 CHAPTER VI. Had it not been for the stop the car had previously made, for the possibility that he might have obtained a glimpse outside when the door had been opened, the scarf over his eyes would have been superfluous, for now with it removed he could scarcely distinguish the forms of the three men around him, since the window curtains of the car were tightly drawn. Nor was he given the opportunity to do more, even if it had been possible. The car stopped, the door was open, he was pushed towards it, and even as he reached the ground the door was closed behind him and the car was speeding on again. Where he could not see before he took now but a glance to obtain his bearings. He was standing on a corner on Riverside Drive, within a few doors of his own house. Jimmy Dale stood for a moment, watching the car as it disappeared rapidly up the drive. With a sort of grim fastidiousness his brain began to correlate time and distance. Where had he come from? Where was this crime club? The headman as nearly as he could estimate two hours in making the journey, and as nearly as he could estimate in their turnings and twistings had covered at least twice the distance that would be represented by a direct route. Granting then an average speed of forty miles an hour, which was over-generous to be on the safe side, and the fact that they certainly had not crossed the Hudson, which now lay before him, flanking the drive, the crime club was somewhere within the area of a semi-circle, whose center was the corner on which he now stood, and whose radius was forty miles, or forty yards. He forced to laugh. It was just that, no more, no less. He was as likely to have started on his ride from within a biscuit-throw of where he now stood as to have started on it from miles away. But he aroused himself with a start. He was wasting time. It must be very late, near morning. He would have need for every moment that was left between now and daylight. He turned and walked quickly to his house, mounted the steps, and with his latch-key they had at least permitted him to retain the contents of his pockets when they had forced him to change his clothes, opened the front door softly, and stepped inside, closed the door as silently as he had opened it. He paused for an instant to listen. There was not a sound. The servants, naturally, would have been in bed hours ago. Even old Jason, Jimmy Dale, smiled, half whimsically, half affectionately, whose paternal custom it was to sit up for his master Jim, who, as he was fond of saying, he had dandled as a baby on his knee, had evidently given it up as a bad job on this occasion, and had turned in himself. Jason, however, had left the light burning here in the big reception hall. Jimmy Dale stepped to the switch and turned off the light, then stood hesitant in the darkness. Was there anything to be gained by rousing Jason now and telling him what he intended to do, to instruct him to answer any inquiries by the statement that Mr. Dale had gone away for a trip? He could trust Jason. Jason already knew much. More than one of those mysterious letters of the toxins had passed through Jason's hands. Jimmy Dale shook his head. No, he could communicate with Jason from downtown in the morning. He had half expected to find Jason up, and in that case would have taken the other, as far as necessary, into his confidence. He could get in touch with Jason at any time, readily enough. Was there anything else before he went? He would not be able to get back as easily as he got out. Money, he shook his head again, a little grimly this time. He had been caught once before as Larry the Bat without funds. There was plenty of money now hidden in the sanctuary. Enough for any emergency, enough to last him indefinitely. He stepped forward along the hall. His tread noiseless on the rich, heavy rug passed into the rear of the house, descended the back stairs, and reached the cellar. It was below the level of the ground, of course, but a narrow window here, though quite large enough to permit a feed-cress, gave on the driveway at the side of the house that led to the garage in the rear. Cautiously now, for the cement floor was, in the stillness, a little less than a sounding board, Jimmy Dale reached the wall and felt along it to the window. The lower edge of Hussill was just slightly below the level of his shoulder. It opened inward if he remembered correctly. His fingers were feeling for the fasteners. It was too dark to see a thing. He muttered in annoyance. Where were the fastenings? At the sides or at the bottom? His hands began to make a circuit of the cell, and suddenly, with a low sharp cry, he leaned forward. What did this mean? Wires. No wires had ever been there before. His fingers were working now with feverish haste, telegraphing their message to his brain. The wires ran through the cell close to the corner of the wall, tiny fragments of wood as from when auger were still on the cell. And here was a small particle of wire insulation that those sensitive fingertips proclaimed was fresh. A cold thrill ran through Jimmy Dale, and there came again that sickening sense of impotency that the face of the malignant, devilish cunning arrayed against him that once before he had experienced that night. He had thought to forestall them, and he had been forestalled himself. This could only have been done. They had had no interest in him before then, while they held him at the crime-club. While he was spending that two hours in the car. Was that why they had taken so long in coming? Was that why the car had stopped at that time? That those with him might be told that the work here had been completed and he need no longer be kept away. He edged away from the window, and as cautiously as he had come retraced his steps across the cellar and up the stairs, and then the possibility of being heard from without gone, he broke into a run. There was no need to wonder long what those wires meant. They could mean only one of two things. But the crime-club would have little concern in his electric light. They had tapped his telephone. The mains he knew ran into the cellar for the underground service in the street. He was racing like a madman now. How long ago? How many hours ago had they done that? Great Scott! She was to have telephoned. Had she done so? Was the game all everything she herself at their mercy already? If she had telephoned, Jason would have left the message on the desk. He would look there first. Afterward he would waken Jason. He gained the door of his den on the first landing, a room that ran the entire length of one side of the house from front to rear, burst in, switching on the light, and stood stock still in amazement. Jason, he cried out. The old butler, fully dressed, rubbing and blinking his eyes in the light, with a startled cry rose up from the depths of lounging chair. Jason, exclaimed Jimmy Dale. I beg your pardon, sir, Master Jim, stammered the man. I must have fallen asleep, sir. Jason, what are you doing here? Jimmy Dale demanded sharply. Well, sir, said Jason, still fumbling for his words. It was the telephone, sir. The telephone. Yes, sir. A woman, begging your pardon, Master Jim, a lady, sir, has been telephoning every hour or so, and she, yes, Jimmy Dale had jumped across the room and had caught the other fiercely by the shoulder. Yes, yes, what did she say? Quick man. Good Lord, Master Jim, faltered Jason, I, she, Jason, said Jimmy Dale, suddenly as cold as ice. What did she say? Think, man, every word. She didn't say anything, Master Jim. Nothing at all, sir, except to keep asking each time if she could speak to you. Nothing else, Jason? No, sir. Are you sure? I'm sure, Master Jim. Not another thing, but, sir, just as I've told you. Thank God, Jimmy Dale said in a low voice. Yes, sir, said Jason mechanically. How long ago was it since she telephoned last? asked Jimmy Dale quickly. Well, sir, I couldn't rightly say. You see, as I said, Master Jim, I must have gone to sleep. But they were staring tensely into each other's face. The telephone on the desk was ringing