The Adventures of Jimmie Dale

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


The door tottered inward from the top, ripping, tearing, smashing
hinges, panels, and jamb. Jimmie Dale got a blurred vision of brass
buttons, blue coats, and helmets, and, in the forefront, of a stocky,
gray-mustached, gray-haired man in plain clothes.

Jimmie Dale threw up the window, swung out, as with a rush the officers
burst through into the room and a revolver bullet hummed viciously past
his ear, and dropped to the ground--into encircling arms!

"Ah, no, you don't, my bucko!" snapped a hoarse voice in his ear. "Keep
quiet now, or I'll crack your bean--understand!"

But the officer, too heavy to be muscular, was no match for Jimmie
Dale, who, even as he had dropped from the sill, had caught sight of
the lurking form below; and now, with a quick, sudden, lithe movement he
wriggled loose, his fist from a short-arm jab smashed upon the point of
the other's jaw, sending the man staggering backward--and Jimmie Dale
ran.

A crowd was already collecting at the mouth of the alleyway, mostly
occupants of the house itself, and into these, scattering them in all
directions, eluding dexterously another officer who made a grab for him,
Jimmie Dale charged at top speed, burst through, and headed down the
street, running like a deer.

Yells went up, a revolver spat venomously behind him, came the shrill
CHEEP-CHEEP! of the police whistle, and heavy boots pounding the
pavement in pursuit.

Down the block Jimmie Dale raced. The yells augmented in his rear.
Another shot--and this time he heard the bullet buzz. And then he
swerved--into the next alleyway--that flanked the Sanctuary.

He had perhaps a ten yards' lead, just a little more than the distance
from the street to the side door of the Sanctuary that opened on
the alleyway. And, as he ran now, his fingers tore at his clothing,
loosening his tie, unbuttoning coat, vest, collar, shirt, and
undershirt. He leaped at the door, swung it open, flung himself
inside--and then sacrificing speed to silence, went up the stairs like a
cat, cramming his mask now into his pocket.

His room was on the first landing. In an instant he had unlocked the
door, entered, and locked it again behind him. From outside, an excited
street urchin's voice shrilled up to him:

"He went in that door! I seen him!"

The police whistle chirped again; and then an authoritative voice:

"Get around and watch the saloon back of this, Heeney--there's a way out
through there from this joint."

Jimmie Dale, divested of every stitch of clothing that he had worn,
pulled a disreputable collarless flannel shirt over his head, pulled on
a dirty and patched pair of trousers, and slipped into a threadbare and
filthy coat. Jimmie Dale was working against seconds. They were at the
lower door now. He lifted the oilcloth in the corner of the room,
lifted up the loose piece of the flooring, shoved his discarded garments
inside, and from a little box that was there smeared the hollow of
his hand with some black substance, possessed himself of two little
articles, replaced the flooring, replaced the oilcloth, and, in bare
feet, stole across the room to the door. Against the door, without a
sound, Jimmie Dale placed a chair, and on the chair seat he laid the two
little articles he had been carrying in his hand. It was intensely black
in the room, but Jimmie Dale needed no light here. From under the bed he
pulled out a pair of woolen socks and a pair of congress boots, both as
disreputable as the rest of his attire, put them on--and very quietly,
softly, cautiously, stretched himself out on the bed.

The officers were at the top of the stairs. A voice barked out:

"Stand guard on this landing, Peters. Higgins, you take the one above.
We'll start from the top of the house and work down. Allow no one to
pass you."

"Yes, sir! Very good, Mr. Kline," was the response.

Kline!--the sharpest man in the United States secret service, she had
said. Jimmie Dale's lips set.

"I'm glad I had no shave this morning," said Jimmie Dale grimly to
himself.

His fingers were working with the black substance in the hollow of his
hand--and the long, slim, tapering fingers, the shapely, well-cared-for
hands grew unkempt and grimy, black beneath the finger nails--and a
little, too, played its part on the day's growth of beard, a little
around the throat and at the nape of the neck, a little across the
forehead to meet the locks of straggling and disordered hair. Jimmie
Dale wiped the residue from the hollow of his hand on the knee of his
trousers--and lay still.

An officer paced outside. Upstairs doors opened and closed. Gruff, harsh
tones in commands echoed through the house. The search party descended
to the second floor--and again the same sounds were repeated. And then,
thumping down the creaking stairs, they stopped before Jimmie Dale's
room. Some one tried the door, and, finding it locked, rattled it
violently.

