The Adventures of Jimmie Dale

F >> Frank L. Packard >> The Adventures of Jimmie Dale


With a swift, noiseless side-step through the open door, Jimmie Dale was
standing in the room.

Jimmie Dale's tones were conversational. "Don't get up," said Jimmie
Dale coolly. "And take your hand off that money!"

The Weasel, whose back had been to the door, squirmed around in his
chair--and in his turn stared into the muzzle of Jimmie Dale's revolver,
while his jaw dropped and sagged.

"Good-evening, Weasel," observed Jimmie Dale casually. "I seem to be in
luck to-night. I got into that room next door, but an empty room is slim
picking. And then it seemed to me I heard some one in here mention five
thousand dollars twice, which makes ten thousand, and which happens to
be just exactly the sum I need at the present moment--if I can't get any
more! I haven't the honour of your wealthy friend's acquaintance, but
I am really charmed to meet him. You--er--understand, both of you, that
the slightest sound might prove extremely embarrassing."

Hamvert's face was white, and he stirred uneasily in his chair; but
into the Weasel's face, the first shock of surprised dismay past, came
a dull, angry red, and into the eyes a vicious gleam--and suddenly he
laughed shortly.

"Why, youse damned fool," jeered the Weasel, "d'youse t'ink youse can
get away wid dat! Say, take it from me, youse are a piker! Say, youse
make me tired. Wot d'youse t'ink youse are? D'youse t'ink dis is a
tee-ayter, an' dat youse are a cheap-skate actor strollin' acrost de
stage? Aw, beat it, youse make me sick! Why, say, youse pinch dat money,
an' youse have got de same chanst of gettin' outer dis hotel as a guy
has of breakin' outer Sing Sing! By de time youse gets five feet from de
door of dis room we has de whole works on yer neck."

"Do you think so, Weasel?" inquired Jimmie Dale politely. He carried his
handkerchief to his mouth to cloak a cough--and his tongue touched
the adhesive side of the little diamond-shaped gray seal. Hand and
handkerchief came back to the table, and Jimmie Dale leaned his weight
carelessly upon it, while the automatic in his right hand still covered
the two men. "Do you think so, Weasel?" he repeated softly. "Well,
perhaps you are right; and yet; somehow, I am inclined to disagree with
you. Let me see, Weasel--it was Tuesday night, two nights ago; wasn't
it, that a trifling break in Maiden Lane at Thorold and Sons disturbed
the police? It was a three-year job for even a first offender, ten
for one already on nodding terms with the police and fifteen to twenty
for--well, say, for a man like you, Weasel--IF HE WERE CAUGHT! Am I
making myself quite plain?"

The colour in the Weasel's cheeks faded a little--his eyes were holding
in sudden fascination upon Jimmie Dale.

"I see that I am," observed Jimmie Dale pleasantly. "I said, 'if he were
caught,' you will remember. I am going to leave this room in a moment,
Weasel, and leave it entirely to your discretion as to whether you will
think it wise or not to stir from that chair for ten minutes after
I shut the door. And now"--Jimmie Dale nonchalantly replaced his
handkerchief in his pocket, nonchalantly followed it with the banknotes
which he picked up from the table--and smiled.

With a gasp, both men had strained forward, and were staring, wild-eyed,
at the gray seal stuck between them on the tabletop.

"The Gray Seal!" whispered the Weasel, and his tongue circled his lips.

Jimmie Dale shrugged his shoulders.