vibrantly, clamorously, through the stillness of the room. Jason, white, frightened, bewildered, touched his lip with the tip of his tongue. That'll be her again, sir, he said, hoarsely. Wait, said Jimmy Dale, tersely. He was trying to think. To think faster than he had ever thought before, he could not tell Jason to say that he had not come in. They knew he was in. It would be but showing his hand to that someone who would be listening now on the wire. He dared not speak to her, or, above all, allow her to express herself by a single inadvertent word. He dared not speak to her, and she was here now, calling him. He could not speak to her, and it was life and death almost that she should know what happened. Life and death almost for both of them that he should know all and everything she could tell him. True, it would take but a minute to run to the cellar and cut those wires, while Jason held her on the pretense of calling him, Jimmy Dale, to the phone, only a minute to cut those wires, and in doing so advertised to these friends the fact that he had discovered their trick. Admit, as though in so many words that their suspicions of him were justified. Lay himself open to some new move that he could not hope to foresee, and, paramount to all else, rob her and himself of this master-trump crime-club had placed in his hands by means of which there was a chance that he could hoist them with their own petard. The telephone rang again, imperatively, persistently. Listen, Jason, Jimmy Dale, who was speaking rapidly, earnestly, say I've come in, and have gone to bed, in a vile humor, that you told me a lady had been calling, but that I said if she called again I wasn't to be disturbed if it was the queen of sheep herself, that I wouldn't answer any phone tonight for anybody. Do you understand? No argument with her, just that. Now answer. Jason lifted the receiver from the hook. Yes, hello, he said. Yes, ma'am. Mr. Dale has come in, but he has retired. Yes, I told him. But, begging your pardon, ma'am, he was in what I might say was a bit of a temper, and said he wasn't to be disturbed by anyone. Jimmy Dale snatched the receiver from Jason and put it to his own ear. Kindly tell Mr. Dale that unless he comes to the phone now, a feminine voice, her voice, in well-simulated indenation was saying, it will be a very long day before I shall trouble myself, too. Jimmy Dale clapped his hand firmly over the mouthpiece of the instrument. Thank God for that clever brain of hers she understood. Repeat what you said before, he instructed hurly, then say good night. He removed his hand from the mouthpiece. It's quite useless, ma'am, said Jason apologetically. In the rare temper he was in, he wouldn't come. To use his own words, ma'am. Not for the queen of Sheba herself, ma'am. Good night, ma'am. Jimmy Dale hung the receiver back on the hook, and with his hand flirted away a bead of moisture that had sprung to his forehead. Good Lord, Master Jim, what's wrong, sir? What happened, sir? And those clothes, Master Jim, sir. They aren't the ones you went out in, sir. They aren't yours at all, sir. Jason ventured anxiously. Jason, said Jimmy Dale, switch off the light, and go to the front window and look out. Keep well behind the curtains. Don't show yourself. Tell me if you see anything. Yes, sir, said Jason, obediently. The light went out. Jimmy Dale moved to the rear of the room, to the window, overlooking the garage and yard. I don't see anything, sir, Jason called. Watch, Jimmy Dale answered. A minute passed. Two, three. Jimmy Dale was staring down to the black of the yard. She understood. She knew. Of course. Before she phoned that something had gone wrong tonight, she knew that only peril of the gravest moment would have kept him from the phone and her. She knew now, as a logical conclusion, that it was dangerous to attempt to communicate with him at his home. Those wires. Where did they lead to? Not far away. That would be almost a mechanical impossibility. Was it into the crime club itself, near at hand, or the basement, say, of that apartment house across the driveway? Or where? And then Jimmy Dale spoke again. Do you see anything, Jason? I'm not sure, sir, Jason answered hesitantly. I thought I saw a man move behind a tree out there, across the road a minute ago, sir. Yes, sir, there he is again. There was a thin, mirthless smile on Jimmy Dale's lips. Below, in the shadow of the garage, a dark form, like deeper shadow, stirred, and was still again. What time is it, Jason? Jimmy Dale asked presently. It'll be about half past four, sir. Go to bed, Jason. Yes, sir, but Jason's voice, low, troubled, came through the darkness from the upper end of the room. Master Jim, sir, I— Go to bed, Jason, and not a word of this. Yes, sir. Good night, Master Jim. Good night, Jason. Jimmy Dale groped his way to the big lounging chair in which he had found Jason asleep and flung himself into it. They had struck quickly these ingenious dress-suited murderers of the crime-club. The house was already watched, would be watched now, untiringly, unceasingly, not a movement of his henceforth, but would be under their eyes. His hands, resting on the arms of the chair, closed slowly until they became tight-clenched, knotted fists. What was he to do? It was not only the crime-club, it was not only the toxin and her peril. There was the underworld snapping and snarling in his heels. There was the police, dogged and swollen, over the trail of the gray seal. His life, even before this, in his fight against the underworld and the police, had depended upon his freedom of action, and now at one and the same time that freedom was cut away from beneath his feet as it were, and the third foe, equally as deadly as the others, was added to the list. For months to preserve and sustain the character of Larry the Bat, he had forced to assume the role almost daily, for in that sordid empire below the deadline, whose one common bond and aim was the gray seal's death, where suspicion, one of the other, was rampant and extravagant, where each might be the one against whom all swore their vengeance. Larry the Bat could not mysteriously disappear from his accustomed haunts, without inviting suspicion in an active and practical form, an inquisitorial visit to his squalid lodgings, the sanctuary, and the end of Larry the Bat. If as he had thought only a few hours before, he was through forever with his dual life, that would not have mattered. The underworld would have been welcome to make what it chose of it. But now the preservation of the character of Larry the Bat was more vital and necessary to him than it had ever been before. It was a means of defense and offense against these men who lurk now outside his doors. It was the sole means now of communicating with her, forewarned by Jason's words and what must be an obvious fact to her that their plans had miscarried, that it was dangerous to communicate with him as Jimmy Dale, she would expect him, count on him, to make that move. There would be no longer either reason or attempt on her part to maintain the mystery which, here to fore, she had surrounded herself. The crisis had come. She would be watching, waiting, hoping, seeking for him more anxiously and with far more at stake than he had ever sought for her, until now. He got up impulsively from his chair, and in the blackness began to pace the room. The next move was clear, pitifully clear. It had been clear from the first. It had been clear even in that ride in the car. It was so clear that it seemed veritably to mock him as he prodded his brain for some means of putting it into execution. He must get to the sanctuary, become Larry the Bat. But how? The question seemed at last to become resonant, to wring through the room with the weight of doom upon it. Schemes, plans, ideas came, bringing a momentary uplift, only to be discarded the next instant with a sort of bitter, desperate regret. These men were not men of mere ordinary intelligence. Their cleverness, their power, the amazing scope of their organization, all bore grim witness to the fact that they would