"Open the door!" It was Kline's voice.

Jimmie Dale's eyes were closed, and he was breathing regularly, though
just a little slower than in natural respiration.

"Break it down!" ordered Kline tersely.

There was a rush at it--and it gave. It surged inward, knocked against
the chair, upset the latter, something tinkled to the floor--and four
officers, with Kline at their head, jumped into the room.

Jimmie Dale never moved. A flashlight played around the room and focused
upon him--and then he was shaken roughly--only to fall inertly back on
the bed again.

"I guess this is all right, Mr. Kline," said one of the officers. "It's
Larry the Bat, and he's doped to the eyes. There's the stuff on the
floor we knocked off the chair."

"Light the gas!" directed Kline curtly; and, being obeyed, stooped to
the floor and picked up a hypodermic syringe and a small bottle. He held
the bottle to the light, and read the label: LIQUOR MORPHINAE. "Shake
him again!" he commanded.

None too gently, a policeman caught Jimmie Dale by the shoulder and
shook him vigorously--again Jimmie Dale, once the other let go his hold,
fell back limply on the bed, breathing in that same, slightly slowed
way.

"Larry the Bat, eh?" grunted Kline; then, to the officer who had
volunteered the information: "Who's Larry the Bat? What is he? And how
long have you known him?"

"I don't know who he is any more than what you can see there for
yourself," replied the officer. "He's a dope fiend, and I guess a pretty
tough case, though we've never had him up for anything. He's lived here
ever since I've been on the beat, and that's three years or--"

"All right!" interrupted Kline crisply. "He's no good to us! You say
there's an exit from this house into that saloon at the back?"

"Yes, sir but the fellow, whoever he is, couldn't get away from there.
Heeney's been over on guard from the start."

"Then he's still inside there," said Kline, clipping off his words.
"We'll search the saloon. Nice night's work this is! One out of the
whole gang--and that one with the compliments of the Gray Seal!"

The men went out and began to descend the stairs.

"One," said Jimmie Dale to himself, still motionless, still breathing in
that slow way so characteristic of the drug. "Two. Three. Four."

The minutes went by--a quarter of an hour--a half hour. Still Jimmie
Dale lay there--still motionless--still breathing with slow regularity.
His muscles began to cramp, to give him exquisite torture. Around
him all was silence--only distant sounds from the street reached
him, muffled, and at intervals. Another quarter of an hour passed--an
eternity of torment. It seemed to Jimmie Dale, for all his will power,
that he could not hold himself in check, that he must move, scream out
even in the torture that was passing all endurance. It was silent now,
utterly silent--and then out of the silence, just outside his door, a
footstep creaked--and a man walked to the stairs and went down.

"Five," said Jimmie Dale to himself. "The sharpest man in the United
States secret service."

And then for the first time Jimmie Dale moved--to wipe away the beads of
sweat that had sprung out upon his forehead.



CHAPTER V

THE AFFAIR OF THE PUSHCART MAN


Larry the Bat shambled out of the side door of the tenement into the
back alleyway; shambled along the black alleyway to the street--and
smiled a little grimly as a shadow across the roadway suddenly shifted
its position. The game was growing acute, critical, desperate even--and
it was his move.

Larry the Bat, disreputable denizen of the underworld, alias Jimmie
Dale, millionaires' clubman, alias the Gray Seal, whom Carruthers of the
MORNING NEWS-ARGUS called the master criminal of the age, shuffled along
in the direction of the Bowery, his hands plunged deep in the pockets
of his frayed and tattered trousers, where his fingers, in a curious,
wistful way, fondled the keys of his own magnificent residence on
Riverside Drive. It was his move--and it was an impasse, ironical,
sardonic, and it was worse--it was full of peril.

True, he had outwitted Kline of the secret service two nights before,
when Kline had raided the counterfeiters' den; true, he had no reason to
believe that Kline suspected HIM specifically, but the man Kline wanted
HAD entered the tenement that night, and since then the house had been
shadowed day and night. The result was both simple and disastrous--to
Jimmie Dale. Larry the Bat, a known inmate of the house, might come
and go as he pleased--but to emerge from the Sanctuary in the person of
Jimmie Dale would be fatal. Kline had been outwitted, but Kline had not
acknowledged final defeat. The tenement had been searched from top to
bottom--unostentatiously. His own room on the first landing had been
searched the previous afternoon, when he was out, but they had failed to
find the cunningly contrived opening in the floor under the oilcloth in
the corner, an impromptu wardrobe, that would proclaim Larry the Bat and
Jimmie Dale to be one and the same person--that would inevitably lead
further to the establishment of his identity as the Gray Seal. In time,
of course, the surveillance would cease--but he could not wait. That was
the monumental irony of it--the factor that, all unknown to Kline, was
forcing the issue hard now. It was his move.