"That WAS a bit theatrical, Weasel," he said apologetically; "and yet
not wholly unnecessary. You will recall Stangeist, The Mope, Australian
Ike, and Clarie Deane, and can draw your own inference as to what might
happen in the Thorold affair if you should be so ill-advised as to force
my hand. Permit me"--the slim, deft fingers, like a streak of lightning,
were inside Hamvert's coat pocket and out again with the remainder of
the banknotes--and Jimmie Dale was backing for the door--not the door
of the bathroom by which he had entered, but the door of the room itself
that opened on the corridor. There he stopped, and his hand swept around
behind his back and turned the key in the locked door. He nodded at the
two men, whose faces were working with incongruously mingled expressions
of impotent rage, bewilderment, fear, and fury--and opened the door a
little. "Ten minutes, Weasel," he said gently. "I trust you will not
have to use heroic measures to restrain your friend for that length of
time, though if it is necessary I should advise you for your own sake to
resort almost--to murder. I wish you good evening, gentlemen."

The door opened farther; Jimmie Dale, still facing inward, slipped
between it and the jamb, whipped the mask from his face, closed the door
softly, stepped briskly but without any appearance of haste along the
corridor to the stairs, descended the stairs, mingled with a crowd in
the lobby for an instant, walked, seemingly a part of it, with a group
of ladies and gentlemen down the hall to the side entrance, passed
out--and a moment later, after drawing on a linen dust coat which he
took from under the seat, and exchanging his hat for a tweed cap, the
car glided from the curb and was lost in a press of traffic around the
corner.

Jimmie Dale laughed a little harshly to himself. So far, so good--but
the game was not ended yet for all the crackle of the crisp notes in
his pocket. There was still the map, still the robbery at Mittel's
house--the ten-thousand-dollar "theft" would not in any way change that,
and it was a question of time now to forestall any move the Weasel might
make.

Through the city Jimmie Dale alternately dodged, spurted, and dragged
his way, fuming with impatience; but once out on the country roads and
headed toward New Rochelle, the big machine, speed limits thrown to the
winds, roared through the night--a gray streak of road jumping under the
powerful lamps; a village, a town, a cluster of lights flashing by him,
the steady purr of his sixty-horse-power engines; the gray thread of
open road again.

It was just eleven o'clock when Jimmie Dale, the road to himself for the
moment at a spot a little beyond New Rochelle, extinguished his lights,
and very carefully ran his car off the road, backing it in behind a
small clump of trees. He tossed the linen dust coat back into the car,
and set off toward where, a little distance away, the slap of waves from
the stiff breeze that was blowing indicated the shore line of the Sound.
There was no moon, and, while it was not particularly dark, objects and
surroundings at best were blurred and indistinct; but that, after all,
was a matter of little concern to Jimmie Dale--the first house beyond
was Mittel's. He reached the water's edge and kept along the shore.
There should be a little wharf, she had said. Yes; there it was--and
there, too, was a gleam of light from the house itself.

Jimmie Dale began to make an accurate mental note of his surroundings.
From the little wharf on which he now stood, a path led straight to the
house, bisecting what appeared to be a lawn, trees to the right, the
house to the left. At the wharf, beside him, two motor boats were
moored, one on each side. Jimmie Dale glanced at them, and, suddenly
attracted by the familiar appearance of one, inspected it a little more
closely. His momentarily awakened interest passed as he nodded his head.
It had caught his attention, that was all--it was the same type and
design, quite a popular make, of which there were hundreds around New
York, as the one he had bought that year as a tender for his yacht.

He moved forward now toward the house, the rear of which faced him--the
light that flooded the lawn came from a side window. Jimmie Dale was
figuring the time and distance from New York as he crept cautiously
along. How quickly could the Weasel make the journey? The Weasel would
undoubtedly come, and if there was a convenient train it might prove a
close race--but in his own favour was the fact that it would probably
take the Weasel quite some little time to recover his equilibrium from
his encounter with the Gray Seal in the Palais-Metropole, also the
further fact that, from the Weasel's viewpoint, there was no desperate
need of haste. Jimmie Dale crossed the lawn, and edged along in the
shadows of the house to where the light streamed out from what now
proved to be open French windows. It was a fair presumption that he
would have an hour to the good on the Weasel.

