IN THE SANCTUARY
It was ten o'clock now, an hour since the Rat and Muggy Ladd had left
Foo Sen's. Again Jimmie Dale told himself that it was still early, that
the Rat would wait for a much later hour--but at the same time he
acknowledged to himself a sense of growing and premonitory uneasiness.
Certainly, in any case, he had no time to lose. He turned quickly and
hurried along the block that separated him from the Bowery--he had a
fair idea of the haunts usually frequented in the evening by the men he
sought, and, even failing to find the men themselves, there was always
the chance, and a very good one, that, where Curley was known, Curley's
fifteen thousand dollar deal might be the subject of gossip which would
answer his, Jimmie Dale's, purpose quite as well.
But an hour went by--and yet another. Midnight came--and midnight had
brought him nothing. It seemed as though he had combed the East Side
from end to end, and he had found neither Curley, nor Haines, nor Patsy
Marles--nor had he heard anything--nor had such guarded questions as he
had dared to ask without involving possible disastrous consequences to
"Smarlinghue," should the Rat, after all, succeed and hear of his
activities, had any result. And then, still maintaining his efforts with
dogged determination, though conscious now that with the hour so late he
might perhaps better return to the Sanctuary, change, say, into the
clothes of Jimmie Dale, and, crediting the Rat with already having made
a successful inroad on the safe, devote his energies to running down the
Rat, and, if possible, to salvaging the plunder, he was in the act of
entering again one of the dance halls he had already visited earlier in
the evening, when one of the men he was searching for lurched out
through the doorway. It was Patsy Marles, garrulous, drunk, exceedingly
unsteady on his feet, and accompanied by three or four companions. They
crowded out past Jimmie Dale, and gathered aimlessly on the pavement.
Marles' voice rose in earnest insobriety for what was very probably by
no means the first time.
"Betcher life! Spot cash--fifteen thousand--spot cash! Sure, I saw it!
Only--hic!--got one boss now. Little ol' Reddy got the--hic!--papers
from lawyer 'safternoon. Know ol' Grenville, don't you--that's him--ol'
Grenville. Come on, whatsh's use standin' round here doin' nothin'!"
Jimmie Dale did not enter the dance hall--instead, scuffling hurriedly
along to the next corner, he turned off the Bowery, and, choosing the
darker and more dimly lighted streets and, at times, a lane or
alleyway, broke a run. In the space of a little more than a second he
had at last obtained the information that he had searched for vainly
for over two hours. There seemed something mockingly ironical in the
fact that he had been obliged to search for those two hours! What had
happened in that time? Two hours! It was three hours now since the Rat
had left Foo Sen's!
He shook his head with sudden impatience at himself. He would gain
nothing by speculating on possibilities! He _had_ the information now.
The one thing to do was to act upon it. So it was old Grenville's safe!
Old Grenville, the lawyer; honest old Grenville, the East Side called
him, the one man, perhaps, whose word was accepted at its face value,
and who was both liked and trusted everywhere in the Bad Lands--because
he was honest! Jimmie Dale's lips tightened as he ran. It was more than
ordinarily dirty work, then, on the Rat's part. Grenville was an old
man, close to seventy, at a guess; and if any one had earned immunity
from the depredations of the underworld it was this curious and lovable
old character--honest Grenville. The man was not a criminal lawyer, he
had made no enemies even in that way; he was more a paternal family
solicitor, as it were, to the dregs of humanity that had crowded his
queer and dingy office now, so report had it, for over forty years. He
was credited with having amassed a little money, not a fortune, perhaps,
for there were many fees never collected and never asked for amongst the
needy, but enough to live comfortably on in the simple and unpretentious
way in which old Grenville lived.
Yes, it was dirty work--miserable, dirty work, the work of a hound and a
cur! And the Rat's logic was unassailable. From Patsy Marles' maudlin
babbling it was evident that Reddy Curley had bought Haines, his
partner, out; that the price was fifteen thousand dollars; and that
Grenville, acting for Haines obviously, had received the purchase money
from Curley, and in return had handed over what the Rat had taken to be
a receipt, but what was probably in reality much more likely to have
been a Bill of Sale. But in either case, it was neither Curley nor
Haines who would suffer--it was old Grenville, who, if the funds were
stolen and not recovered, would have to make the amount good out of his
own pocket, and who, as all who knew old Grenville knew well, would
unhesitatingly do so at once if it took the last cent that pocket held.
Jimmie Dale had halted before a small building on one of the cross
streets near the upper end of the Bowery. There were some half dozen
signs on the doorway, for the most part time worn and shabby, amongst
them that of Henry Grenville, Attorney-at-Law.
There were no lights in any of the windows, but Jimmie Dale, as he tried
the door, found it unlocked, and, opening it noiselessly, stepped
inside. Here, a single incandescent suspended over the stair well gave a
murky illumination to the surroundings. A narrow corridor, dotted with
office doors, was on his left; the stairway--there was no elevator--was
directly in front of him. He stood motionless for an instant, listening.
There was no sound. He moved forward then, as silent as the silence
around him, and began to mount the stairs. Old Grenville's office, he
knew, was at the rear of the corridor on the first landing.
