his sides clenched until the skin, tight over the knuckles, was an ivory white. To kill a man!

What other way was there? The proof that it had taken Hilton Travers years to obtain, the proof on which the Tocsin's life depended, was destroyed utterly, irreparably. It could never be duplicated—Hilton Travers was dead—MURDERED. Murder! That thought again! It was their own weapon! Murder! Would one kill a venomous reptile in whose fangs was death? What right had this man to life, whose life was forfeit even under the law—for murder? Was she to drag on an intolerable existence among the dregs and the scum of the underworld, she, in her refinement and her purity, to exist among the vile and dissolute, in daily, hourly peril of her life, because the weapons that these inhuman vultures had used to rob her, to destroy those she loved, to make of her life a hideous, joyless thing, should not be used against them?

But to kill a man! To steal upon a man with cold intent in the blackness of the night—and take his life! To be a murderer! To know the horror of blood forever upon one's hands, to rise, cold-sweated, in the night, fearful of the very shadows around one, to live with every detail of that fearsome act sweeping like some dread spectre at unexpected moments upon the consciousness! He put up his hands before his face, as though to blot out the thought from him. Mind and soul recoiled before it—to kill a man!

He walked on and on, until at last, conscious of a sense of fatigue, he stopped. He must have come a long way, been walking a long time. Where was he? He looked about him for a moment in a dazed way—and suddenly, with a low cry, shrank back. As though he had been drawn to it by some ghastly magnet, he found himself standing in front of the LaSalle mansion, on Fifth Avenue. No, no; it was not for that he had come—to kill a man! It was only—only to get that money. Yes—he remembered now—that money from the safe, before the Magpie got it. The Magpie was to be there at three o'clock—and the Tocsin was to be there, too. The Tocsin! That package! He had failed! It had been her one hope, and—and it was gone. What could he say to her? How could he tell her the miserable truth? But—but he had not come there in the dead of night to kill a man, these other things were what had—

"Jimmie!" It was a quick-breathed whisper. A hand was on his arm.

He turned, startled. It was the Tocsin—Silver Mag.

"Jimmie!" in alarm. "Why are you standing here like this? You may be SEEN!"

Seen! Suppose he WERE seen? He shuddered a little.

"Yes; that's so!" he said hoarsely. He glanced numbly up and down the wide, deserted, but well-lighted, avenue. It was no place, that most aristocratic section of the city, for such as Silver Mag and Larry the Bat to be seen at that hour of night, or, rather, morning. And if anything HAPPENED inside that house! "I—I didn't think of that," he said mechanically.

"Come across the street—under the stoop of that house there." She had his arm, and was half dragging him as she spoke, the alarm in her voice intensified. And then, a moment later, safe from observation: "Jimmie, Jimmie, what is the matter? What has happened? What makes you act so strangely?"

"Nothing," he said. "I—"

"TELL me!" she insisted wildly.

And then, with a violent effort, Jimmie Dale forced his mind back to the immediate present. He was only inspiring her with terror—and there was the Magpie—and that money in the safe!

"Where is the Magpie?" he asked, with quick apprehension. "Am I late? Is he in there already?"

"No," she said. "He hasn't come yet."

"What time is it?" he demanded anxiously.

"About half-past two," she replied. "But, Jimmie—"

"Wait!" he broke in. "Where is he now? You were both together! And you were both to be here at three. What are you doing here alone at half-past two?"

A strange little exclamation, one almost of dismay, it seemed, escaped her.

"The Magpie left my place an hour ago—to get his kit, I think. And I came here at once because that was what you and I understood I was to do, wasn't it? Jimmie, you frighten me! You are not yourself. Don't you remember the last words you said, as you nodded to me behind the Magpie's back—that you would be here BEFORE us? There was no mistaking your meaning—if I could get away from him, I was to come here and meet you."

Jimmie Dale passed his hand nervously across his eyes. Of course, he remembered now! What a frightful turmoil his brain had been in!

"Yes; of course!" He tried to speak nonchalantly. "I had forgotten for the moment."

She caught his arm in a quick, tight hold, shaking him in a terrified way.

"YOU—forget a thing like that! Jimmie—something terrible has happened. Can't you see that I am nearly mad with anxiety! What is it? What is it? That package, Jimmie—is it the package?"

He did not answer. What could he say? It meant life, hope, joy, everything that the world held for her—and it was gone.

"Yes—it IS the package!" she whispered frantically. "Quick, Jimmie! Tell me! It—it was not there? You—you could not find it?"

"It was there," he said, as though the words were literally forced from him.

"Then? Then—WHAT, Jimmie?" The clutch on his arm was like a vise.

"They got it," he said. It was like a death sentence that he pronounced. "It is destroyed."

She did not speak or move—save that her hands, as though nerveless and without strength, fell away from his arms, and dropped to her sides. It was dark there under the stoop, though not so dark but that he could see her face. It was gray—gray as death. And there was misery and fear and a pitiful helplessness in it—and then she swayed a little, and he caught her in his arms.

"Gone!" she murmured in a dead, colourless way—and suddenly laughed out sharply, hysterically.

"Don't! For God's sake, don't do that!" he pleaded wildly.

She looked at him then for a moment in strange quiet—and lifted her hand and stroked his face in a numbed way.

"It—it would have been better, Jimmie, wouldn't it," she said in the same monotonous voice, "it would have been better if—if I had never found out anything, and they—they had done the same to me that they did to—to father."