The sill was little more than a couple of feet from the ground, and,
from a crouched position on his knees below the window, Jimmie Dale
raised himself slowly and peered guardedly inside. The room was empty.
He listened a moment--the black silk mask was on his face again--and
with a quick, agile, silent spring he was in the room.

And then, in the centre of the room, Jimmie Dale stood motionless,
staring around him, an expression, ironical, sardonic, creeping into his
face. THE ROBBERY HAD ALREADY BEEN COMMITTED! At the lower end of the
room everything was in confusion; the door of a safe swung wide, the
drawers of a desk had been wrenched out, even a liqueur stand, on which
were well-filled decanters, had been broken open, and the contents of
safe and desk, the thief's discards as it were, littered the floor in
all directions.

For an instant Jimmie Dale, his eyes narrowed ominously, surveyed the
scene; then, with a sort of professional instinct aroused, he stepped
forward to examine the safe--and suddenly darted behind the desk
instead. Steps sounded in the hall. The door opened--a voice reached
him:

"The master said I was to shut the windows, and I haven't dast to go in.
And he'll be back with the police in a minute now. Come on in with me,
Minnie."

"Lord!" exclaimed another voice. "Ain't it a good thing the missus is
away. She'd have highsteericks!"

Steps came somewhat hesitantly across the floor--from behind the desk,
Jimmie Dale could see that it was a maid, accompanied by a big, rawboned
woman, sleeves rolled to the elbows over brawny arms, presumably the
Mittels' cook.

The maid closed the French windows, there were no others in the room,
and bolted them; and, having gained a little confidence, gazed about
her.

"My, but wasn't he cute!" she ejaculated. "Cut the telephone wires, he
did. And ain't he made an awful mess! But the master said we wasn't to
touch nothing till the police saw it."

"And to think of it happening in OUR house!" observed the cook heavily,
her hands on her hips, her arms akimbo. "It'll all be in the papers, and
mabbe they'll put our pictures in, too."

"I won't get over it as long as I live!" declared the maid. "The yell
Mr. Mittel gave when he came downstairs and put his head in here,
and then him shouting and using the most terrible language into
the telephone, and then finding the wires cut. And me following him
downstairs half dead with fright. And he shouts at me. 'Bella,' he
shouts, 'shut those windows, but don't you touch a thing in that room.
I'm going for the police.' And then he rushes out of the house."

"I was going to bed," said the cook, picking up her cue for what was
probably the twentieth rehearsal of the scene, "when I heard Mr. Mittel
yell, and--Lord, Bella, there he is now!"

Jimmie Dale's hands clenched. He, too, had caught the scuffle of
footsteps, those of three or four men at least, on the front porch.
There was one way, only one, of escape--through the French windows!
It was a matter of seconds only before Mittel, with the police at his
heels, would be in the room--and Jimmie Dale sprang to his feet. There
was a wild scream of terror from the maid, echoed by another from the
cook--and, still screaming, both women fled for the door.

"Mr. Mittel! Mr. Mittel!" shrieked the maid--she had flung herself out
into the hall. "He's--he's back again!"

Jimmie Dale was at the French windows, tearing at the bolts. They
stuck. Shouts came from the front entryway. He wrenched viciously at the
fastenings. They gave now. The windows flew open. He glanced over his
shoulder. A man, Mittel presumably, since he was the only one not in
uniform, was springing into the room. There was a blur of forms and
brass buttons behind Mittel--and Jimmie Dale leaped to the lawn,
speeding across it like a deer.

But quick as he ran, Jimmie Dale's brain was quicker, pointing the
single chance that seemed open to him. The motor boat! It seemed like a
God-given piece of luck that he had noticed it was like his own; there
would be no blind, and that meant fatal, blunders in the dark over its
mechanism, and he could start it up in a moment--just the time to cast
her off, that was all he needed.

