 Part two, chapter one 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. Recording by Roger Maline. Part two, The Woman in the Case. Chapter one, Below the Deadline. Whisperings. Always whisperings. Low, sibilant, floating erently from all sides until they seemed a component part of the drug-laden atmosphere itself. And occasionally another sound, the soft slap-slap of loose-slippered feet, the faint rustle of equally loose-fitting garments, and everywhere the sweet, sickish smell of opium. It was Chang Fu's, simply a cellar or two deeper in Chang Fu's than that in which Dago Jim had quarrelled once and died. Larry the Bat, vicious-faced, unkempt, disreputable, lay sprawled out on one of the dives' bunks, an opium pipe beside him. But Larry the Bat was not smoking. Instead, his ear was pressed closely against the boarding that formed the rather flimsy partition at the side of the bunk. One heard many things in Chang Fu's if one cared to listen, if one could first win one's way through the carefully guarded gateway that to the uninitiated offered nothing more interesting than the entrance to a Chinese tea-shop and an uninviting one at that. Had he been followed in here? He had been shadowed for the last hour, of that at least he was certain. Why? By whom? For an hour he had dodged in and out through the dens of the underworld, as only one who was at home there and known to all could do, and at last he had taken refuge in Chang Fu's like a fox burrowing deep into its hole. Few could find their way into the most infamous opium den in all New York where not only the poppy ruled as master, but where crime was hatched, eye and carried to its ghastly consummation sometimes as well. And of those few not one but was of the underworld itself, and it was that fact which held his muscles strained and rigid now under the miserable rags that covered them, and it was that which kept the keen, quick-brain alert and active, every faculty keyed up and tense. If it were the police he had little to fear, for they could not force their way in without warning. But if it were the underworld he was in imminent peril and had done little better than run himself into a trap from which there was no escape. Death to the grey seal! He had heard that whispered more than once in this very place. Who knew at what moment the role of Larry the Bat would be uncovered, and the underworld where now he held so high a place would be at his throat like a pack of snarling wolves? Who had been shadowing him during the last hour? Whispering. Nothing tangible. He could catch no words, only the never-ending whisperings of gathered groups here and there, and sometimes the clink of coin where some game was in progress. The curtain before his bunk was drawn suddenly aside, and Larry the Bat's fingers where his hand was carelessly hidden by his body tightened upon his automatic. Smokey some more? The fingers relaxed. It was only Sam Wah, one of the attendants. Nick said Larry the Bat in a slightly muddled tone. Got enough? The curtain fell into place again. Larry the Bat's lips said in a thin smile. Ultimately it made little difference whether it was the police or the underworld. The smile grew thinner. It was the flip of a coin, that was all. With one there was the death house at Sing Sing for the Gray Seal. With the other, well, there were many ways. From a shot or a knife thrust in the open street to his murder in some hidden dive like this of Chang Fu's for instance, where he now was. The Gray Seal was responsible for the occupancy of too many penitentiary cells by those of the underworld to look for any other fate. He raised himself up sharply on his elbow. A shrill high note like the scream of a parakeet rang out a second time. He tore the curtain aside and jumped to his feet. All around him in the twinkling of an eye, China men in fluttering blouses, chattering like magpies mingled with snarling cursing whites were running madly. A voice prefaced with an oath balled out behind him as he sprang forward and joined the rush. Beat it! The cops! Beat it! The police! A raid! Was it for him? From rooms, an amazing number of them, more forms rushed out, joined, divided, separated, and dashed, some this way, some that, along branching passageways. There had been raids before. The police had begun to change their minds about Chang Fu's. But Chang Fu's was not an easy place to raid. House after house in that quarter of Chinese laundries, of tea shops, of chop suey joints, opened one into the other through secret passages in the cellars. Larry the bat plunged down a staircase and halted in the darkness of a cellar, drawing back against the wall while the flying feet of his fellow fugitives scurried by him. Was it for him this raid? If not, the police had not a hope of getting him if he kept his head, for back in Chang Fu's proper, which would be quite closed off now, Chang Fu would be blandly submitting to arrest, offering himself as a sort of glorified sacrifice while the police confiscated opium and phantan layout. If the police had no other purpose than that in mind, Chang Fu would simply pay a fine. The next night the place would be in full blast again, and Chang Fu, higher than ever in the confidence of the underworld's aristocracy, would reap his reward, and that would be all there was to it. But was that all? The raid had followed significantly close upon the heels of his entry into Chang Fu's. Larry the bat began to move forward again. He dared not follow the others, and later on, when quiet was restored, issue out into the street from any one of the various houses in which he might temporarily have taken refuge. There was a chance in that, a chance that the police might be more zealous than usual, even if he particularly was not their game, and he could take no chance. Arrest for Larry the bat, even on suspicion, could have but one conclusion, not a pleasant one. The disclosure that Larry the bat was not Larry the bat at all, but Jimmy Dale, the millionaire club man, and to complete a fatal triplication that Larry the bat and Jimmy Dale was the grey seal upon whose head was fixed a price. All was silence around him now, except that from overhead came occasionally the muffled tread of feet. He felt his way along into a black narrow passage, emerged into a second cellar, swept the place with a single circling gleam from a pocket flashlight, passed a stairway that led upward, reached the opposite wall, and dropping on hands and knees, crawled into what innocently enough appeared to be the opening of a coal bin. He knew Chang Fu's well, as he knew the ins and outs of every den and place he frequented, knew them as a man knows such things when his life at any moment might hang upon his knowledge. He was in another passage now, and this, in a few steps, brought him to a door. Here he halted and stood for a full five minutes, absolutely motionless, absolutely still, listening. There was nothing, not a sound. He tried the door cautiously. It was locked. The slim, sensitive, tapering fingers of Jimmy Dale, unrecognizable now in the grimy digits of Larry the bat, felt tentatively over the lock. To fingers that seemed in their tips to possess all the human senses, that time and again in their delicate touch upon the dial of a safe had mocked at human ingenuity and driven the police into impotent frenzy, this was a pitiful thing. From his pocket came a small steel instrument that was quickly and deathly inserted in the keyhole. There was a click. The door swung open, and Jimmy Dale, alias Larry the bat, stepped outside into a backyard half a block away from the entrance to Chang Fu's. Again he listened. There did not appear to be any unusual excitement in the neighborhood. From open windows above him and from adjoining houses came the ordinary, commonplace sounds of voices talking and laughing, even the queer, weird notes of a Chinese chant. He stole noiselessly across the yard, out into the lane, and made his way rapidly along to the cross street. In a measure now he was safe, but one thing, a very vital thing, remained to be done. It was absolutely necessary that he should know whether he was the quarry that the police had been after in the raid, if it was the police who had been shadowing him all evening. If it was the police there was but one meaning to it. Larry the bat was known to be the gray seal, and a problem perilous enough in any aspect confronted him. Did he risk the sanctuary for the clothes of Jimmy Dale, or was it safer to burglarize, as he had once done before, his own mansion on Riverside Drive? His thoughts were running riot, and he frowned, angry with himself. There was time enough to think of that when he knew that it was the police against whom he had to match his wits. Well in the shadow of the buildings he moved swiftly along the side street until he came to the corner of the street on which halfway down the block front of Chang Fu's tea shop. A glance in that direction and Jimmy Dale drew a breath of relief. A patrol wagon was backed up to the curb, and a half dozen officers were busy loading it with what was evidently Chang Fu's far from meager stock of gambling appurtenances. While Chang Fu himself, together with Sam Wah and another attendant, were in the grip of two other officers waiting possibly for another patrol wagon. There was a crowd too, but the crowd was at a respectful distance on the opposite side of the street. Jimmy Dale still hugged the corner. A man swaggered out from a doorway quite close to Chang Fu's and came on along the street. As the other reached the corner, Jimmy Dale sidled forward. "'Hello, Chick,' he said out of the corner of his mouth. "'What's the delay?' "'Hello, Larry,' returned the caller. "'Ah, nothing. The nutcracker on Chang. That's all.' I thought maybe they was looking for some guy that was in there,' observed Jimmy Dale. "'Nothing doing,' the other answered. I was in there myself. The whole mob beat it clean, and the bulls never batted an eye. "'Didn't use pipe, make me get away outside Shanghai's a minute ago?' The bulls never went nowhere except in the Changs. "'There's a new lieutenant in the precinct inaugurating himself. That's all.' "'So long, Larry. I got a date.'" "'So long, Chick,' responded Jimmy Dale, and started slowly back along the cross street. "'It was not the police, then, who were interested in his movements. "'Then who?' he shook his head with a little savage, impotent gesture. One thing was clear. It was too early to risk a return to