Since, years ago now, as the Gray Seal, he had begun to work with HER,
that unknown, mysterious accomplice of his, and the police, stung to
madness both by the virulent and constant attacks of the press and by
the humiliating prod of their own failures, sought daily, high and low,
with every resource at their command, for the Gray Seal, he had never
been in quite so strange and perilous a plight as he found himself at
that moment. To preserve inviolate the identity of Larry the Bat was
absolutely vital to his safety. It was the one secret that even she, who
so strangely appeared to know all else about him, he was sure, had not
discovered--and it was just that, in a way, that had brought the present
impossible situation to pass.

In the month previous, in a lull between those letters of hers, he had
set himself doggedly and determinedly to the renewed task of what had
become so dominantly now a part of his very existence--the solving of
HER identity. And for that month, as the best means to the end--means,
however, that only resulted as futilely as the attempts that had gone
before--he had lived mostly as Larry the Bat, returning to his home in
his proper person only when occasion and necessity demanded it. He had
been going home that evening, two nights before, walking along Riverside
Drive, when from the window of the limousine she had dropped the letter
at his feet that had plunged him into the affair of the Counterfeit
Five--and he had not gone home! Eventually, to save himself, he had, in
the Sanctuary, performing the transformation in desperate haste, again
been forced to assume the role of Larry the Bat.

That was really the gist of it. And yesterday morning he had remembered,
to his dismay, that he had had little or no money left the night before.
He had intended, of course, to replenish his supply--when he got home.
Only he hadn't gone home! And now he needed money--needed it badly,
desperately. With thousands in the bank, with abundance even in
his safe, in his own den at home, a supply kept there always for an
emergency, he was facing actual want--he rattled two dimes, a nickel,
and a few odd pennies thoughtfully against the keys in his pocket.

To a certain extent, old Jason, his butler, could be trusted. Jason even
knew that mysterious letters of tremendous secretive importance came
to the house, and the old man always meant well--but he dared not trust
even Jason with the secret of his dual personality. What was he to do?
He needed money imperatively--at once. Thanks to Kline, for the time
being, at least, he could not rid himself of the personality of Larry
the Bat by the simple expedient or slipping into the clothes of Jimmie
Dale--he must live, act, and remain Larry the Bat until the secret
service officer gave up the hunt. How bridge the gulf between Jimmie
Dale and Larry the Bat in old Jason's eyes!

Nor was that all. There was still another matter, and one that, in order
to counteract it, demanded at once a serious inroad--to the extent of
a telephone call--upon his slender capital. A too prolonged and
unaccounted-for absence from home, and old Jason, in his anxious,
blundering solicitude, would have the fat in the fire at that end--and
the city, and the social firmament thereof, would be humming with the
startling news of the disappearance of a well-known millionaire. The
complications that would then ensue, with himself powerless to lift a
finger, Jimmie Dale did not care to think about--such a contretemps must
at all hazards be prevented.

Jimmie Dale reached the corner of the street, where it intersected
the Bowery, and paused languidly by the curb. No one appeared to be
following. He had not expected that there would be--but it was as well
to be sure. He walked then a few steps along the Bowery--and slipped
suddenly into a doorway, from where he could command a view of the
street corner that he had just left. At the end of ten minutes,
satisfied that no one had any concern in his immediate movements, he
shambled on again down the Bowery.

There was a saloon two blocks away that boasted a private telephone
booth. Jimmie Dale made that his destination.

Larry the Bat was a very well-known character in that resort, and the
bullet-headed dispenser of drinks behind the bar nodded unctuously to
him over the heads of those clustered at the rail as he entered; Larry
the Bat, as befitted one of the elite of the underworld, was graciously
pleased to acknowledge the proletariat salutation with a curt nod. He
walked down to the end of the room, entered the telephone booth--and was
carelessly careful to close the door tightly behind him.

He gave the number of his residence on Riverside Drive, and waited for
the connection. After some delay, Jason's voice answered him.

"Jason," said Jimmie Dale, in matter-of-fact tones, "I shall be out
of the city for another three or four days, possibly a week, and--" he
stopped abruptly, as a sort of gasp came to him over the wire.