"Marie! Marie!" It was the first time he had ever spoken her name, and it was on his lips now in an agony of tenderness and appeal. "Don't! You mustn't speak like that!"

"I'm tired," she said. "I—I can't fight any more."

She did not cry. She lay there in his arms quite still—like a weary child.

The minutes passed. When Jimmie Dale spoke again it was irrelevantly—and his face was very white:

"Marie, describe the upper floor of that house over there for me."

She roused herself with a start.

"The upper floor?" she repeated slowly. "Why—why do you ask that?"

"Have YOU forgotten in turn?" he said, with a steady smile. "That money in the safe—it's yours—we can at least save that out of the wreck. You only drew the basement plan and the first floor for the Magpie—the more I know about the house the better, of course, in case anything goes wrong. Now, see, try and be brave—and tell me quickly, for I must get through before the Magpie comes, and I have barely half an hour."

"No, Jimmie—no!" She slipped out of his arms. "Let it alone! I am afraid. Something—I—I have a feeling that something will happen."

"It is the only way." He said it involuntarily, more to himself than to her.

"Jimmie, let it alone!" she said again.

"No," he said. "I am going—so tell me quickly. Every minute that we wait is one that counts against us."

She hesitated an instant—and then, speaking rapidly, made a verbal sketch of the upper portion of the house for him.

"It's a very large house, isn't it?" he commented innocently—to pave the way for the question, above all others, that he had to ask. "Which is your uncle's, I mean that man's room?"

"The first on the right, at the head of the landing," she answered. "Only, Jimmie, don't—don't go!"

He drew her close to him again.

"Now, listen," he said quietly. "When the Magpie comes and finds I am not here, lead him to think that the money he gave me was too much for me; that I am probably in some den, doped with drug—and hold him as long as you can on the pretext that there is always the possibility I may, after all, show up before he goes in there. You understand? And now about yourself—you must do exactly as I say. On no account allow yourself to be seen by ANY ONE except the Magpie. I would tell you to go now, only, unless it is vitally necessary, we cannot afford to arouse the Magpie's suspicions—he'd have every crook in the underworld snarling at our heels. But you are not to wait, even for him, if you detect the slightest disturbance in that house before he comes. And, equally, after he has gone in, whether I have come out or not, at the first indication of anything unusual you are to get away at once. You understand—Marie?"

"Yes," she said. "But—but, Jimmie, you—"

"Just one thing more." He smiled at her reassuringly. "Did the Magpie say anything about how he intended to get in?"

"Yes—by the side away from the corner of the street," she said tremulously. "You see, there's quite a space between the house and the one next door; and, besides, the house next door is closed up, there's nobody there, the family has gone away for the summer. The library window there is low enough to reach from the ground."

For a moment longer he held her close to him, as though he could not let her go—then bent and kissed her passionately. And in that moment all the emotions he had known as he had walked blindly from Spider Jack's that night surged again upon him; and that voice was whispering, whispering, whispering: "It is the only way—it is the only way."

And then, not daring to trust his voice, he released her suddenly, and stepped back out from under the stoop—and the next instant he was across the deserted avenue. Another, and he had slipped through the iron gates that opened on the street driveway—and in yet another he was crouched close up against the front door of the LaSalle mansion.

It was a large house, a very large house, one of the few that, even amid the wealth and luxury of that quarter, boasted its own grounds, and those so restricted as scarcely to deserve the name; but it was set far enough back from the street to escape the radius of the street lamps, and so guarantee in its shadows security from observation. It was not the Magpie's way, the front door—the obvious to the Magpie and his ilk was a thing always to be shunned. Jimmie Dale's lips were set in a grim smile, as his fingers worked with lightning speed, now taking this instrument and now that from the leather pockets in the girdle beneath his shirt—the penitentiaries were full of Magpies who shunned the obvious!

Very slowly, very cautiously the door opened. He listened breathlessly, tensely. The door closed again—behind him. He was inside now. Stillness! Blackness! Not a sound! A minute went by—another. And then, as he stood there, strained, listening, the silence itself began, it seemed, to palpitate, and pound, pound, pound, and be full of strange noises. It was a horrible thing—to kill a man!



CHAPTER XIV

OUT OF THE DARKNESS

A moment later, Jimmie Dale stepped forward through the vestibule. He was quite calm now; a sort of cold, merciless precision in every movement succeeding the riot of turbulent emotions that had possessed him as he had entered the house.

The half hour, the maximum length of time before the Magpie would appear, as he had estimated it when out there under the stoop with the Tocsin, had dwindled now to perhaps twenty minutes, twenty-five at the outside. Twenty-five minutes! Twenty-five minutes was so little that for an instant the temptation was strong upon him to sacrifice, rather than any of those precious minutes, the Magpie instead! And then in the darkness, as he stole noiselessly across the hall, he shook his head. It would be a cowardly, brutal thing to do. What chance would a man with a record like the Magpie's stand if caught there? How easy it would be to shift the murder of the supposed Henry LaSalle to the Magpie's shoulders! Jimmie Dale's lips closed firmly. Self-preservation was, perhaps, the first law, but he would save the Magpie if he could—the Magpie should have his chance! The man might be a criminal, might deserve punishment at the hands of the law, his liberty might be a menace to the community—but he was not a murderer, his life forfeit for a crime he had never committed!