be blinded not at all by any paltry ruse. He could walk out of this house in the morning as Jimmy Dale without apparent hindrance. That was obvious enough. And so long as he pursued the usual evocations of Jimmy Dale, he would not be interfered with, only watched. It was useless to consider that plan for a moment. It would not help him reach the sanctuary without leading them there behind him. True. But there was always the chance that he might shake them off his trail. But he could hardly hope to accomplish anything like that without their knowing that it was done deliberately. And that he dared not risk. The strongest weapon in his hands now was his secret knowledge that he was being watched. That telephone there, for instance, that most curiously kept on insisting in his mind that it, and it alone was the way out, was the last thing he could put in jeopardy. Besides, there was another reason why such a plan would not do. For granting, even that he succeeded in alluding them on the way and managed to reach the sanctuary, his freedom of action would be so restricted and limited as to be practically worthless. He would have to return to his home here again within a reasonable time as Jimmy Dale, within a few hours at most, or again, they would be in possession of the fact that he had discovered their surveillance. That was true. It had been his original plan when he had entered the house half an hour previously. But it was an entirely different matter. Now, then he had counted on getting away without their knowing it, before they, as he had fondly thought, would have had a chance to establish their espionage, and when they would have no reason to suspect, for a time, at least, that he was not still within the house, when they would have been watching, as it were an empty cage. He stopped in his walk, and after a moment dropped down into the lounging chair again. That was it, of course, an empty cage. If he could escape from the house, not so much without them seeing, that was more or less a mechanical detail, but escape and lead them in possession of a sort of guarantee or assurance that he was still there. That would give him the freedom of action that he must have. He smiled with bitter irony. That solved the problem. That was all there was to it, just that. It was very simple, exceedingly simple. It was only impossible. The smile left his lips, and once more his hands clenched fiercely. No, it was not impossible. It must be done. If he was to win through, if he was to even save himself, it must be done, or fail her. It could be done. There was a way if he could only see it. Part 2 Chapter 7 of The Adventures of Jimmy Dale This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Adventures of Jimmy Dale by Frank L. Packard, reading by Lars Rolander. Part 2, The Woman in the Case, Chapter 7, The Hour. As the minutes passed, many of them, Jimmy Dale sat there motionless, staring before him at the desk that was faintly outlined in the unlighted room. Then somewhere in the house, a clock struck the hour. Five o'clock he raised his head. Yes, it could be done. There was a way. He had the germ of it now, and now the plan began to grow, to take form and shape in his mind, to dovetail, to knit the integral parts into a comprehensive whole. There was a way, but he must have assistance. Jason, yes, assuredly. Benson, his chauffeur, yes, equally as trustworthy as Jason. Benson was devoted to him, and moreover, Benson was young, alert, daring, cool. He had had more than one occasion to test Benson's resourcefulness and nerve. Jimmy Dale rose abruptly, went to the rear window, and parting the curtains cautiously, stood peering down into the courtyard. Yes, it was feasible, even a little more than feasible. The garage fronted the driveway, of course, to give free entrance and a dress to the cars. But where the wall of the garage and the rear wall of the house overlapped, as it were, the space between them was not much more than ten yards, and there the shadows of the two walls, mingling, lay like a black, impenetrable pathway. Not like that other shadow he had seen moving at the side of the garage, and that, if not for the moment discernable, was nonetheless surely still lurking there. Satisfied, Jimmy Dale swung briskly from the window, and going now to his bedroom across the hall, undressed and went to bed, but not to sleep. There would be time enough to sleep all day if he wished. Now there were still the little details to be thought out that more than anything else could make or wreck his plans. A point overdone, the faintest suggestion of a false note where men of the caliber of those against whom he was now fighting for his life were concerned, would not only make his scheme abortive, but would place him utterly at their mercy. It was nine o'clock when he rang for Jason. Jason, he said abruptly, as the other entered, I want you to telephone for Dr. Merlin. The doctor, sir, exclaimed the old man anxiously. You're not ill, Master Jim, sir. Do I look ill, Jason? Inquired Jimmy Dale gravely. Well, sir, admitted Jason in concern. A bit done up, sir, perhaps. A little pale, sir, though I am sure. I'm glad to hear it, said Jimmy Dale, sitting up in bed. The worse I look, the better. I beg pardon, sir, stammer Jason. Jason said Jimmy Dale gravely again. You have had reason to know that on several occasions my life has been threatened. It is threatened now. You know from last night that this house is now watched. You may or you may not have surmised that our telephone wires have been tapped. Tapped, sir? Jason's face had gone a little gray. Yes, a party line, so to speak, said Jimmy Dale grimly. Do you understand? You must be careful to say no more, no less than exactly what I tell you to say. Now go and telephone. Ask the doctor to come over and see me this morning. Simply say that I'm not feeling well. But that, apart from being apparently in a very nervous condition, you don't know what is the matter. Yes, sir, good lord, sir, gasped Jason and left the room to carry out his orders. An hour later, Dr. Merlin had been and gone and had left two prescriptions. One written, the other verbal. With the written one, Benson in his chauffeur's livery was dispatched to the drugstore. The verbal one was precisely what Jimmy Dale had expected from the fussy old family physician. Two or three days or quite in the house, James. And if you need me again, let me know. Now Jason said Jimmy Dale when the old man had returned from ushering Dr. Merlin from the house. Our friends out there will be anxious to learn the verdict. I was to dine with the Ross Henderson's tomorrow night. Was I not? Yes, sir, I think so, sir. Make sure, said Jimmy Dale, look in my engagement book there on the table. Jason looked. Yes, sir, that's right, he announced. Very good, said Jimmy Dale softly. Now go and telephone again, Jason. Present my regrets and excuse to the Ross Henderson's and say that under the doctor's orders I am confined to the house for the next few days. And Jason? Yes, sir. When Benson returns with the medicine, let him bring it here himself. And I shall want you as well. Jimmy Dale propped himself up a little warily on the pillow as Jason went out of the room. After all, his condition was not entirely feigned. He was, as a matter of fact, pretty well played out, both mentally and physically. Certainly that he should require a doctor and be confined to the house could not arouse suspicion, even in the minds of those alert, aristocratic thugs of the crime club, prone as they would be to suspect anything. A man who had been knocked unconscious in an automobile smashed the night before, had been in a fight, had been subjected to a terrific mental shock, to say nothing of the infernal drug that had been administered to him, might well be expected to be indisposed the next morning, and for several mornings following that. It might indeed even cause them to relax their vigilance for the time being, though he dared build nothing on that. Well, he had only to coach Benson and Jason in the parts they were to play, and the balance