The shouts swelled behind him. Jimmie Dale was running for his life. He
flung a glance backward. One form--Mittel, he was certain--was perhaps a
hundred yards in the rear. The others were just emerging from the
French windows--grotesque, leaping things they looked, in the light that
streamed out behind them from the room.

Jimmie Dale's feet pounded the planking of the wharf. He stooped and
snatched at the mooring line. Mittel was almost at the wharf. It seemed
an age, a year to Jimmie Dale before the line was clear. Shouts rang
still louder across the lawn--the police, racing in a pack, were more
than halfway from the house. He flung the line into the boat, sprang in
after it--and Mittel, looming over him, grasped at the boat's gunwhale.

Both men were panting from their exertions.

"Let go!" snarled Jimmie Dale between clenched teeth.

Mittel's answer was a hoarse, gasping shout to the police to hurry--and
then Mittel reeled back, measuring his length upon the wharf from a blow
with a boat hook full across the face, driven with a sudden, untamed
savagery that seemed for the moment to have mastered Jimmie Dale.

There was no time--not a second--not the fraction of a second.
Desperately, frantically he shoved the boat clear of the wharf.
Once--twice--three times he turned the engine over without success--and
then the boat leaped forward. Jimmie Dale snatched the mask from his
face, and jumped for the steering wheel. The police were rushing out
along the wharf. He could just faintly discern Mittel now--the man was
staggering about, his hands clapped to his face. A peremptory order to
halt, coupled with a threat to fire, rang out sharply--and Jimmie Dale
flung himself flat in the bottom of the boat. The wharf edge seemed to
open in little, crackling jets of flame, came the roar of reports like a
miniature battery in action, then the FLOP, FLOP, FLOP, as the lead tore
up the water around him, the duller thud as a bullet buried its nose in
the boat's side, and the curious rip and squeak as a splinter flew. Then
Mittel's voice, high-pitched, as though in pain:

"Can't any of you run a motor boat? He's got me bad, I'm afraid. That
other one there is twice as fast."

"Sure!" another voice responded promptly. "And if that's right, he's run
his head into a trap. Cast loose, there, MacVeay, and pile in, all of
you! You go back to the house, Mr. Mittel, and fix yourself up. We'll
get him!"

Jimmie Dale's lips thinned. It was true! If the other boat had any speed
at all, it was only a question of time before he would be overtaken.
The only point at issue was how much time. It was dark--that was in his
favour--but it was not so dark but that a boat could be distinguished on
the water for quite a distance, for a longer distance than he could hope
to put between them. There was no chance of eluding the police that
way! The keen, facile brain that had saved the Gray Seal a hundred times
before was weaving, planning, discarding, eliminating, scheming a way
out--with death, ruin, disaster the price of failure. His eyes swept
the dim, irregular outline of the shore. To his right, in the opposite
direction from where he had left his car, and perhaps a mile ahead, as
well as he could judge, the land seemed to run out into a point. Jimmie
Dale headed for it instantly. If he could reach it with a little lead to
the good, there was a chance! It would take, say, six minutes, granting
the boat a speed of ten miles an hour--and she could do that. The others
could hardly overtake him in that time--they hadn't got started yet. He
could hear them still shouting and talking at the wharf. And Mittel's
"twice as fast" was undoubtedly an exaggeration, anyhow.

A minute more passed, another--and then, astern, Jimmie Dale caught the
racket from the exhaust of a high-powered engine, and a white streak
seemed to shoot out upon the surface of the water from where, obscured
now, he placed the wharf. A quarter-mile lead, roughly four hundred
yards; yes, he had as much as that--but that, too, was very little.

He bent over his engine, coaxing it, nursing it to its highest
efficiency; his eyes strained now upon the point ahead, now upon his
pursuers behind. He was running with the wind, thank Heaven! or the
small boat would have had a further handicap--it was rolling up quite a
sea.