"Thank God that's you, sir!" exclaimed the old butler wildly. "I've been
near mad, sir, all day!"

"Don't get excited, Jason!" said Jimmie Dale a little sharply. "The mere
matter of my absence for the last two days is nothing to cause you any
concern. And while I am on the subject, Jason, let me say now that I
shall be glad if you will bear that fact in mind in future."

"Yes, sir," stammered Jason. "But, sir, it ain't that--good Lord, Master
Jim, it ain't that, sir! It's--it's one of them letters."

Something like a galvanic shock seemed to jerk the disreputable,
loose-jointed frame of Larry the Bat suddenly erect--and a strained
whiteness crept over the dirty, unwashed face.

"Go on, Jason," said Jimmie Dale, without a quiver in his voice.

"It came this morning, sir--that shuffer with his automobile left it.
I had just time to say you weren't at home, sir, and he was gone. And
then, sir, there ain't been an hour gone by all through the day that a
woman, sir--a lady, begging your pardon, Master Jim--hasn't rung up
on the telephone, asking if you were back, and if I could get you, and
where you were, and half frantic, sir, half sobbing, sometimes, sir, and
saying there was a life hanging on it, Master Jim."

Larry the Bat, staring into the mouthpiece of the instrument,
subconsciously passed his hand across his forehead, and subconsciously
noted that his fingers, as he drew them away, were damp.

"Where is the letter now, Jason?" inquired Jimmie Dale coolly.

"Here on your desk, Master Jim. Shall I bring it to you?"

Bring it to him! How? When? Where? Bring it to him! The ghastly irony
of it! Jimmie Dale tried to think--prodding, spurring desperately that
keen, lightning brain of his that had never failed him yet. How bridge
the gulf between Larry the Bat and Jimmie Dale in Jason's eyes--not just
for the replenishing of funds now, but with a life at stake!

"No--I think not, Jason," said Jimmie Dale calmly. "Just leave it where
it is. And if she telephones again, say that you have told me--that will
be sufficient to satisfy any further inquiries. And Jason--"

"Yes, sir?"

"If she telephones again, try and find out where the call comes from."

"I haven't forgotten what you said once, Master Jim, sir," said the old
man eagerly. "And I've been trying that sir, all day. They've all come
from different pay stations, sir."

A mirthless little smile tinged Jimmie Dale's lips. Of course! He might
have known! It was always that way, always the same. He was as near to
the solution of her identity at that moment as he had been years ago,
when she, in some mysterious way, alone of all the world, had identified
him as the Gray Seal!

"Very good, Jason," he said quietly. "Don't bother about it any more.
It will be all right. You can expect me when you see me. Good-night." He
hung the receiver on the hook, walked out of the booth, and mechanically
reached the street.

All right! It was far from "all right"--very far from it. It was no
trivial thing, that letter; they never had been trivial things, those
letters of hers, that involved so often a matter of life and death--as
this one now, perhaps, as her actions would seem to indicate, involved
life and death more urgently than any that had gone before. It was far
from all right--at a moment when his own position, his own safety, was
at best but a desperate chance; when his every energy, brain, wit, and
cunning were taxed to the utmost to save himself! And yet, somehow, some
way, at any cost, he must get that letter--and at any cost he must act
upon it! To fail her was to fail utterly in everything that failure in
its most miserable, its widest sense, implied--failure in that which
rose paramount to every other consideration in life!

Fail her! Jimmie Dale's lips thinned into a hard, drawn line--and then
parted slowly in a curiously whimsical smile. It would be a strange
burglary that he had decided upon, in order that he might not fail
her--stranger than any the Gray Seal had ever committed, and, in some
respects, even more perilous!

He started along the Bowery, walking briskly now, toward the nearest
subway station, at Astor Place, his mind for the moment electing to face
the situation in a humour as whimsical as his smile. Supposing that,
as Larry the Bat, he were caught and arrested during the next hour, in
Jimmie's Dale's residence on Riverside Drive! With his arrest as Larry
the Bat, Jimmie's Dale would automatically disappear. Would follow then
the suspicion that Jimmie Dale, the millionaire, had met with foul play,
and as time went on, and Jimmie Dale, being then in prison as Larry
the Bat, did not reappear, the assurance of it; then the certainty
that suspicion would focus on Larry the Bat as being connected with
the millionaire's death, since Larry the Bat had been caught in Jimmie
Dale's home--and he would be accused of his own murder! It was quite
humourous, of course, quite grotesquely bizarre--but it was equally
an exceedingly grim possibility! There were drawbacks to a dual
personality!