the sanctuary and attempt the rehabilitation of Jimmy Dale. If anyone was on the hunt for Larry the Bat, the sanctuary would be the last place to be overlooked. He turned the next corner, hesitated a moment in front of our garishly lighted dance hall, and finally shuffled in through the door, made his way across the floor, nodding here and there to the elite of gangland, and with a somewhat arrogant air of proprietorship, sat down at a table in the corner. Little better than a tramp in appearance, certainly the most disreputable-looking object in the place, even the waiter who approached him accorded him a certain curious deference, was not Larry the Bat the most celebrated dope fiend below the deadline. "'Gimme a mug of suds,' ordered Jimmy Dale, and sprawled royally back in his chair. Under the rim of his slouch hat, pulled now far over his eyes, he searched the faces around him. If he had been asked to pick the actors for a revel from the scum of the underworld, he could not have improved upon the gathering. There were perhaps a hundred men and women in the room, the majority dancing and with the exception of a few sight-seeing slumbers, there were men and women whose acquaintance with the police was intimate, but not cordial, far from cordial. Jimmy Dale shrugged his shoulders and sipped at the glass that had been set before him. It was grimly ironic that he should be not only there, but actually a factor and a part of the underworld's intimate life. He, Jimmy Dale, a wealthy man, a member of New York's exclusive clubs, a member of New York's most exclusive society, it was inconceivable. He smiled sardonically, was it? Well, then it was nonetheless true. His life unquestionably was one unique, apart from any other man's, but it was for all that actual and real. There had been three years of it now, since she had come into his life. Jimmy Dale slouched down a little in his chair. The ice was thin, perilously thin, that he was skating on now. Each letter, with its demand upon him to match his wits against police or underworld, or against both combined, perhaps, made that peril a little greater, a little more imminent, if that were possible, than already his life was almost literally carried daily, hourly in his hand. Not that he rebelled against it. It was worth the price that someday he expected he must pay, the price of honor, wealth, a name disgraced, ruined, death. Was he quixotic? Immoderately so? He smiled gravely. Perhaps, but he would do it all over again if the choice were his. There were those who blessed the name of the grey seal, as well as those who cursed it. And there was the toxin. Who was she? He did not know, but he knew that he had come to love her, come to care for her, and that she had come to mean everything in life to him. He had never seen her, to know her face. He had never seen her face, but he knew her voice. I, he had even held her for a moment, the moment of wildest happiness he had ever known in his arms. That night when he had entered his library, his own particular den in his own house, and in the darkness had found her there, found her finally through no effort of his own, when he had searched so fruitlessly for years to find her, using every resource in his command to find her. And she, because she had come of her own volition, relying upon him, had held him in honor to let her go as she had come, without looking upon her face. Exquisite irony. But she had made him a promise then, that the work of the grey seal was nearly over, that soon there would be an end to the mystery that surrounded her, that he should know all, that he should know her. He smiled again, but it was a twisted smile on the mechanically misshapen lips of Larry the Bat. Nearly over. Who knew? That nearly might be too late. Even tonight he had been shadowed, was skulking, even now in this place as a refuge. Who knew? Another hour, and the news boys might be shrieking there, extra, extra, the grey seal caught, the millionaire Jimmy Dale, the Jekyll and Hyde of real life. Jimmy Dale straightened up suddenly in his seat. There was a shout, an oath balled out, high above the riot of noise, a chorus of feminine shrieks from across the room. What was the matter with the underworld tonight? He seemed faded to find nothing but centers of disturbance. First a raid of Chang Fu's, and now this. What was the matter here? There was stampeding toward him from the other side of the room. There was the roar of a revolver shot, another. Black Ike! He caught an instanced glimpse of the gunman's distorted face through the crowd. That was it, probably, a row over some mall. And then, as Jimmy Dale lunged up from his chair to his feet to escape the rush, pandemonium itself seemed to break loose. Yells, shots, screams, and oaths filled the air. The crowd surged this way and that. Tables were overturned and sent crashing to the floor, and then came sudden darkness as some one of the attendants in misguided excitability switched off the lights. The darkness but served to increase the panic, not allay it. With a savage snap of his jaws, Jimmy Dale swung from his table in the corner with the intention of making his way out by a side door behind him. It was a case of the police again, and the patrolman outside would probably be pulling a riot call by now. And the police, he stopped suddenly as though he had been struck. An envelope thrust there out of the darkness was in his hand, and her voice, hers, the toxins, was sounding in his ears. Jimmy, Jimmy, I've been trying all evening to catch you. Quick, get to the sanctuary and change your clothes. There's not an instant to lose. It's for my sake tonight. And then a surging mob was around him on every side and pushing, jostling, half lifting him at times from his feet, carried him forward with its rush and with him in its midst burst through the door and out into the street. The Adventures of Jimmy Dale by Frank L. Packard Reading by Roger Maline Part 2. The Woman in the Case Chapter 2. The Call to Arms Not a sound as the key turned in the lock. Not a sound as the door swung back on its carefully oiled hinges. Not a sound as Larry the Bat slipped like a shadow into the blackness of the room, closing the door behind him again. With a tread as noiseless as a cat, he was across the room to satisfy himself that the shutters were tightly closed. And then the single gas jet flared up, murky, yellow, illuminating the miserable, squalid room, the sanctuary, the home of Larry the Bat. There was need for silence, need for caution. In five minutes, ten at the outside, he must emerge again as Jimmy Dale. With a smile on his lips that mingled curiously, chagrin and self-commiseration, he took the letter from his pocket and tore it open. It was she, then, who had been following him all evening, and like a blundering idiot, he had wasted precious, perhaps irreparable, hours. What had she meant by, it's for my own sake tonight? The words had been ringing in his ears since the moment she had whispered them in that panic-stricken crowd. Was it not always for her sake that he answered these calls to arms? Was it not always for her sake that he, as the gray seal was, the mental soliloquy came to an abrupt end? He had subconsciously read the first sentence of the letter, and now, with sudden feverish eagerness and excitement, he was reading it to the last word. Dear Philanthropic Crook, in an hour after you receive this, if all goes well, you shall know everything, everything. Who I am, yes, and my name. It has been more than three years now, hasn't it? It has been incomprehensible to you, but there has been no other way. I dared not take the chance of discovery by anyone. I dared not expose you to the risk of being known by me. Your life would not have been worth a moment's purchase. Oh, Jimmy, am I only making the mystery more mystifying? But tonight, I think, I hope, I pray that it is all at an end. Though against me and against you tonight when you go to help me is the most powerful and pitiless organization of criminals that the world has ever known, and the stake we are playing for is a fortune of millions and my life. And yet somehow I am afraid now, just because the end is so near and the victory seems so surely won. And so, Jimmy, be careful. Use all that wonderful cleverness of yours as you have never used it before. But there should be no need for that. It is so simple a thing that I am going to ask you to do. Why am I writing so illogically? Nothing, surely, can possibly happen. This is not like one of my usual letters, is it? I am beside myself tonight with hope, anxiety, fear, and excitement. Listen, then, Jimmy. Be at the northeast corner of Sixth Avenue and waverly place at exactly half past ten. A taxi cab will drive up as though you had signaled it in passing, and the chauffeur will say, I have another fare in half an hour, sir, but I can get you most anywhere in that time. You will be smoking a cigarette. Toss it out into the street, make any reply you like, and get into the cab. Give the chauffeur that little ring of mine with the crest of the bell and belfry and the motto, sonnella toxin, that you found the night old Isaac Polina was murdered, and the chauffeur will give you, in exchange, a sealed packet of papers. He will drive you to your home, and I will telephone to you there. I need not tell you to destroy this. Keep the appointment in your proper person, as Jimmy Dale. Carry nothing that might identify you as the gray seal if any accident should happen. And lastly, trust the pseudo chauffeur absolutely. There was no signature. Her letters were never signed. He stood for a moment staring at the closely written sheets in his hand, a heightened color in his cheeks. His lips pressed tightly together, and then his fingers automatically began to tear the letter into pieces, and the pieces again into little shreds. Tonight. It was to be tonight the end of all this mystery. Tonight was to see the end of this dual life of his with its constant peril. Tonight the gray seal was to exit from the stage forever. Tonight a wonderful climax of the years. He was to see her. His blood was quickened now, his heart pounding in a faster beat. A mad elation, a fierce uplift was upon him. He thrust the torn bits of paper into his pocket hurriedly, stepped across the room to the corner, rolled back the oil cloth, and lifted up the loose plank in the flooring, so innocently dust-laden as more than once to have eluded the eyes of inquisitive visitors from the