The steering gear, he found, was corded along the side of the boat,
permitting its manipulation from almost any position, and, abruptly now,
Jimmie Dale left the engine to rummage through the little locker in the
stern of the boat. But as he rummaged, his eyes held speculatively on
the boat astern. She was gaining unquestionably, steadily, but not as
fast as he had feared. He would still have a hundred yards' lead, at
least, abreast the point--and, he was smiling grimly now, a hundred
yards there meant life to the Gray Seal! The locker was full of a
heterogeneous collection of odds and ends--a suit of oilskins, tools,
tins, and cans of various sizes and descriptions. Jimmie Dale emptied
the contents, some sort of powder, of a small, round tin box overboard,
and from his pocket took out the banknotes, crammed them into the box,
crammed his watch in on top of them, and screwed the cover on tightly.
His fingers were flying now. A long strip torn from the trousers' leg of
the oilskins was wrapped again and again around the box--and the box was
stuffed into his pocket.

The flash of a revolver shot cut the blackness behind him, then another,
and another. They were firing in a continuous stream again. It was
fairly long range, but there was always the chance of a stray bullet
finding its mark. Jimmie Dale, crouching low, made his way to the bow of
the boat again.

The point was looming almost abreast now. He edged in nearer, to hug
it as closely as he dared risk the depth of the water. Behind,
remorselessly, the other boat was steadily closing the gap; and the
shots were not all wild--one struck, with a curious singing sound, on
some piece of metal a foot from his elbow. Closer to the shore, running
now parallel with the head of the point, Jimmie Dale again edged in the
boat, his jaws, clamped, working in little twitches.

And then suddenly, with a swift, appraising glance behind him, he
swerved the boat from her course and headed for the shore--not directly,
but diagonally across the little bay that, on the farther side of the
point, had now opened out before him. He was close in with the edge of
the point, ten yards from it, sweeping past it--the point itself came
between the two boats, hiding them from each other--and Jimmie Dale,
with a long spring, dove from the boat's side to the water.

The momentum from the boat as he sank robbed him for an instant of all
control over himself, and he twisted, doubled up, and rolled over and
over beneath the water--but the next moment his head was above the
surface again, and he was striking out swiftly for the shore. It was
only a few yards--but in a few SECONDS the pursuing boat, too, would
have rounded the point. His feet touched bottom. It was haste now,
nothing else, that counted. The drum of the racing engines, the
crackling roar of the exhaust from the oncoming boat was in his ears. He
flung himself upon the shore and down behind a rock. Around the point,
past him, tore the police boat, dark forms standing clustered in the
bow--and then a sudden shout:

"There she is! See her? She's heading into the bay for the shore!"

Jimmie Dale's lips relaxed. There was no doubt that they had sighted
their quarry again--a perfect fusillade of revolver shots directed at
the now empty boat was quite sufficient proof of that! With something
that was almost a chuckle, Jimmie Dale straightened up from behind the
rock and began to run back along the shore. The little motor boat would
have grounded long before they overtook her, and, thinking naturally
enough, that he had leaped ashore from her, they would go thrashing
through the woods and fields searching for him!

It was a longer way back by the shore, a good deal longer; now over
rough, rocky stretches where he stumbled in the darkness, now through
marshy, sodden ground where he sank as in a quagmire time and again over
his ankles. It was even longer than he had counted on, and time, with
the Weasel on one hand and the return of the police on the other, was
a factor to be reckoned with again, as, a half hour later, Jimmie Dale
stole across the lawn of Mittel's house for the second time that night,
and for the second time crouched beneath the open French windows.

Masked again, the water still dripping from what were once immaculate
evening clothes but which now sagged limply about him, his collar a
pasty string around his neck, the mud and dirt splashed to his knees,
Jimmie Dale was a disreputable and incongruous-looking object as he
crouched there, shivering uncomfortably from his immersion in spite of
his exertions. Inside the room, Mittel passed the windows, pacing the
floor, one side of his face badly cut and bruised from the blow with the
boat hook--and as he passed, his back turned for an instant, Jimmie Dale
stepped into the room.