of the morning and all the afternoon was his in which to rest. He reached over to the table, picked up a pencil and paper, and began to jot down memoranda. He had just tossed the pencil back on the table as the two men entered. Jason at a sign closed the door quietly. Jimmy Day looked at Benson half musingly, half whimsically for a moment before he spoke. Benson, he said, the back seat of the large touring car is tinged and lifts up once the cushion is removed. Doesn't it? Yes, sir, Benson answered promptly. And there is space enough for, say, a man inside? Isn't there? Why, yes, sir. I suppose so, at a squeeze, Benson stared blankly. Quite so, said Jimmy Day calmly. Now, another matter, Benson. I believe some chauffeurs have a habit when occasion lends itself of taking, shall we say, their best girl outriding in their master's machines. Some might, Benson replied a little stiffly. I hope you don't think, sir, that one moment, Benson. The point is, it's done quite generally. Yes, sir. And you have a best girl, or at least could find one for such a purpose if you were so inclined? Yes, sir, said Benson, but very good, Jimmy Day interrupted. And tonight, Benson, taking advantage of my illness and tomorrow night and the nights after that until further notice, you will acquire and put into practice that reprehensible habit. I don't understand, Mr. Dale. No, I dare say not, said Jimmy Dale. And then the whimsicality dropped from him. Benson, he said slowly, I remember a night nearly four years ago, the first night you ever saw me. You had indiscreetly, I think, displayed more money than was wise in that eastside neighborhood. I remember, said Benson with a sudden start, then simply, I wouldn't be here now, sir, if it hadn't been for you. Well, said Jimmy Dale quietly, the tables are turned today, Benson. As Jason already knows, this house is watched. For reasons that I cannot explain, I am in great danger. Bluntly, I am putting my life in your hands, and Jason's. Benson looked for an instant from Jimmy Dale to Jason, caught the strained trouble expression on the old man's face, then back again at Jimmy Dale. Do you mean that, sir? he cried. You can count on me, Mr. Dale, to the last ditch. I know that, Benson, Jimmy Dale said softly. And now both of you, listen. It is imperative that I should get away from the house, and equally imperative that those watching should believe that I am still here. Not even the servants are to be permitted a suspicion that I am not here in my bed ill. That, Jason, is your task. You will allow no one to wait on me but yourself. You will bring the meal trays up regularly and eat the food yourself. You will answer all inquiries, telephone and otherwise in person. I am not seeing anyone. You understand perfectly, Jason? I understand, Master Jim. You need have no fear, sir, on that score. Now you, Benson, Jimmy Dale, went on. A few minutes ago I sent you out in your chauffeur's talks with that prescription. You were undoubtedly observed. I wanted you to be. It was quite necessary that they should know and be able to recognize you again. To disabuse their minds later on of the possibility that I might be masquerading in your clothes and also, of course, that they should know who you were and what your position was in the household. Very well. Tonight at eight o'clock exactly you are to go out from the back door of the house to the garage. On the way out it will be quite dark then. I want you to drop something. Say a bunch of keys that you had been dingling in your hand. You are to experience some difficulty in finding it again. Move about a little to force anyone that may be lurking by the garage to retreat around the corner. Grumble a bit and make a little noise. But you are not to overdo it. A couple of minutes at the outside is enough. By that time I shall be under the car seat. You will then run the machine out to the street and stop at the curb. Jump out and, as though you had forgotten something, hurry back to the garage. You must not be away long. Enough only to permit, say, a passer-by to glance into the car and satisfy himself that it is empty. You understand, of course, Benson, that the hood must be down. No closed car to invite even the suggestion of concealment that would be a fatal blunder. Drive then to the young lady's home by as direct route as you can. Give no appearance of being aware that you are followed, as you will be, and much less the appearance of attempting to elude pursuit. Act naturally. Between here and your destination, I will manage readily enough to leave the car. You will then take the young lady for a drive. That is what they will be interested in. Your motive for going out tonight. And, as I said, take her driving again on each succeeding night, establish the habit to their satisfaction. The medail paused, glanced at the paper which is still held in his hand, then handed it to Benson. Just one thing more, Benson, he said. Listed on that paper you will find a different rang-de-vous for each night for the next five nights, excluding tonight, which after you have returned the young lady to her home, you are to pass by on your way back here. See that your drive is always over in time for you to pass each night's rang-de-vous at half past eleven sharp. Don't stop unless I signal you. If I'm not there, go right home and be at the next place on the following night. I am fairly well satisfied they will not bother about you after tonight or tomorrow night at the most, but for all that you must take no chances. So, except in the route you take in going to the young ladies, always avoid covering the same ground twice, which might give the appearance of having some ulterior purpose in view. Even in your drives vary your runs. Is this clear, Benson? Yes, sir, said Benson earnestly. Very well, then, said you medail. Eight o'clock to the dot, Benson. Compare your time with Jason's, and now, Jason, see that I get a chance to sleep until dinner time tonight. The hours that followed were hours of sound and much-needed sleep for Jimmy Dale, and from which he awoke only to Jason's entrance that evening with a dinner-tree. I've slept like a log, Jason, he cried briskly, as he leaped out of bed. Anything new? Anything happened? No, sir, not a thing, Jason answered. Only Master Jim, sir, the old man twisted his hands nervously. I... You'll excuse my saying so, sir. I do hope you'll be careful tonight, sir. I can't help being afraid that something will happen to you, Master Jim. Nonsense, Jason, Jimmy Dale laughed cheerfully. There's nothing going to happen to me. You go ahead now and stay with the servants and get them out of the road at the proper time. He bathed, dressed at his dinner, and was slipping cartridges into the magazine of his automatic. When, within a minute or two over eight o'clock, Jason's whisper came from the doorway. It's all clear now, Master Jim, sir. Right, Jimmy Dale responded and followed Jason down the stairway and to the head of the cellar stairs. Here Jason halted. God keep you, Master Jim! said the old man huskily. Good night, Jason, he made Dale answer softly and with a reassuring squeeze on the other's arm went on down to the cellar. Here he moved quickly, noiselessly across to the window, not the window of the night before, but another of the same description almost directly beneath the one of his sten above that faced the garage and lay in the line of that black shadow path between the two buildings. Deftly, cautiously, without sound, a half inch, an inch at a time, he opened it. He stood listening then. A minute passed, then he heard Benson open and shut the back door, then Benson in the yard, and then Benson's voice in a muttered and irritable growl talking to himself as he stamped around on the ground. With the light, agile movement, Jimi Dale pulled himself up and through the window and began to creep rapidly on hands and knees towards the garage. It was dark, intensely dark. He could barely distinguish Benson's form, though as he passed the other, the slight sounds he made drowned out by the chauffeur's angry mumblings