It was after midnight now, quite a little after midnight. Jimmie Dale's
fingers, in the right-hand pocket of his tattered coat, closed over the
stock of his automatic. Still no sound! Was he too late to forestall the
Rat; or, by no means an unlikely possibility, was the Rat there now; or
was--a low, muttered exclamation, that mingled surprise and
bewilderment, came suddenly from Jimmie Dale's lips. He had reached the
landing, and here, from the head of the stairs, he could see a dull
yellow glow thrown out into the corridor through the glass panel of the
lawyer's door.
An instant's pause, and then, chagrined, the sense of defeat upon him,
he moved forward again as silently as before. He reached the door and
crouched beside it. A murmur of voices came to him from within. Jimmie
Dale's lips parted in grim irony. The game was up, of course, but he was
occupying precisely the same coign of vantage that, according to the
Rat, the Rat had occupied that afternoon, and if the Rat had been able,
undiscovered, to see and hear, then he, Jimmie Dale, could do the same.
The slim, tapering, sensitive fingers closed on the doorknob--a thin ray
of light began to steal through between the door-edge and the jamb--and
grew wider--and the voices, from a confused murmur, became distinct. And
now, through the narrow crack of the slightly opened door, he could see
inside; and he could see that, as he had already realised, he was too
late, very much too late, in time only, as it were, for the post-mortem
of the affair--even the police were already on the spot!
It was a curious scene! A rickety old railing across the middle of the
musty, bare-floored room served to indicate that the space beyond was
the old lawyer's "private" office. And here, inside the railing, a desk,
or, rather, a great, flat, deal table, spread with a red, ink-stained
cloth, was littered with books and papers; while behind the table,
again, stood a huge, old-fashioned safe, its door swung wide open, its
erstwhile contents scattered in disorder about the floor.
Jimmie Dale's eyes swept the interior of the room with a single, quick,
comprehensive glance--and then, narrowed, travelled from one to another
of the faces of the four men who were gathered around the table. He knew
them all. The stocky, grizzle-haired man in the centre was a
plain-clothes man from headquarters, named Barlow; at the lower end of
the table Reddy Curley and Haines, his partner, faced each other, Curley
drumming indifferently with his fingers on the table-top, Haines
scowling and chewing his lower lip, a certain coarse brutality in both
their faces that was neither pleasant nor inviting; but it was the
white-haired old man, bent of form, standing at the head of the table,
upon whom Jimmie Dale's eyes lingered. Old Grenville! The man's hand, as
he raised it to pass it across his eyes, was shaking palpably; his face,
kindly still in spite of its worn and haggard expression, was pale with
anxiety and strain. Barlow was speaking:
"You say there's nothing else missing, Mr. Grenville, except the sealed
envelope that contained the fifteen thousand dollars given you by Mr.
Curley this afternoon?"
The old lawyer shook his head.
"I can't say," he answered. "As I told you, I often come here at night
to work. To-night a client kept me very late at my house, so it was
only, I should say, a quarter of an hour ago when I reached here. I
telephoned you at once, and, awaiting your arrival, I did not disturb
anything, so I have not examined any of the papers yet."
"I don't think it's a question of papers," observed the Headquarters
man dryly.
"There was nothing else taken then," decided Grenville slowly; "for
there was no other money in the safe at the time--in fact, I rarely keep
any there."
"Well then," said Barlow crisply, "it's pretty near open and shut that
some one was wise to that fifteen thousand being there to-night, and it
wasn't just a lucky haul out of any old safe just because the safe
looked easy." He turned toward Curley and Haines. "Were either of you
talking with any one around the East Side to-night who would be likely
to make a tip of it, or pass the tip along?"
"We weren't there at all to-night," Curley replied. "Haines and I were
out in my car, and we'd just got back when you picked us up at the store
on the way up here. But, at that, I guess you're right. We didn't make
any secret about it, and I daresay after I'd got the business tacked
away safe in my inside pocket this afternoon"--he grinned maliciously at
Haines--"I may have mentioned it to one or two."
"Got it tucked away safe, have you? Own it, do you?" Haines caught him
up truculently.
"Sure!" Curley had wicked, little greenish-grey eyes, and their stare
was uninviting as he fixed them on his quondam partner. "If you want to
grouch, go ahead and grouch! We've been pretty good friends for a pretty
good number of years, but I ain't a fool. Sure, it's mine now! I didn't
ask you to employ Grenville, did I? I was satisfied to take any old
piece of paper with your fist on it, saying you'd sold out to me; but
no, you were for having the thing done with frills on it Well, I'm still
satisfied! I came here at five o'clock this afternoon, and paid the coin
over to your attorney, and I got a perfectly good little Bill of Sale
for it--and that lets me out. It's up to you and your Mister Attorney.
Why don't you ask him what _he's_ going to do about it, instead of
trying to take it out on me the way you've been doing ever since Barlow
told us what had happened, and--"
"Mr. Curley is perfectly right, Mr. Haines"--the old lawyer's voice was
quiet, though it trembled a little. "The title to the business is now
vested in Mr. Curley, and you are entitled to look to me for
compensation. I"--he hesitated an instant--"I--I hope the money may be
recovered, otherwise--"
"Eh?" inquired Mr. Haines sharply.