shape of police and plain clothesmen from headquarters. From the space beneath, he removed a neatly folded pile of clothes, laid these on the bed, and began to undress. He was working rapidly now. Tiny pieces of wax were removed from his nostrils, from under his lips, from behind his ears, water from a cracked pitch or poured into a battered tin basin, and mixed with a few drops of some liquid from a bottle which he procured from its hiding place under the flooring, banished the makeup stained from his face, his neck, his wrists, and hands as if by magic. It was a strange metamorphosis that had taken place. The coarse, brutal-featured, blear-eyed, leering countenance of Larry the Bat was gone, and in its place, clean-cut, square-jawed, clear-eyed was the face of Jimmy Dale. And where before had slouched a slope-shouldered, misshapen, flabby creature, a broad-shouldered form well over six feet in height now stood erect, and under the clean white skin, the muscles of an athlete, like knobs of steel, played back and forth with every movement of his body. In the street and broken mirror, Jimmy Dale surveyed himself critically, methodically, and, with a knot of satisfaction, hastily donned the fashionably cut suit of tweeds upon the bed. He rummaged then through the ragged garments he had just discarded, transferred to his pockets a roll of bills and his automatic, and paws hesitantly, staring at the thin metal case, like a cigarette case, that he held in the palm of his hand. He shrugged his shoulders a little whimsically. It seemed strange, indeed, that he was through with that. He snapped it open. Within, between sheets of oil-paper, lay the scores of little diamond-shaped, grey-colored adhesive paper seals, the insignia of the grey seal. Yes, it seemed strange that he was never to use another. He closed the case, gathered up the clothes of Larry the Bat, tucked the case in among them, and shoved the bundle into the hole under the flooring. All these things would have to be destroyed, but there was not time to-night. Tomorrow, or the next day, would do for that. What would it be like to live a normal life again, without the menace of danger lurking on every hand, without that grim slogan of the underworld, death to the grey seal, or that savage fiat of the police, the grey seal dead or alive, but the grey seal forever ringing in his ears? What would it be like, this new life, with her? The thought was thrilling him again, bringing again that eager, exultant uplift. In an hour, one hour, and the barriers of years would be swept away, and she would be in his arms. It's for my sake tonight. His face grew suddenly tense as the words came back to him. That hour wasn't over yet. It was no hysterical exaggeration that had prompted her to call her enemies the most powerful and pitiless organization of criminals that the world had ever known. It was not the toxins' way to exaggerate. The words would be literally true. The very life that she had led for the three years that had gone stood out now as a grim proof of her assertion. Jimmy Dale replaced the flooring, carefully brushed the dust back into the cracks, spread the oil cloth into place, and stood up. Who and what was this organization? What was between it and the toxin? What was this immense fortune that was at stake? And what was this priceless packet that was so crucial that meant victory now, I and her life too, she had said? The question swept upon him in a sort of breathless succession. Why had she not let him play a part in this? True, she had told him why, that she dared not expose him to the risk. Was there any risk that the Graciel had not taken and at her instance? He did not understand. He smiled a little uncertainly as he reached up to turn out the gas. There were a good many things that he did not understand about the toxin. The room was in darkness and with the darkness Jimmy Dale's mind centered on the work immediately before him. To enter the tenement where he was known and had an acknowledged right as Larry the Bat was one thing. For Jimmy Dale to be discovered there was quite another. He crossed the room, opened the door silently, stood for a moment listening, then stepped out into the black, musty, ill-smelling hallway closing the door behind him. He stooped and locked it. The quarriulous cry of a child reached him from somewhere above. A murmur of voices muffled by closed doors from everywhere. How many families were housed beneath that sordid roof he had never known? Only that there was miserable poverty there as well as vice and crime. Only that Larry the Bat, who possessed a room all to himself, was, as some lordly and super-being to these fellow tenants who shared theirs with so many that there was not air enough for all to breathe. He had no doors to pass. His was next to the staircase. He began to descend. They could scream and shriek those stares like aged humans twisted and rheumatic at the least ungenial touch. But there was no sound from them now. There seemed something almost uncanny in the silent tread. Stare after stare he descended, his entire weight thrown gradually upon one foot before the other was lifted. The strain upon the muscles, trained and hardened as they were, told. As he moved from the bottom step he wiped little beads of perspiration from his forehead. The door now that gave on the alleyway. He opened it, slipped outside, darted across the narrow lane, stole along where the shadows of the fence were blackest, paused, listening as he reached the end of the alleyway to assure himself that there was no nearby pedestrian and stepped out into the street. He kept on along the block, turned onto the bowery and under the first lamp consulted his watch. It was a quarter past ten. He could make it easily in a leisurely walk. He continued on up the bowery, finally crossed to Broadway and shortly afterward turned into Waverly Place. At the corner of Fifth Avenue he consulted his watch again and now he lighted a cigarette. Sixth Avenue was only a block away. At precisely half past ten to the second he halted on the designated corner, smoking nonchalantly. A taxi cab, coincidentally coming from an uptown direction, swung into the curb. Taxi, sir? Yes, sir? Then with an admirable mingling of eagerness to secure the fair and a fear that his confession might cause him the loss of it. I have another fair in half an hour, sir, but I can get you most anywhere in that time. Jimmy Dale's cigarette was tossed carelessly into the street. St. James Club, he said, curtly, and stepped into the cab. The cab started forward, turned the corner, and headed along Waverly Place toward Broadway. The chauffeur twisted around in his seat in a matter-of-fact way as though to ask further directions. Have you anything for me? he inquired casually. It lay, where it always lay, that ring between the folds of that little white glove in his pocketbook. Jimmy Dale took it out now and handed it silently to the chauffeur. The other's face changed instantly, composure was gone, and a quick, strained look was in its place. I'm afraid I've been watched, he said, tersely. Look behind you, will you, and tell me if you see anything? Jimmy Dale glanced backward through the little window in the hood. There's another taxi just turned in from Sixth Avenue, he reported the next instant. Keep your eye on it, instructed the chauffeur shortly. The speed of the cab increased sensibly. With a curious tightening of his lips, Jimmy Dale settled himself in his seat so that he could watch the cab behind. There was trouble coming, intuitively he sensed that. And, he reflected bitterly, he might have known. It was too marvelous, too wonderful ever to come to pass that this one hour, the thought of which had fired his blood and made him glad beyond any gladness life had ever held for him before should bring its promised happiness. Where's the cab now? The chauffeur flung back over his shoulder. They had passed Fifth Avenue and were nearing Broadway. About the same distance behind, Jimmy Dale answered. That looks bad, the chauffeur gritted between his teeth. We'll have to make sure. I'll run down lower Broadway. If you think we're followed, suggested Jimmy Dale quietly, why not run uptown and give them the slip somewhere where the traffic is thick? Lower Broadway at this time of night is as empty and deserted as our country road. The chauffeur's sudden laugh was mirthless. My God, you don't know what you're talking about, he burst out. If they're following, all hell couldn't throw them off the track. And I've got to know, I've got to be sure before I dare make a move tonight. I couldn't tell up in the crowded districts if I was followed, could I? They won't come out into the open until their hands are forced. The cars swirled sharply, round at the corner, and speeding up faster and faster began to tear down lower Broadway. Watch, watch! cried the chauffeur. There was no word between them for a moment. Then Jimmy Dale spoke crisply. It's turned the corner. It's coming this way. The taxi cab was rocking violently with the speed, silent, empty, lower Broadway stretched away ahead. Apart from an occasional streetcar, probably there would be nothing between them and the battery. Jimmy Dale glanced at his companion's face as a light flashing by threw it into relief. It was set and stern, even a little haggard. But, too, there was something else there, something that appealed instantly to Jimmy Dale, a sort of bulldog grit that dominated it. If he holds our speed, we'll know, the chauffeur was shouting now to make himself heard over the roar of the car. Look again! Where is it now? Once more, Jimmy Dale looked through the little rear window. The cab had been a block behind them when it had turned the corner, and he watched it now in a sort of grim fascination. There was no possible doubt of it. The two bobbing, bouncing headlights were creeping steadily nearer. And then a sort of unnatural calm settled upon Jimmy Dale, and his hand went mechanically to his pocket to feel as automatic there as he turned again to the chauffeur. If you've got any more speed, you'd better use it, he said significantly. The man shot a quick look at him. They are following us? You are sure? Yes, said Jimmy Dale. The chauffeur laughed again in that mirthless, savage way. Lean over here, where I can talk to you, he rasped out. The game's up, as far as I'm concerned, I guess. But there's a chance for you, they don't know you in this. Give her more speed, or dodge into her