he could have reached out and touched Benson easily. He gained the interior of the garage and as Benson came on again, stepped lightly into the car, lifted the seat and wriggled his way inside. It was close, stuffy, abominable cramped, but Jimi Dale was smiling grimly now. Thanks to Benson, there wasn't a possibility that he had been seen. He both felt and heard Benson start the car. Then the car moved forward, ran the length of the driveway, bumped slightly as it made the street and stopped. He heard Benson jump out and run back and then he listened intently and the grim smile flickered on his lips again. Came the sound of a footstep on the sidewalk close beside the car, then silence. The car shook a little as though someone's weight was on the step. Then the footsteps receded. Benson returned on the run and the car started forward once more. Perhaps ten minutes passed. Three times the car had sweared sharply, making a corner turn. Then Jimi Dale pushed up the seat and, protected from observation from behind by the back of the car itself, crawled out and crouched down the floor of the tunnel. Don't look around Benson, he said calmly. Are we followed? Yes, sir, Benson answered. At least there's always been a car behind us, though not the same one. They're pretty clever. There must be three or four each following the other. Every time I turn a corner, it's a different car that turns it behind me. How far behind, Jimi and Dale asked. Half a block. Slow down a little, instructed Jimi Dale. And don't turn another corner until they've had a chance to accommodate themselves to your new speed. You are going too fast for me to jump and I don't want them to notice any change in speed except what is made in plain sight. Yes, that's better. Where are we, Benson? That's Amsterdam Avenue ahead, replied Benson. All right, said Jimi Dale quietly. Turn into it. The more people, the better. Tell me, just as you are about to turn. Yes, sir, said Benson, then almost on the instant. All right, sir. Jimi Dale's hand reached out for the door catch, edged the door ajar, the car swerved, took the corner and Jimi Dale stepped out on the running board, hung there negligently for a moment as though chatting with Benson and then with an airy good night dropped nonchalantly to the ground and the next instant had mingled with the throng of pedestrians on the sidewalk. A half minute later, a large grey automobile turned the corner and followed Benson and Jimi Dale, stepping out into the street again, swung on a downtown car, the road to the sanctuary was open. In his impatience now, the streetcar seemed to drag along every foot of the way but a glance at his watch as he finally reached the boundary and walking then rapidly approached the cross street a few steps ahead that led to the sanctuary told him that it was still but a quarter to nine but even at that he quickened his steps a little. He was free now. There was a sort of savage elemental uplift upon him. He was free. He could strike now in his own defence and hers. In a few moments he would be at the sanctuary. In a few more would be Larry the Bat and by tomorrow at the latest he would see the Tuxan. After all, that hour was not to be taken from him. It was not perhaps the hour that she had meant it should be thought and prayed perhaps, that it might be. It was not the hour of victory but it was the hour that meant to him the realisation of the years of longing, the hours when he should see her, see her for the first time face to face when there should be no more barriers between them when, for your God's sake, mister, buy a pen-chill. A hand was plucking at his sleeve. The thin voice was whining in his ear. He halted mechanically. A woman, old, draggled, ragged was thrusting a bunch of cheap pencils imploringly toward him. And then, with a stiffled cry, Jimmy Day leaned forward. The eyes that lifted to his for an instant were bright and clear with a vigor of youth. Great eyes of brown they were and trouble, hope, fear, wistfulness, air and a glorious shyness were in their depth. And then the voice he knew so well, the toxins was whispering hurriedly, I will be waiting here, Jimmy, for Larry the Bat. End of part two, chapter seven, The Hour from The Adventures of Jimmy Dale by Frank L. Packard read by Lars Rolander. Part two, chapter eight of The Adventures of Jimmy Dale. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Adventures of Jimmy Dale by Frank L. Packard reading by Lars Rolander. Part two, The Woman in the Case, chapter eight, The Toxin. It was only a little way back along the street from the sanctuary to the corner on the Bowery where as Jimmy Dale he had left her, where as Larry the Bat now he was going to meet her again. It would take only a moment or so even at Larry the Bat's habitual characteristic slouching gate. But it seemed that was all too slow that he must throw discretion to the winds and run the distance. His blood was tingling. There was an elation upon him coupled with an almost childlike dreed that she might be gone. The Toxin. The Toxin, he kept saying to himself, yes, she was still there, still whiningly imploring those who passed to buy her miserable pencils. And then with a quick flung whisper to him to follow as he slouched up close to her he started slowly down the street. The Toxin. The Toxin. His brain seemed to be ringing with the words, ringing with them in a note clear as a silver bell. The Toxin at last. The woman who so strangely, so wonderfully, so mysteriously had entered into his life and possessed it and filled it with a love and journey that had come to mold and sway and actuate his very existence. The woman for whom he had fought, for whom he had risked and gladly risked his wealth, his name, his honor, everything. The woman for her sake, he, the grey seal, was sought and hounded as the most notorious criminal of the age. She whose cleverness, whose resourcefulness, whose amazing intimacy with the hidden things in the underworld had seemed, indeed, to border on the supernatural. She, she, the Toxin, the woman whose face he had never seen before. The woman whose face he had never seen before and who was now that wretched hag that hobbled along the street before him, begging, whining and impotuning the past by to purchase of her pitiful verse. He laughed a little biantly. He never pictured a first meeting such as this. A hag? Yes. And one as disreputable in appearance as he himself as Larry the Bat was disreputable. But he had seen her eyes. Intimable as was her disguise, she could not hide her eyes or hide the pledge they held of the beauty of form and feature beneath the tattered rags and the touch of a master in the makeup that haggard want an age into the face. And dimly he began to divine the source the means by which he had acquired the information that for years had enabled her to plan their coops that had enabled him to execute them under the guise of crime that for years had seen beyond all human reach. Where was she going? Where was she taking him? But what did it matter? The years awaiting were at an end. The years of mystery in a few moments now would be a mystery no more. Ah! She had turned from the bowery and was heading east. He shuffled on after her, guardedly a half block behind. It was well that Jimmy Dale had disappeared, that he was Larry the Bat again. The neighborhood was growing more and more one that Jimmy Dale could not long linger in attracting attention. While, on the other hand, it was the natural environment of such as Larry the Bat and such as she was leading him now to the supreme moment of his life. Yes, it was that, the fulfillment of the years. The thought of it alone filled his mind, his soul. It brushed aside, it plotted out for the time being the danger, the peril, the deadly menace that hung over them both. It was only that she, the toxan was here, only that at last they would be together. On she went, traversing street after street, the direction always trending toward the river, until finally she halted before what appeared to be as nearly as he could make out in the almost