"In a word," confided Jimmie Dale softly to himself, and a serious light
crept into the dark, steady eyes, "I'm in a bit of a nasty mess!"

At Astor Place he entered the subway; at Fourteenth Street he changed
to an express, and at Ninety-sixth Street he got out. It was but a short
walk west to Riverside Drive, and from there his house was only a few
blocks farther on.

Jimmie Dale did not slouch now. And for all his disreputable attire,
incongruous as it was in that neighbourhood, few people that he
passed paid any attention to him, none gave him more than a casual
glance--Jimmie Dale swung along, upright, with no attempt to make
himself inconspicuous, hurrying a little, as one intent upon a definite
errand. As he neared his house he slowed his pace a little until a
couple, who were passing in front of it, had gone on; then he went up
the steps, but noiselessly as a shadow now, to the front door, opened
it softly, closed it softly behind him, and crouched for a moment in the
vestibule.

Through the monogrammed lace on the plate glass of the inner doors he
could see, a little indistinctly, into the reception hall beyond. The
hall was empty. Jason, for that matter, would be the only one likely to
be about; the other servants would have no business there in any case,
and whether in their quarters above or below, they had their own stairs
at the rear.

Jimmie Dale inserted the key in the spring lock, and opened the door
a cautious fraction of an inch--to listen. There was no sound--yes,
a subdued murmured--the servants were downstairs in the basement. He
slipped inside, slipped, in a flash, across the hall, and, treading like
a cat, went up the stairs. He scarcely seemed to breathe until, with a
little sigh of relief, he stood inside his den on the first floor, with
the door shut behind him.

"I must speak to Jason about being a little more watchful," muttered
Jimmie Dale facetiously. "Here's all my property at the mercy of--Larry
the Bat!"

An instant he stood by the door, looking about him--in the bright
moonlight streaming in through the side windows the room's appointments
stood out in soft shadows, the huge davenport, the great, luxurious
easy-chairs, an easel with a half-finished canvas, as he had left it;
the big, flat-topped, rosewood desk, the open fireplace--and then, his
steps silent on the thick velvet rug under foot, he walked quickly to
the desk.

Yes, there it was--the letter. He placed it hurriedly in his pocket--the
moonlight was not strong enough to read by, and he dared not turn on the
lights.

And now money--funds. In the alcove behind the portiere, Jimmie Dale
dropped on his knees before the squat, barrel-shaped safe, and opened
it. He reached inside, took out a package of banknotes, placed the bills
in his pocket--and hesitated a moment. What else would he require? What
act did that letter call upon the Gray Seal to perform in the next few
hours? Jimmie Dale stared thoughtfully into the interior of the safe.
Whatever it was, it must be performed in the role of Larry the Bat, for
though he could get into his dressing room now, and become Jimmie Dale
again, there were still those watchers outside the Sanctuary--THEY must
not become suspicious--and if Larry the Bat disappeared mysteriously,
Larry the Bat would be the man that Kline and the secret service of the
United States would never cease hunting for, and that would mean that
he could never reassume a character that was as necessary for his
protection as breath was to life, so long as the Gray Seal worked. True,
he could change now to Jimmie Dale, but he would have to change back
again and return to the Sanctuary before morning, as Larry the Bat--and
remain there until Kline, beaten, called off his human bloodhounds. No,
a change was not to be thought of.

What, then, would he require--that compact little kit of burglar tools,
rolled in its leather jacket, that, unrolled slipped about his body like
a close-fitting undervest? As well to take it anyway. He removed his
coat and vest, took out the leather bundle from the safe, untied the
thongs that bound it together, unrolled it, passed it around his body,
life belt fashion, secured the thongs over his shoulders, and put on
his coat and vest again. A revolver, a flashlight? He had both--at
the Sanctuary, under the flooring--but there were duplicates here! He
slipped them into his pockets. Anything else--to forestall and provide
for any possible contingency? He hesitated again for a moment, thinking,
then slowly closed the inner door of the safe, locked it, swung the
outer door shut--and, in the act of twirling the knobs, sprang suddenly
to his feet. Sharp, shrill in the stillness of the room, the telephone
bell on the desk rang out clamourously.

Jimmie Dale's face set hard, as he leaped out from behind the
curtain--had Jason heard it! It rang again before he could reach the
desk--was ringing as he snatched the receiver from the hook.