cross street, suggested Jimmy Dale coolly. They haven't got us yet by a long way. The other shook his head. It's not only that cab behind, he answered through set lips. You don't know what we're up against. If they're really after us, there's a trap laid in every section of this city, the devils. It's the package they want. Thank God for the pre-sentiment that made me leave it behind. I was going back for it, you understand, if I was satisfied that we weren't followed. Listen, there's a chance for you, there's none for me. That package, remember this, no one else knows where it is, and it's life and death to the one who sent you here. It's in box 428 at, my God, look, look there, he yelled, and with a wrench at the wheel, sent the taxi lurching and staggering for the car tracks in the center of the street. The scene, fast as thought itself, was photographing itself in every detail upon Jimmy Dale's brain. From the cross street ahead, one from each corner, two motor cars had nosed out into Broadway, blocking the road on both sides. And now the car on the left-hand side was moving forward across the tracks to counteract the chauffeur's move, deliberately ensuring a collision. There was no chance, no further room to turn, no time to stop. The man driving the other car jumped for safety, they would be into it in an instant. Box 428, Jimmy pleaded fiercely. Go on, man, go on, finish! Yes, cried the chauffeur. John Johansson at, but Jimmy Dale heard no more. There was the crash of impact as the taxi cab plowed into the car that had been so craftily maneuvered in front of it, and Jimmy Dale, lifted from his feet, was hurled violently forward with the shock, and all went black before his eyes. End of Part 2, Chapter 2, Recording by Roger Maline. Part 2, Chapter 3 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. The Adventures of Jimmy Dale by Frank L. Packard. Reading by Roger Maline. Part 2, The Woman in the Case. Chapter 3, The Crime Club. For what length of time he had remained unconscious, Jimmy Dale had not the slightest idea. He regained his senses to find himself lying on a couch in a strange room that had a most exquisitely brass-wrought dome light in the ceiling. That was what attracted his attention, because the light hurt his eyes, and his head was already throbbing as though a thousand devils were beating a diabolical tattoo upon it. He closed his eyes against the light. Where was he? What had happened? Oh, yes, he remembered now. That smash on lower Broadway. He had been hurt. He moved first one limb and then another tentatively, and was relieved to find that, though his body ached as if it had been severely shaken, and his head was bad, he had apparently escaped without serious injury. Where was he? In a hospital? His fingers, resting at his side upon the couch, supplied him with the information that it was a very expensive couch, upholstered in finest leather. If he were in a hospital, he would be in a cot. He opened his eyes again to glance curiously around him. The room was quite in keeping with the artistic lighting fixture and the refined, if expensive, taste that was responsible for the couch. A heavy, velvet rug of rich dark green was bordered by a polished hardwood floor. Panellings of dark green frieze and beautifully grained woodwork made the lower walls, while above, on a background of some soft-toned paper, hung a few and evidently choice oil paintings. There was a big inviting lounging chair, a massive writing table, or, more properly, a desk of walnut, and behind the desk, his back half turned, apparently intent upon a book, sat a man in a maculate evening dress. Jimmy Dale closed his eyes again. There was something reassuring about it all, comfortably reassuring. Though why there should be any occasion for a feeling of reassurance at all, he could not, for the moment, make out. And then, in a sudden flash, the details of the night came back to him. The toxin's letter, the package he was to get, the taxi cab, the chauffer, who was not a chauffer, the chase, the trap. He lay perfectly still. It was the professional Jimmy Dale, now, whose brain, in spite of the throbbing, brutally aching head, was at work, keen alert. The chauffer, what had happened to him? Had the man been killed in the auto-smash, or less fortunate than himself, fallen into the hands of those whose power he seemed both to fear and rate so highly? And that package, box, what was the number? Yes, 428. What did that mean? What box? Where was it? Who was John Johansson? He hadn't heard any more than that. The smash had come then. And lastly, he was back again to the same question he had begun with. Where was he now, himself? It looked as though some good Samaritan had picked him up. Who was this gentleman so quietly reading there at the desk? Jimmy Dale opened his eyes for the third time. How still, how absolutely silent the room was. He studied the man's back speculatively for a moment. Then his gaze traveled on past the man to the wall, riveted there, and his fingers, without movement of his arm, pressed against the outside of his coat pocket. He thought as much. His automatic was gone. Not a muscle of Jimmy Dale's face moved. His eyes shifted to a picture on the wall. The man was watching him, not reading. Just above the level of the desk, a small mirror held the couch in focus, but equally it held the man in focus, and Jimmy Dale had seen the other's eyes through a black mask that covered the face to the top of the upper lip, fixed intently upon him. There was a chill now where before there had been reassurance, something ominous in the very quiet and refinement of the room, and Jimmy Dale smiled inwardly in bitter irony. His good Samaritan wore a mask. His self-congratulations had come too soon. Whatever had happened to the chauffeur, it was evident enough that he himself was caught. What was it the chauffeur had said? Something about a chance through being unknown? Was it to be a battle of wits, then? God, if his head did not ache so frightfully, it was hard to think with the brain half sick with pain. Those two eyes shining in that mirror, there seemed something horribly specter-like about it. He did not look again, but he knew they were there. It was like a cat watching a mouse. Why did not the man speak or move or do something? And he turned his head slowly. The man was laughing in a low, amused way. You appear to be taken with that picture, observed a pleasant voice. Perhaps you recognize it from there. It is a carol. Jimmy Dale, with a well-simulated start, sat up and, with another quite as well-simulated, stared at the masked man. The other had laid down his book and swung around in his chair to face the couch. Jimmy Dale stood up a little shakily. Look here, he said awkwardly. I don't quite understand. I remember that my taxi got into a smash-up, and I suppose I have to thank you for the assistance you must have rendered me, only, as I say, he looked in a puzzled way around the room and in an even more perplexed way at the mask on the other's face. I must confess I am at a loss to understand quite the meaning of this. Suppose that instead of trying to understand, you simply accept things as you find them. The voice was soft, but there was a finality in it, that its blandness only served to make the more suggestive. Jimmy Dale drew himself up and bowed coldly. I beg your pardon, he said. I did not mean to intrude. I have only to thank you again, then, and bid you a good night. The lips behind the mask parted slightly in a politely deprecating smile. There is no hurry, said the man, a sudden sharpness creeping into his tones. I am sorry that the rule I apply to you does not work both ways. For instance, I might be quite at a loss to account for your presence in that taxi cab. Jimmy Dale's smile was equally polite, equally deprecating. I failed to see how it could be of the slightest possible interest to you, he replied. However, I have no objection to telling you. I hailed the taxi at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Waverly Place, told the chauffeur to drive me to the St. James Club, and the St. James Club, broke in the other coldly, is, I believe, north, not south of Waverly Place, and on Broadway, not at all. Jimmy Dale stared at the other for an instant in patient annoyance. I am quite well aware of that, he said stiffly. Nevertheless, I told the man to drive me to the St. James Club. We came across Waverly Place, but on reaching Broadway. Instead of turning uptown, he suddenly whirled in the other direction and sent the car flying at full speed down Lower Broadway. I shouted at the man. I don't know yet whether he was drunk or crazy or— Jimmy Dale's eyes fixed disdainfully on the other's mask. Whether there might not, after all, have been method in his madness. I can only say that before we had gone more than two or three blocks, a wild effort on his part to avoid a collision with an auto swinging out from a side street resulted in an even more disastrous smash with another on the other side, and I was knocked senseless. Victim, I presume, is the idea you desire to convey, observed the other evenly. You were quite the victim of circumstance, as it were. Jimmy Dale's eyebrows lifted slightly. It would appear to be fairly obvious, I should say. Very clever, commented the man. But now, suppose we removed the buttons from the foils. His voice rasped suddenly. You were quite as well aware as I am that what has happened tonight was not an accident. Nor, in case the possibility may have occurred to you, are the police any the wiser, save for the existence of two wrecked cars on Lower Broadway, and another which escaped, and for which doubtless they are still searching assiduously. The ownership of the taxi cab you so inadvertently entered, they will have no difficulty in establishing. You, perhaps, however, are in a better position than I am to appreciate the fact that the establishment of its ownership will lead them nowhere. As I understand it, the man who drove you tonight obtained the loan of the cab from one of the company's chauffeurs in return for a hundred dollar bill. Am I right? In view of what has happened, admitted Jimmy Dale simply, I should not be surprised. There was a sort of sardonic admiration in the other's lap. As for the other car, he went on, I can assure you that its ownership will never be known. When the nearest patrolman rushed up, there were no survivors of the disaster, save those in the third car, which he was powerless