total darkness of the ill-lighted street, a small and tumble-down, self-contained dwelling seemed to be an unfenced story-yard of some description. He drew his breath in sharply. She had halted, waiting for him to come up with her. She was waiting for him, waiting for him. It seemed as though he drank of some strange, exhilarating elixir. He reached aside eagerly, and then, and then her hand had caught his, and she was leading him into the house, into a black passage where he could see nothing, into a room equally black, over whose threshold he stumbled, and her voice in a low, conscious way, with a little tremor, a half sob in it that thrilled him with his promise was in his ears. We are, say, fair Jimmy, for a little while. But, oh Jimmy, what have I done? What have I done to bring you into this? Only, only, I was so sure, so sure, Jimmy, that there was nothing more to fear. The blood was beating in hammer-blows at his temples. It seemed all unreal, untrue that this moment could be his, that it was not a dream, a dream which was presently to be snatched from him in a bitter awakening. And then he laughed out wildly, passionately. No, it was true. It was real. Her breath was on his cheek. It was a living, pulsing hand that was still in his, and then soul and mind and body seemed engulfed and lost in a mad ecstasy, and she was in his arms, crushed to him, and he was raining kisses upon our face. I love you! I love you! He was crying hoarsely, and over and over again, I love you! I love you! She did not struggle. The warm, rich lips were yielding to his. He could feel the throb, the life in the young, life-form against his own. She was his, his! The jeers, the past, all were swept away, and she was his at last, his for always. And there came a mighty sense of kingship upon him, as though all the world were at his feet, and virility and a great glad strength about all other men's, and a song was in his soul, a song triumphant, for she was his. You! he cried out and strained her to him. You! he cried again and then her head was buried on his shoulder and she was crying softly, but after a moment she raised her hands and laid them upon his face and held them there, and because it was dark, dared to raise her head as well and her eyes to look into his. Then for a long time they stood there so, and for a long time neither spoke, nor started, broke and cry, as though the peril and the men is hanging over them, forgotten for the moment, were thrust like a knife-stab suddenly upon her, she drew herself away and ran from him, and went and got a lamp and lighted it and set it upon the table. And Yimidael, still standing there, watched her, how gloriously her eyes shone, though they were, and there was nothing in Congress in the rags that closed her, in the squalor and poverty of the bare room, in the white furrows that the tears had plowed through the grime and make up of her cheeks. You wonderful, wonderful woman, Yimidael whispered, she shook her head as though almost in self-reproach. I'm not wonderful, Yimmi, she said in a low voice, I and then she caught his arm and her voice broke a little. I brought you into this probably to your death, Yimmi, tell me what happened last night and since then. I thought at times today I should go mad. Oh, Yimmi, there's so much to say tonight, so much to do if we are ever to be together for for always. Last night, Yimmi, the telephone, I knew there was danger that all had gone wrong. What was it? His arms were around her shoulders, drawing her close to him again. I found the wires tapped, he said slowly. Yes, and, and the man you met, the chauffeur, he's dead, Yimmi Dale answered gently. He felt her hand close with a quick spasmotic clutch upon his arm. Her face grew white and for a moment she turned away her head. And, and the package, she asked presently. I do not know, replied Yimmi Dale. He did not have it with him, quickly. We are only wasting time like this. Tell me everything, everything just as it happened, everything from the moment you received my letter. And holding her there in his arms, softening as best as he could the more brutal details, he told her. And at the end, for a little while she was silent. Then in a strained, impulsive way she asked again. Was he positive that he's dead? Yes, said Yimmi Dale grimly. I'm sure. And then the pent up flood of questions burst from his lips. Who was that chauffeur? The package, the box numbered 428 and John Johansson and the crime club. And the issue at stake, the danger, the peril that surrounded her and she above all more than anything else about herself, her strange life. It's mystery. She checked him with a strangely wistful touch of her finger upon a slip with a queer pathetic shake of her head. No, Yimmi, not that way. You would never understand. I cannot. But I am to know now. Surely I am to know now. He cried a sudden sense of dismay upon him. Years, three years and always the next time I must know now if I am to help you. She smiled a little vanly at him as she drew herself away and dropping into her chair placed her elbows on the recited table, cupping her chin in her hands. Yes, you are to know, she said almost as though she were talking to herself. Then with a swift intake of breath impulsively. Yimmi, I had thought that it would be also different when you came that I would have nothing to fear for you, for me because it would be all over and now you're here, Yimmi and oh, thank God for you. But I feel tonight almost though it were hopeless that we were beaten. Beaten, he laughed out defiantly then playfully, soothingly to reassure her. Yimmi Dale and Larry the Bat and the grey seal and the toxin beaten and after we have just scored the last trick. But we do not hold many trumps, Yimmi she answered gravely. You have seen something of this God's power, its methods its merciless cruel inhuman cunning and you perhaps think that you understand but you have not begun to grasp the extent of either that power or cunning this horrible organization has been in existence for many years I do not know how many I only know that the men of whom it is composed are not ordinary criminals that they do not work in the ordinary way today they set the machinery of fraud deception, robbery and murder in motion that ten years from now and perhaps only then will culminate in the final success of their schemes and they play only for enormous stakes but her lips grew set you will see for yourself I must not talk any longer than is necessary we must not take too much time you count on three days before they begin to suspect that all is not right with Yimmi Dale I know them better than you and I give you two days forty-eight hours at the outside and possibly far less Yimmi abruptly did you ever hear of Peter LaSalle the capitalist yes Yimmi Dale he died a few years ago I know his brother Henry well at the club and all that do you she said evenly well the man you know is not Peter LaSalle's brother he is an imposter and one of the crime club not Peter LaSalle's brother Yimmi Dale repeated the words mechanically and suddenly his brain was whirling vaguely dimly in little memory snatches events not pertinent then vitally significant now came crowding upon him Peter LaSalle had come from somewhere in the west to live in New York and very shortly after what had died the estate had been worth something over eleven millions and there had been he leaned quickly tensely forward of the table staring at her my god he whispered hoarsely you are not you cannot be the the daughter of Peter LaSalle's daughter who disappeared strangely yes she said quietly I am Marie LaSalle end of part 2 chapter 8 the toxin from the adventures of Yimmi Dale by Frank L. Packard read by Lars Rolander chapter 9 of the adventures of Yimmi Dale all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please go to LibriVox.org the adventures of Yimmi Dale by Frank L. Packard reading by Marie Rody part 2 the woman in the case chapter 9 the toxin story LaSalle the old French name in the ring Soné le toxin yes, he began to understand now she was Marie LaSalle he