Mittel whirled at the sound, and, with a suppressed cry, instinctively
drew back--Jimmie Dale's automatic was dangling carelessly in his right
hand.

"I am afraid I am a trifle melodramatic," observed Jimmie Dale
apologetically, surveying his own bedraggled person; "but I assure you
it is neither intentional nor for effect. As it is, I was afraid I would
be late. Pardon me if I take the liberty of helping myself; one gets a
chill in wet clothes so easily"--he passed to the liqueur stand, poured
out a generous portion from one of the decanters, and tossed it off.

Mittel neither spoke nor moved. Stupefaction, surprise, and a very
obvious regard for Jimmie Dale's revolver mingled themselves in a
helpless expression on his face.

Jimmie Dale set down his glass and pointed to a chair in front of the
desk.

"Sit down, Mr. Mittel," he invited pleasantly. "It will be quite
apparent to you that I have not time to prolong our interview
unnecessarily, in view of the possible return of the police at any
moment, but you might as well be comfortable. You will pardon me again
if I take another liberty"--he crossed the room, turned the key in the
lock of the door leading into the hall, and returned to the desk. "Sit
down, Mr. Mittel!" he repeated, a sudden rasp in his voice.

Mittel, none too graciously, now seated himself.

"Look here, my fine fellow," he burst out, "you're carrying things with
a pretty high hand, aren't you? You seem to have eluded the police for
the moment, somehow, but let me tell you I--"

"No," interrupted Jimmie Dale softly, "let ME tell you--all there is
to be told." He leaned over the desk and stared rudely at the bruise on
Mittel's face. "Rather a nasty crack, that," he remarked.

Mittel's fists clenched, and an angry flush swept his cheeks.

"I'd have made it a good deal harder," said Jimmie Dale, with sudden
insolence, "if I hadn't been afraid of putting you out of business and
so precluding the possibility of this little meeting. Now then"--the
revolver swung upward and held steadily on a line with Mittel's eyes--
"I'll trouble you for the diagram of that Alaskan claim that belongs to
Mrs. Michael Breen!"

Mittel, staring fascinated into the little, round, black muzzle of the
automatic, edged back in his chair.

"So--so that's what you're after, is it?" he jerked out. "Well"--he
laughed unnaturally and waved his hand at the disarray of the
room--"it's been stolen already."

"I know that," said Jimmie Dale grimly. "By--YOU!"

"Me!" Mittel started up in his chair, a whiteness creeping into his
face. "Me! I--I--"

"Sit down!" Jimmie Dale's voice rang out ominously cold. "I haven't any
time to spare. You can appreciate that. But even if the police return
before that map is in my possession, they will still be TOO LATE as
far as you are concerned. Do you understand? Furthermore, if I am
caught--you are ruined. Let me make it quite plain that I know
the details of your little game. You are a curb broker, Mr.
Mittel--ostensibly. In reality, you run what is nothing better than an
exceedingly profitable bucket shop. The Weasel has been a customer
and also a stool for you for years. How Hamvert met the Weasel is
unimportant--he came East with the intention of getting in touch with a
slick crook to help him--the Weasel is the coincidence, that is all. I
quite understand that you have never met Hamvert, nor Hamvert you, nor
that Hamvert was aware that you and the Weasel had anything to do
with one another and were playing in together--but that equally is
unimportant. When Hamvert engaged the Weasel for ten thousand dollars
to get the map from you for him, the Weasel chose the line of least
resistance. He KNEW you, and approached you with an offer to split the
money in return for the map. It was not a question of your accepting his
offer--it was simply a matter of how you could do it and still protect
yourself. The Weasel was well qualified to point the way--a fake robbery
of your house would answer the purpose admirably--you could not be held
either legally or morally responsible for a document that was placed,
unsolicited by you, in your possession, if it were stolen from you."