to stop, which accounts for your presence here. You will admit that I have been quite frank. Oh, quite, said Jimmy Dale, a little wearily, but would you mind telling me what all this is leading to? The man had been leaning forward in his chair, one hand palm downward, resting lightly on the desk. He shifted his hand now suddenly to the arm of his chair. This, he said, and on the desk where his hand had been lay the toxin's gold-signet ring. Jimmy Dale's face expressed mild curiosity. He could feel the other's eyes boring into him. We were speaking of ownership, said the man, in a low menacing tone. I want to know where the woman who owns this ring can be found tonight. There was no play, no trifling here. The man was in deadly earnest. But it seemed to Jimmy Dale, even with the sense of peril more imminent with every instant, that he could have laughed outright in the savage mockery at the irony of the question. Where was she? Even who was she? And this was the hour in which he was to have known. May I look at it? He requested calmly. The other nodded, but his eyes never left Jimmy Dale. It will give you an extra moment or so to frame your answer, he said sarcastically. Jimmy Dale ignored the thrust, picked up the ring, examined it deliberately, and set it back again on the table. Since I do not know who owns it, he said, I cannot answer your question. No, well then, there is still another matter, a little package that was in the taxi cab with you. Where is that? See here, said Jimmy Dale irritably. This has gone far enough. I have seen no package, large or small, or of any description whatever. You are evidently mistaking me for someone else. You have only to telephone the St. James Club. He reached toward his pocket for his card case. My name is Dale, supplied the other curtly. Don't bother about the card, Mr. Dale. We have already taken the liberty of searching you. He rose abruptly from his chair. I am afraid you did not quite realize your position, Mr. Dale, he said, with an ominous smile. Let me make it clear. I do not wish to be theatrical about this, but we do not temporize here. You will either answer both of those questions to my satisfaction, or you will never leave this place alive. Jimmy Dale's face hardened. His eyes met the others steadily. Ah, I think I begin to see, he said costically. When I have been thoroughly frightened, I shall be offered my freedom at a price. A sort of up-to-date game of holdup. The penalty of being a wealthy man. If you had named your figure to begin with, we would have saved a lot of idle talk and you would have had my answer the sooner. Nothing. Do you know, said the other, in a grimly musing way, there has always been one man, but only one until now, that I have wished I might add to my present associates. I refer to the so-called gray seal. Tonight there are two. I pay you the compliment of being the other, but, he was smiling ominously again, we are wasting time, Mr. Dale. I am willing to expose my hand to the extent of admitting that the information you are withholding is infinitely more valuable to me than the mere reeking of reprisal upon you for refusal to talk. Therefore, if you will answer, I pledge you my word, you will be free to leave here within five minutes. If you refuse, you are already aware of the alternative. Well, Mr. Dale, who was this man? Jimmy Dale was studying the other's chin, the lips, the white, even teeth, the jet-black hair. Someday the tables might be turned. Could he recognize again this cool, imperturbable ruffian who so callously threatened him with murder? Well, Mr. Dale, I am waiting. I am not a magician," said Jimmy Dale contemptuously. I could not answer your questions if I wanted to. The other's hand slid instantly to a row of electric buttons on the desk. Very well, Mr. Dale, he said quietly, you did not believe, I see, that I would dare to carry my thread into execution. You perhaps even doubt my power. I shall take the trouble to convince you. Imagine it will stimulate your memory. The door opened. Two men were standing on the threshold, both in evening dress, both masked. The man behind the desk came forward, took Jimmy Dale's arm almost courteously, and led him from the room out into a corridor where he halted abruptly. I want to call your attention first, Mr. Dale, to the fact that as far as you are concerned, you neither have now nor ever will have any idea whether you are in the heart of New York or fifty miles away from it. Now, listen, do you hear anything? There was nothing. Only the strange silence of that other room was intensified now. There was not a sound. Stillness, such as it seemed to Jimmy Dale, he had never experienced before, was around him. You may possibly infer from the silence that you are not in the city, suggested the other after a moment's pause. I leave you to your own conclusions in that respect. The cause, however, of the silence is internal, not external. We had soundproof principles in mind to a perhaps exaggerated degree when this building was constructed. If you care to do so, you have my permission to shout, say, for help to your heart's content. We shall make no effort to stop you. Jimmy Dale shrugged his shoulders. He was staring down a brilliantly lighted, richly carpeted corridor. There were doors on one side, windows on the other. The windows all hung with heavy, closely drawn porters. The corridor was certainly not on the ground floor, but whether it was on the second or third, or even above that again, he had no means of knowing. From appearances, though, the place seemed more like a large, private mansion than anything else. Just one word before we proceed, continued the other. I do not wish you to labor under any illusion. Here we are, frankly, criminals. This is our home. It should have some effect in impressing you with the power and the force at our command, and also with the class of men with whom you are dealing. There is not one among us whose education is not fully equal to your own, not one, indeed, but who is chosen granting first his criminal tendencies because he is a specialist in his own particular field in commerce, in the government diplomatic service, in the professions of law and medicine, in the ranks of pure science. We are bordering on the fantastical, are we not? Dreaming, you will probably say, of the utopian in crime organization. Quite so, Mr. Dale, I only ask you to consider the possibilities if what I say is true. Now, let us proceed. I am going to take you into three rooms, the three whose doors you see ahead of you. You will notice that, including the one you have just left, there are four on this corridor. I do not wish to strain your credulity or play tricks upon you, so I am going to ask you to fix an approximate idea of the length of the corridor in your mind as it will perhaps enable you to account more readily for what may appear to be a discrepancy in the corresponding size of the rooms. One of the men opened the door ahead. Jimmy Dale, at a sign from his conductor, moved forward and entered. Just what he had expected to find he could not have told. His brain was whirling, partly from his aching head, partly from his desperate effort to conceive some way of escape from the peril in which, for all his nonchalance, he knew only too well was the gravest he had ever faced. But what he saw was simply a cosily furnished bedroom. There was nothing peculiar about it, except perhaps that it was rather narrow. And then, suddenly, rubbing his eyes involuntarily, he was staring in a dazed way before him. The whole right-hand side of the wall was sinking without a sound into the floor, increasing the width of the room by some five or six feet, and in this space was disclosed what appeared to be a sort of chemical laboratory, elaborately equipped extending the entire length of the room. The wall is purely a matter of mechanical construction, operated hydraulically. The man was speaking softly at Jimmy Dale's side. The room beneath is built to correspond. The base, ceiling, and wall moldings here do not have to be very ingenious to affect a disguise. I might say, however, that few visitors other than yourself have ever seen anything here but a bedroom. He waved his hand toward the retorts, the racks of test tubes, the hundred and one articles that strewed the laboratory bench. As for this, its purpose is twofold. We, as well as the police, have often need of analysis. We make it. If we require a drug, a poison, say, we compound it from its various ingredients, or, as the case may be, distill it, perhaps. It is, you will agree, somewhat more difficult to trace to its source if procured that way. And speaking of poisons, he stepped forward and lifted a glass-stopper bottle containing a colorless liquid from its shelf. In a modest way, we have even done some original research work here. This, for instance, is as utopian from our standpoint as the formation and personnel of the organization I have briefly outlined to you. It possesses very essential qualities. It is almost instantaneous in its action, requires a very small quantity and defies detection, even by autopsy. He uncorked the bottle and dipped in a long glass rod. Will you watch the experiment? He invited with a sort of ghastly pleasantry. I do not want you to accept anything untrust. With a start, Jimmy Dale swung around. He had heard no sound, but another man was at his elbow now and struggling in the man's hand was a little white rabbit. It was over in an instant. A single drop in the rabbit's mouth and the animal had stiffened out a lifeless thing. It is quite as effective on the human organism, however, only instead of one drop, three are required. If I make it ten, he was carefully measuring the liquid into two wine glasses. It is only that even you may be satisfied that the quantity is fatal. He filled up the glasses with what was apparently wine of some description which he poured from a decanter and held out the glasses until it all started. Again he had heard no one enter and yet two men had stepped forward from behind him and had taken the glasses from their leader's hands. He glanced around him counting quickly. There were surely the two who had entered with him from the corridor. No, including the leader there were now six men all in evening dress holding the glasses left the room. The man turned to Jimmy Dale again. Shall we proceed to the second room, Mr. Dale? he asked politely. I think it is now prepared for us. I do not wish to bore you with the