began to remember more clearly Marie LaSalle they had said she was one of the most beautiful girls who had ever made her entree into New York society but he had never met her as Marie LaSalle never met her until now as the toxin this bare destitute squalid hovel here at bay both of them for their lives he had been away when she had come with her father to New York and on his return there had only been the father's brother in the father's place and she was gone he remembered the furor her disappearance had caused the enormous rewards her uncle had offered in an effort to trace her the thousand and one speculations as to what had become of her and that then, gradually as even the most startling and mystifying of events and happenings always do the affair had dropped into oblivion and had been forgotten by the public at least he began to count back yes, it must have been nearly five years ago two years before she the toxin and he as the gray seal had formed their amazing and singular partnership that he started suddenly as she spoke I want to tell you in as few words as I can she said abruptly breaking the silence listen then Jimmy my mother died ten years ago I was little more than a child then shortly after her death father made a business trip to New York on the advice of some supposed friends he had a new will drawn up by a lawyer whom they recommended and to whom they introduced him I do not know who those men were the lawyer's name was Travers Hilton Travers she glass curiously at Jimmy Dale and added quickly he was the chauffeur the man who was killed last night you mean Jimmy Dale burst out thinking that he was but first the will what was in the will it was a very simple will she answered and from the nature of it it was not at all strange that my father should have been willing to have it drawn up by a comparative stranger if that's what you are thinking summarized in a few words the will left everything to me and appointed my uncle Henry as my guardian until I should have reached my 25th birthday it provided for a certain sum each year to be paid to my uncle for his services as executor and at the expiration of the trust period that is when I was 25 bequeathed to him the sum of $100,000 Jimmy Dale nodded go on he prompted it is hard to tell it in logical sequence she said hesitating a moment so many things seem to overlap each other you must understand a little more about Hilton Travers during the five years following the signing of the will father came frequently to New York and became not only intimate with Travers but so much impressed with the other's cleverness and ability that he kept putting more and more of his business into Travers hands at the end of that five years we moved to New York and father who was then quite an old man retired from all active business and turned over a great many of his personal affairs to Travers to look after for him giving Travers power of attorney in a number of instances so much for Travers now about my uncle he was my father's only brother in fact they were the only surviving members of their family apart from very distant connections in France from where generations back the family originally came her hand touched Jimmy Dales for an instant that ring Jimmy with its crest and inscription is the old family coat of arms 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 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 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 a great 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 tabletop closed suddenly into tight clenched fists and then my father died Jimmy 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 toxin 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 yelled like starving beasts to sink their fangs in him where the police were ceaselessly upon his trail to wreak and insensiate vengeance upon him it seemed as though he had been transported away from all that to something that he had dreamed perhaps some time happened and 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 his 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 darkness of the room the abject pitiful air of destitution brought home to him was the significance of the scene in which he was playing apart 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 a wealth and refinement forced in her purity to rub shoulders with the vile the disillute forced to exist as such a creature amid the crime and vice such a horror of the underworld that's whirled 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 and 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 imposter I have seen 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 Jimmy 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 everyone 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'd 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 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 could hear every word if she's out of the way there's no comeback 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 be today 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 alec 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 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 recognized 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 recognize 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 much way 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 Jimmy Dale rose impulsively in 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 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 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 Jimmy Dale and clutched his arm tightly Jimmy 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 Jimmy Dale swayed up to the chair murdered he exclaimed tensely your father 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 you not see something of that laboratory in the crime club yourself enough to understand good god muttered Jimmy 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 broken then it's too deep to get out now if you know what's good for you you'll do as you're told Jimmy 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 pulled me into this 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 Jimmy 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 at that the other with an ugly laugh he reached out his hand to 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 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 shouted again quite loudly he looked 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 servant's 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 Jimmy 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 ask 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 Clark but knew also that Clark was merely an assumed name he had fallen in with Clark almost from the time that he had begun to practice his profession and at Clark's instigation had gone from one crooked deal and had made a great deal of money he knew that behind Clark was a powerful, daring and unscrupulous band of criminals organized 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 Clark he had been told by Clark 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 recognized attorney and all this with the object as he supposed of embezzling from father on a large scale then father died and Travis was instructed to cable my uncle he knew that the man who answered that summons was an imposter but he did not know until he 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 Jimmy Dale and suddenly laughed out bitterly no, you don't understand even yet the patient ingenious devil tree of those teens it was they at the time the new will was drawn who offered to buy out my real uncle 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 cable 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 have to say too that from the moment my uncle was supposed to have reached New Zealand all his letters were type written and 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 that matter for them believing that they had travelled 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 