repetition of magical sliding walls. There was something now that numbed the ache in Jimmy Dale's brain, a sense of some deadly remorseless thing that seemed to be constantly creeping closer to him, clutching at him to smother him, to choke him. There was something absolutely fiendish, terrifying in the veneer of culture around him. They had entered the second room. This, like the other, was a pseudo-bedroom. But here the movable wall was already down. Ranged along the right-hand side were a great number of cabinets that slid in and out of fashion used by clothing dealers to stock and display their wares. These cabinets were now all opened, displaying hundreds of costumes of all kinds and descriptions, and evidently complete to the minutest detail. The cabinets were flanked by full-length mirrors at each end of the room, and on little tables before the mirrors was an assortment that none better than Jimmy Dale himself could appreciate of makeup accessories. The man smiled apologetically. I am afraid this is rather uninteresting, he said. I have shown it to you simply that you may understand that we are alive to the importance of detail. Disguise that is daily vital to us is an art that depends essentially on detail. I venture to say we could impersonate any character, or type, or nationality, or class in the United States at a moment's notice. But he took Jimmy Dale's arm again and conducted him out into the corridor while the two men who were evidently acting the role of guards followed closely behind. There is still the third room here. He halted Jimmy Dale before the door. I have asked you to answer two questions, Mr. Dale, he said softly. I ask you now to remember they still stood before the door. There was that uncanny silence again. It seemed to Jimmy Dale to last interminably. Neither of the three men surrounding him moved nor spoke. Then the door before him was opened on an unlighted room and he was led across the threshold. He heard the door close behind him. The lights came on and then it seemed as though he could not move as though he were rooted to the spot and the color ebbed from his face. Three figures were before him. The two men who had carried the glasses from the first room and the chauffeur who had driven him in the taxi cab. The two men still held the glasses. The chauffeur was bound hand and foot in a chair. One of the glasses was empty. The other was still significantly full. Jimmy Dale, with a violent effort at self-control, leaned forward. The man in the chair was dead. End of Part 2, Chapter 3 Recording by Roger Maline. Part 2, Chapter 4 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 The Adventures of Jimmy Dale by Frank L. Packard. Reading by Jacob Cherry. Part 2, The Women in the Case Chapter 4, The Innocent Bystander There was not a sound. That stillness, weird unnerving, that permeated as it were, everywhere through that mysterious house was, if that were possible, accentuated now. The four mass men in evening dress, five including their leader, for the man who had appeared in that other room with the rabbit was not here were as silent as motionless as the dead man who was last there in the chair. And to Jimmy Dale, it seemed at first, as though his brain stunned and stupefied at the shock, refused its functions and left him groping blindly, vaguely with only sort of a dull, subconscious realization of menace and deadly peril imminent hanging over him. He tried to rouse himself mentally to prod his brain to action to pit it in a fight for life against these self-confessed criminals and murderers with their mask of culture who surrounded him now. Was there a way out? What was it the toxin had said? The most powerful and pitiless organization of criminals the world has ever known? The stake a fortune of millions her life? There had indeed been no over emphasis in the words she had used. They had taken pains themselves to make that ominously clear these men. Every detail of the strange house with its luxurious furnishings, its cleverly contrived appointments and horribly suggestive degree of power. A deadly purpose and an organization swayed by a mastermind and grim evidence of the merciless inexorable link to which they would go was the gasly white face of the dead chauffeur bound hand and foot in the chair before him. That empty glass in the hand of one of the men, he could not take his eyes from it except as his eyes were drawn magnetically to that full glass in the hand of one of the others. What height of sardonic irony? He was to drink that other glass to die because he refused to answer questions that for years with every resource at his command risking his liberty, his well, his name, his life with everything that he cared for thrown into the scales he had struggled to solve and failed. And then the leader spoke Mr. Dale he said with cold significance, I regret to admit that your pseudo-taxi cab driver was so ill-advised as to refuse to answer the same questions that I have put to you. Five to one that was the only way out and it was hopeless. It was the only way out because convinced that he could answer those questions if he wanted to, these men were in deadly earnest. It was hopeless because they were five to one and probably there was many more twice or three times as many more within call. But what did it matter? How many more there were? He could fight until he was overpowered. That was all he could do and the five could accomplish that. Still, if he could knock the full glass out of the man's hand and gain the door then perhaps he turned quickly as the door opened. It was as though they had read his thoughts. A number of men were grouped outside in the corridor. Then the door closed again with a cordon ranged against it inside the room. And at the same instant his arms and wrists were caught in a powerful grass by the two men immediately behind him who all along had enacted the role of guards. Again the leader spoke, I will repeat the questions he said sharply. Where is the woman whose ring was found on that man in the chair? And where is the package that you two men had with you in the taxi cab tonight? Jimmy Dale glanced from the tall, straight, immaculately clothed figure of the speaker from the threatening smile on the set lips that just showed under the edge of the mask to the dead man in the chair. He had faced the prospect of death before many times but he had come in the heat and had come quickly, abruptly with every faculty called into action to combat it without time to dwell upon it to sift away or measure its meaning and if there had been fear it had been subordinate to other emotions. But it was different now. He could not of course answer those questions nor he was doggedly conscious would he have answered them if he could. And there was no middle course. Death within the next few moments stared him in the face and it seemed curiously irrelevant that in a sort of unnatural calmness he should be attempting to analyze his feeling and emotions concerning it. All his life it had seemed to him that the acme of human mental torture was the cell of a condemned criminal with the horror of its hopelessness with the time to dwell upon it and that the acme of that torture itself must be that awful moment immediately preceding execution when anticipation at last was to merge into soul sickening reality. Strange that thought should come strange that he should be framing a brain picture of such a scene vivid minute in detail. No not strange he was picturing himself. The analogy was not perfect it was true he had not had the months, weeks, days and hours of suspense but it was perfect enough to bring home to him with appalling force the realization of his position. He was standing as a condemned man might stand in those last final moments those moments which he had imagined must be the most terrible that could exist in life but that dismay of soul, the horror the terror were not his. There was instead a smoldering fury a passionate amazement that was his own life that was threatened it seemed impossible that it could be his voice that was speaking now in such quiet measured tones. Is it worthwhile, will it convince you now any more than before to repeat that there is some mistake here I am no more able to answer your questions than you are yourselves I never saw that man in the chair there in my life until the moment that I hailed him in his cab tonight I do not know who the woman is to whom that ring belongs much less do I know where she is and if there was a package of any sort in the taxi cab as you state I never saw it the lips under the mask curved into a lapine smile think well Mr. Dale the man's voice was low menacing ethically if you so choose to consider it your refusal might be the act of a brave man practically it's the act of a fool now your answer I have answered you said Jimmy Dale and relaxing the muscles in his arms let them hang limply for an instant in the grip of the two men behind him I have no other answer it was only a sign a motion of the leader's hand but with it quick as a lightning flash Jimmy Dale was in action the limp arms tautened into steel as he wrenched them loose and whirling around his fist into the chin of one of the two guards in an instant with the blow as the man staggered backwards the room was in pandemonium there was a rush from the door and two three four leaping forms hurled themselves upon Jimmy Dale he shook them off and they came again there was no chance ultimately he knew that it was only the elemental within him that rose and fierce revolt at the thought of tame submission that bade him sell his life as dearly as he could panting gasping for breath dragging him by sheer strength as they clung to him he got his back to the wall fighting with the savage fury and abandon of a wild cat but it could not last where one man went down before him two remorselessly appeared the room seemed filled with men they poured in through the door he laughed at them in a half demented way more and more of them came there was no play for his arms no room to fight they seemed so close around him so many of them upon him that he could not breathe and he was bending being crushed down by as an intolerable weight and then his feet were jerked from beneath him he crashed to the floor and in another moment bound hand and foot he was tied into a chair besides that other chair whose grim occupant set the apathy of the scene the room cleared instantly of all but the original five his head was drawn suddenly vitally backward and clamped in that position and a metal instrument forced into his mouth while his lips bled in their resistance pried jaws apart and held them open one drop the leader ordered curtly the man with the full glass bent over him and dipped a glass rod into the liquid the drop glistened a ruby red at the end of the rod and fell with a sharp acrid burning sensation upon Jimmy Dale's tongue for a moment Jimmy Dale's animation mental and physical seemed swept away from him as it were a hiatus of hideous suspense what was it to be like this passing why did it not act at once and it acted on the rabbit they had showed him in the other room yes he remembered it took more than one drop for a man and besides this was diluted one drop had no effect on the man that required good god one drop even of this was enough he strained forward in the chair until the sweat in great beads sprang from his forehead strained and fought and tore his bones in a paroxysm of madness to free himself while there still remained a little strength there was something filming before his eyes a numb feeling that was creeping through his limbs robbing them zapping them of their vitality and power he felt himself slipping away into a state of utter weakness and his brain began to grow confused a voice seemed to float in the air near him for the last time will you answer with a supreme effort Jimmy Dale strove to rally his tottering senses did they not understand the stupendous mockery of their questions did they not understand that he did not know he had told them so perhaps he had better tell them so again I he tried to speak and found the words thick upon his tongue I do not know the glass itself was thrust abruptly between his lips some of the content spilled and trickled upon his chin and then a flood of it burning fury poured down his throat a flood of it and it needed but three drops and there had been ten in the glass so this was death a hazy nebulous thing there was no pain it was like nothingness and out of nothingness she came strange that she should come alone she had fought these fiends and outwitted them for how long was it three years she would be more than ever alone now pray God she did not finally fall into their clutches how it burned now that fatal draw they had forced down his throat and how it gripped at him and seemed to eat and bore its way into the very tissues it was the end and no it was stimulating him strength seemed to be returning to his limbs it seemed as though he was being carried as though the bonds about him were being loosened and now his brain will clear her he roused up with a startle exclamation he was back in the same room in which he had first returned to consciousness after the accident he was on the same couch the same mask figure was at the same desk had he been dreaming was this only some horrible ghastly nightmare through which he had passed no it had been real enough rent and torn and the blood upon his hands where the skin had been scraped from his knuckles in the fight for evidence to that he must have lost consciousness for a while though it seemed to him that at no moment as irrational though his brain might have been had he become entirely oblivious to what was taking place around him and yet it must have been so the eyes from behind the mask were fixed steadily upon him and below the mask there was the hard and pleasant set to the lips that Jimmy Dale had grown accustomed to expect the man spoke abruptly that you find yourself alive Mr. Dale he said grimly as no confession of weakness upon the part of those with whom you have had to deal here to bear witness to that there is one who is not alive as you have seen that man we knew somewhat different your presence in the taxi cab was only suspicious there was always the possibility that you might be one of those ambiguous innocent bystanders your name, your position the improbability that you could have anything in common with shall we say the matter that so deeply interests was all in your favor however presumption and probability are the tools of fools we do not depend upon them we apply the test and having applied the test we are convinced that you have told the truth that is all he rose from his chair briskly I shall not apologize to you for what has happened I doubt very much that you are in a frame of mind to accept anything of the sort I imagine rather that you are promising yourself that we shall pay and pay dearly for this we shall answer for the murder of the man in the other room all this will be quite within your province Mr. Dale and quite fruitless tomorrow morning the story that you are preparing to tell now would sound incredible even in your own ears furthermore as we shall take pains to see that you leave this place with as little knowledge of its location as you obtain when you arrived your story even if believed would do little service to you and less harm to us I think of nothing more Mr. Dale accept there was a whimsical smile on the lips now ah yes the matter of your clothes we can and shall be glad to make reparation to you to the slight extent of offering you a new suit before you go Jimmy Dale scowled sick shaken and weak as he was the cool imperturbable impotence of the man was fast growing and bearable I am sure you will not refuse Mr. Dale since we insist the condition of the clothes you have on at present might in a measure support your story with some degree of tangible evidence it is not at all likely of course but we prefer to discount even so remote a possibility when you have changed you will be motored back to your home I bid you good night Mr. Dale Jimmy Dale rubbed his eyes the man was gone through a door at the rear of the desk a door that he had not noticed before that was not even in evidence now that was simply a movable section of the wall paneling and for an instant Jimmy Dale experienced a sense of sicketing impotence it was as though he stood defenseless unarmed and utterly at the mercy of some venomous power that could crush what would be remorselessly and at will in his might the place was a veritable maze a layer of hellish cleverness he had no illusions now he labored under no false estimate of either the ingenuity or the resources of this inhuman nest of vultures to whom murder was no more than a matter of detail and it was against these men that henceforth he was to match his wits there could be no truce no armistice it was their lives or hers or his well he was alive now the first round was over and so far he had won his brow furrowed suddenly had he? he was not so sure after all he was conscious of a disquieting premonitory intuition that in some way which he could not explain the honors were not entirely his he was apparently he apparently was a mental reservation quite alone in the room he got up from the couch and walked shakily across the floor to the desk a revolver lay invitingly upon the blotting pad it was his own the one they had taken from him after the accident jimmy dale picked it up examined it and smiled a little sarcastically at himself for the trouble it was unloaded of course he was twirling it in his hand as a man, mask as everyone in the house was mask and carried a neatly folded suit over his arm entered from the corridor the car is ready as soon as you are dressed announce the other briefly he laid the clothes upon the couch and settled himself significantly in a chair jimmy dale hesitated then with a shrug of his shoulders recrossed the room and began to remove his torn garments what was the use they would certainly have their own way in the end it wasn't worth another fight and there was nothing to be gained by a refusal except to offer a sob to his own exasperation he dressed quickly in what proved to be an exceedingly well fitting suit and finally turned tentatively to the man in the chair the other stood up and produced a heavy black silk scarf if you have no objections he said curtly I'll tie this over your eyes again jimmy dale shrugged his shoulders I am glad enough to get out on any conditions he answered costically fortunate would be a better word meaningly and definitely knotting the scarf led jimmy dale blindfolded from the room end of part two chapter four recording by jacob cherry part two chapter five 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 recording by Wyatt adventures of jimmy dale by Frank L. Packard part two chapter five was he in the city? in a suburban town on a country road it seemed childishly absurd that he could not at least differentiate to that extent and yet from the moment he had been placed in the automobile in which he now found himself he was forced to admit that he could not tell he had started out with the belief that knowing New York and its surrounding them it would be impossible do what they would to prevent it that in the end of his journey he should be without a clue a very good clue at that to the location of what he now called appropriately enough it seemed the crime club but he had never written blindfolded in a car before he could see absolutely nothing and if that increased or accentuated his sense of hearing it helped little the roaring of the race car beat upon his eardrums the more heavily that was all he could tell of course the nature of the road bed they were running on an asphalt road that was obvious enough but city streets and suburban streets and hundreds of miles of country road around New York were of asphalt traffic he was quite sure for he had strained his ears in an effort to detect it there was little or no traffic but then it must be one or two o'clock in the morning and at that hour the city streets certainly those that would be chosen by these men would be quite as dirted as any country road and as for a sense of direction he had none whatever even if the car had not been persistently swerving and changing its course every little while if he had been able to form even an approximate idea of the compass direction in which they had started he might possibly have been able in a general way to counteract this further effort of theirs to confuse him but without the initial direction he was essentially befogged with these conclusions finally thrust home upon him jimmy dale philosophically subordinated the matter in his mind and leaning back composed himself as comfortably as he could upon his seat there was a man beside him and he could feel the legs of two men on the seat facing him these with the driver would make four he was still well