her factory 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 travelers 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 anyone else questioning his identity she halted again by the table and forced a smile as her eyes met Jimmy Dales I'm almost through Jimmy that night was a terrible one for both of us Traverse 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 Traverse would have been able to advance was the statement that the supposed Henry LaSalle had admitted being an imposter 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 imposter 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 Jimmy of doing that they would have killed Traverse 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 Traverse was obliged to go somewhere to disappear from that moment if he wanted to save his life 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 the friend and this I actually did but in those few days I managed to turn all my own securities that had been left to me by my mother and which amounted to a considerable sum into cash and then Jimmy 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 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 Jimmy nothing anywhere and I had no success her voice was choked a little nothing even Clark 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 clue 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 fathers and my uncle's murderers they were moving heaven and earth to find me that is all Jimmy 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 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 organization 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 hand suddenly toward Jimmy Dale oh Jimmy Jimmy I've fought so long alone Jimmy what are we to do he came slowly to his feet she had fought so long alone but 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 number four to eight she 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 know where the crime club is no Dully he stared at her for a moment in a dazed way she shook her head it's pretty bad isn't it Jimmy I told you that we did not hold many trumps end of part two chapter nine part two chapter ten of the adventures of Jimmy Dale this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please go to LibriVox.org by Frank L. Packard reading by Mary Rohdie part two the woman in the case chapter ten Silver Mag there was silence between them minute after minute passed neither spoke Jimmy Dale dropped back into his chair again and stared abstractedly before him we do not hold many trumps 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, to jeer at him, when all that was held at stake hung literally upon his next move. He looked up mechanically as the toxin walked to a broken mirror at the rear of the miserable room, nodded mechanically in approval as she began deftly to retouch the makeup on her face where the tears had left their traces, and resumed his abstracted gaze before him. Box number 428. John Johansson. The crime club. The identity of the man who was posing as Henry LaSalle. If only he could hit upon a clue 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 thought 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 toxin insisted, was all the time that he could count upon before they would become suspicious of Jimmy 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. Jimmy 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 toxin 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 recognize as the slim tapering, wonderfully sensitive fingers of Jimmy Dale, the fingers that had made the name of the Graciel 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 squalor and vice and wantonness none knew better than he. Jimmy Dale's face sit 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 clue. 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. Jimmy 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 clocked 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 anyone that would afford you a clue to this crime club? Yes, she said again. It was a moment before Jimmy 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. Jimmy 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 wandily. Do you think, Jimmy, from what you as the grey 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 wandily again. You have not lived, or made the place you hold in the underworld, without having heard of silver mag. You, exclaimed Jimmy Dale. You, silver mag? He stared at her, wonderingly, as crouched shouldered now, the hair grey-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 and art in its conception, perfect in its execution. Silver mag. Yes, he had heard of silver mag, as everyone in the Badlands had heard of her. Silver mag, and her pocketful of coin, always a pocketful of silver, so they said, that was dispensed prodigly 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 bank-note. 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. Everyone 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 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 us out, my wanting to get Henry LaSalle. Well, do you see now, Jimmy? I had money, I had the confidence of the underworld, I had an excuse for my hatred for 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. Jimmy Dale's eyes, that had held steadily on her face, shifted, troubled, and perplexed to the tabletop. You are wonderful, he said under his breath. Wonderful. 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 am almost inclined to say what you said a long while ago, that were 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 the mirthless laugh. Then his lips tightening. But we'll try another tack. The chauffeur travers. Though even here the crime club has a day 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. Jimmy Dale was talking more to himself than to the toxin 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 428? A safety deposit vault, perhaps, that he has taken somewhere. She hazarded. Jimmy 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 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 colorlessly. There were simply the words, northeast corner of 6th Avenue and Waverly Place, and the signature that we had agreed upon, the two first and two last letters of the alphabet transposed. B-A-Z-Y. I see, said Jimmy Dale quickly, and over the phone he completed his message? Clever enough. Yes, she said. In that way, if anyone were listening or overheard 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 clue 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. Jimmy 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 Makov's pawn shop on that alley off Thompson Street, and where? Jimmy Dale suddenly stuck still almost shouted the word. He telephoned from where? Say that again. She looked at him in amazement, half rising from her chair. Jimmy, 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 428. He laughed out hysterically in his excitement. John Johansson, box number 428, 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, Jimmy, tell me quickly. You mean the Makov's? No, not Makov'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 Badlands, and Makov is his partner. Spider buys the cook stuff and Makov disposes of it through the pawn shop. It's only a step through the connecting backyard from one to the other, and— Yes, but—she interrupted feverishly. The package. You said— Wait, Jimmy Dale cried. I'm coming to that. If Travers stood in with Makov, 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. Cooks 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 cooks, 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 safekeeping. 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 Makov 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, Jimmy, Jimmy, we are safe. You can get it, Jimmy. 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 tarsely, 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 Makov'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. End of Part 2, Chapter 10