guarded the car itself was a closed car and the sense of touch told him therefore a limousine of some description these facts in a sense inconsequential were absorbed subconsciously and then jimmy dale's brain remorselessly active in spite of the pain from his throbbing head was at work again it seemed as though year had passed since in the early evening as larry the bat he had burrowed so ironically for refuge in chang fu's den from her seemed like some mocking unreality some visionary dream that so short a while before he had read those words of hers that had sent the blood coursing and leaping through his veins in mad exultation the thought that the culmination of the year had come that all he longed for hoped for all his soul cried out for was to be his in an hour an hour and he was to have seen her the woman whom he loved and the hour instead the hour since then had brought a nightmare of events so incredible as to seem the phantoms of the imagination phantoms he sat up suddenly with a jerk the face of the dead chauffeur the limp form lashed in that chair the horrible picture of his entirety every detail standing out in ghastly relief took form before him god knew there was no phantom there the man beside him at the sudden start lifted a hand and felt hurriedly over the bandage across jimmy dale's eyes jimmy dale was scarcely conscious of the act with that face before him with the scene reenacting itself in his mind again had come another thought staggering him for a moment with the new menace that it brought he had had neither time nor opportunity to think before it had been all horror all shock when he had entered that room but now like an inspiration he saw it all from another angle there was a glaring fallacy in the game these men had played for his benefit tonight a fallacy which they had counted on glossing over as it had indeed been glossed over by the sudden shock with which they had forced this scene upon him or failing in that they had counted on the fact that his or any other man's nerve would have failed when it came to open defiance based on a supposition which might after all be wrong and being wrong meant death but it was not supposition either he was right now or these men were childish and mature fools and whatever else they might be they were not that not a single drop of poison had passed the chauffeur's lips the man had not been murdered in that room he had not in a sense been murdered at all the man absolutely unquestionably without a loop hole for doubt had either been killed outright in the automobile accident or had died immediately afterward probably without regaining consciousness certainly without supplying any of the information that was so determinately sought yes he sought now their backs were against the wall they were at their wits end these men the knowledge that the chauffeur possessed that they knew he possessed was evidently life and death to them to kill the man before they had found out of him what they wanted to know or at least until by holding him prisoner they had exhausted every means that their command to make him speak was the last thing they would do jimmy dale sat for a long time quite motionless the car was speeding at a terrific rate along a straight stretch of road he could almost have sworn guided by some intuitive sense that they were in the country well even if it were so what did that prove they might have started from new york itself only to return to it when they had satisfied themselves that he was sufficiently do or they might have started legitimately from outside new york and be going towards the city now since the ultimate destination was new york and they had made no attempt to hide that from it was useless to speculate for at best it could be only speculation he had decided that once before the man at his side felt again over the scarf to see that it was in place curiously curiously jimmy dale recalled the inward monitor that warned him the honors had not all been his in this first round with the crime club tonight if they had deliberately murdered the chauffeur because of a refusal to answer they would have equally done the same to him fool that he had been not to have seen that before and yet would it have made any difference he shook his head he could not have acted any better advantage than he had done not his lips curled and grim derision have been any more convincing convincing it was all clear now if the chauffeur had suffered death rather than talk even admitting the fact that they had more grounds for suspecting the chauffeur's complicity would his jimmy dale's mere denial his choice to of death have been any more convincing or have saved his life where it had not saved the others a certain added respect for these men against to until the end now his victory or theirs he realized he was fighting for his life came over him as he recognized the touch of a master hand they did not know where to find the toxin the package that she had said was vital to them was still beyond their reach the chauffeur was dead and he jimmy dale alone remained a clue that they had still to prove valid or invalid it was true but the only clue in their possession and gaining nothing from him by a show of force to throw him off his guard they had let him go meaning him to believe they were convinced he knew nothing and that the episode the adventure of the night was as far as they were concerned ended finished and done with time passed a very long time as he sat there it might have been an hour he could only hazard a guess not one of the men in the car had spoken a word but to jimmy dale the car itself the ride its duration these three strange companions were for the time being extraneous even that sick giddiness in his head had at least temporarily gone from him and so all unsuspecting he was to lead them to the toxin and fall into the trap himself his hands thrust deep in his pockets were tightly clenched they were clever enough ingenious enough powerful enough to watch him henceforth at every turn and now on day and night they were to be reckoned with suppose that in some way as it might well have happened for it was now vitally necessary that she should communicate with him and he with her he had played blindly into their hands and through him she should have fallen into their power it brought a sickening chill a sort of hideous panic to jimmy dale and then fury anger in a torrent surged upon him a desire to crush to strangle to stamp out this inhuman band of criminals that with intolerable frontery to the laws of god and man were so elaborately and scientifically equipped for their monstrous purposes and then jimmy dale in the darkness smiled again grimly as the leader's reference to the grey seal recurred to him well perhaps who knew they would have reason more than they dreamed of to wish the grey seal enrolled in their own ranks strange, curious he had thought all that was ended only a few short hours before he had hidden away all everything that was incident to the life of the grey seal the clothes of larry the bat that little metal case with the grey colored adhesive seals a dozen other things believing that it only remained for him to return and destroy them at his leisure as a finishing touch to the grey seal's career and now instead his face to face with the gravest most dangerous problem that she had ever called upon him to undertake well at least the odds were not all in the crime club's favor where they now certainly believed him to be entirely off his guard he was thoroughly on his guard and where they might suspect him watch him they would suspect and watch only the character the person of jimmy dale and count not at all upon either larry the bat or the grey seal a sort of savage elation fell upon jimmy dale his brain that had been stagnant confused physically sick with pain and suffering was working now with its old time vigor and ease mapping planning scheming the way ahead to strike and strike quick to strike first it must be his move next not theirs and he must act tonight at once the moment he was given this pretense of liberty that they had in store for him before they had an opportunity of closing down around him with a network of spies that he could not elude by morning jimmy dale would be larry the bat and inhabiting the sanctuary again and a tip to jason his old butler to the effect say that he had gone away for a trip would account for his disappearance satisfactorily enough it would not necessarily arouse their suspicions when they eventually discovered he was gone for against that was always the possibility and the quite likely presumption where they had succeeded in nothing else they had least succeeded in frightening him thoroughly and to the extent of imbuing him with a hasty desire to put a safe distance between himself and them and now with his mind made up to his course of action and intense impatience to put his plan into effect an irritation at the useless twistings and turnings of the car that it later lead become more frequent and took hold upon him how much longer they must have been fully an hour and a half on the road already and off the car was stopping now he straightened up in his seat as the machine came to a halt but the man at his side laid a restraining hand upon him the car door opened and one of the men got out jimmy dale cut an indistinct murmur of voices from without and then the man returned to his seat and the car went on again another half hour past that curbing his irritation and impatience was filled with the conjectures and questions that anew came crowding in upon his mind why had the car made that stop it was rather curious it was certainly a prearranged meeting place why and these clothes that he now wore why had they made him change his own had not been very badly torn the reason given him was on the face of it now in view of what he now knew were mere pretense what was the ulterior motive behind that pretense what did this package that had already cost a man his life tonight contain who was the chauffeur what was this death view between the toxin in these men did she know where the crime club was who and where was John Johansson what was this box that was number 428 could she supply the links that would forge the chain into an unbroken hole and then for the second time the car slowed down and this time the man on the seat behind Jimmy Dale reached up and untied the scarf you get out here the man said tersely end of part 2 chapter 5 recording by white