"Otherwise," the old lawyer went on with an effort, "I am afraid I shall
have a great deal of difficulty in raising so large a sum."
"The hell you are!" said Mr. Haines uncharitably, and leaned forward
over the table. "Don't try to come that dodge! Everybody says you're
well fixed. Everybody says you've got a neat little pile salted away."
The lawyer's face was ashen, and his lips were quivering; but there was
a fine dignity in the poise of the old man's head, and in the squared
shoulders.
"Nevertheless, I am, unfortunately, telling you the truth, in spite of
any rumours, or public belief to the contrary," he said steadily. "A
few thousands, a very few, is all I have ever been able to lay aside.
Those are at your disposal, Mr. Haines, and the balance I promise to
procure as speedily as possible; but in plain words, if this money is
not recovered, and I do not say this to invite either sympathy or
leniency, but because you have questioned my word, I shall have lost
everything I own."
Mr. Haines scowled.
"Well, I'm glad to know you've at least got enough!" he said roughly.
"It sure will surprise a whole lot of people that fifteen thousand wipes
Mr. Henry Grenville out!"
A flush dyed the old lawyer's cheeks. He made as though to speak--and,
instead, turned silently away from the table, his back to the others.
There was silence in the room now for a moment. Again Jimmie Dale's eyes
travelled swiftly from one to another of the group--to Curley, grinning
maliciously at his ex-partner again--to Haines, gnawing at his lower
lip, and scowling blackly--to Barlow, obviously uncomfortable, who was
uneasily tracing patterns with his forefinger on the top of the
table--and back to the old lawyer, whose shoulders now, as though
carrying a load too heavy for their strength, had drooped pathetically,
and into whose face, in spite of a brave effort at self-control, had
crept a wan and miserable despair.
"Look here!" said Barlow gruffly. "It strikes me you can settle all this
some other time. It's got nothing to do with the guy that pulled this
break, and I'm losing time. Headquarters is waiting for my report. You
two had better beat it; Mr. Grenville won't mind, I guess--I've got your
end of the story, and--"
Jimmie Dale was retreating back along the corridor--and a minute later
he was in the street, and scuffling along in a downtown direction. His
hands, in the pockets of his tattered coat, were clenched, and through
the pallor of Smarlinghue's make-up a dull red burned his cheeks. Old
Grenville--and the Rat! The smile that found lodgment on Smarlinghue's
contorted lips was mirthless. The old man had taken it like the
gentleman he was. He had not perhaps hidden the quiver of the lip--who
would at seventy! It was not easy to begin life again at seventy! Old
Grenville--and the Rat! Well, the game was not played out yet! There
would be an accounting of that fifteen thousand dollars before the
morning came, and, as between old Grenville and the Rat, it might not
perhaps be old Grenville who paid!
Hurrying now, running through lanes and alleyways as he had come, Jimmie
Dale headed for the Sanctuary. It was very simple now. The Rat, his work
completed, would lay very low--asleep probably, in the _innocent_
surroundings of his own room! The Rat would not be hard to find. It was
necessary only that, in the little interview he proposed to have with
the Rat, "Smarlinghue" should have disappeared!
He reached the tenement where, for months now, that ground floor room,
opening on the small and dirty courtyard in the rear, had been his
refuge, Smarlinghue's home in the underworld, glanced quickly up and
down the street to assure himself that he was not observed, then,
darting into the dark hallway, he crossed it silently, unlocked the
Sanctuary door, stepped through, and closed and locked the door behind
him. Nor, even now, did he make the slightest sound. From the top-light,
high up near the ceiling and far above the little French window whose
shade was drawn, there came a faint and timid streak of moonlight. It
did not illuminate the room; it but lessened the degree of blackness, as
it were, giving a dim and shadowy outline to objects scattered here and
there about the room--and to a darker shadow amongst those other
shadows, a shadow that moved swiftly and in utter silence, a shadow that
was Jimmie Dale at work.
No one had seen him enter--not that there should be anything strange
in the fact that Smarlinghue should enter Smarlinghue's own room, but
it would not be Smarlinghue who went away! No one had seen him
enter--it was vital now that he should not be heard moving around the
room, and so invite the chance of some aimless caller in the person
of a fellow-tenant, for it was no longer Smarlinghue who would be
found there!
The ragged outer garments he had been wearing lay discarded in a heap on
the floor, close to that section of the wall near the door where the
base-board, ingeniously movable, would, in another moment or so, afford
them safe hiding until such time as "Smarlinghue" should reappear in
person again; from the nostrils, from beneath the lips, from behind the
ears, the tiny, cleverly-inserted pieces of wax, distorting the
features, had vanished; and now, over the cracked basin on the rickety
washstand, the masterly-created pallor was washed rapidly away--and the
thin, hollow-cheeked, emaciated face of Smarlinghue, the drug fiend, was
gone, and in its place, clean-cut, clear-eyed, was the face of Jimmie
Dale, clubman and millionaire.
He smiled a little whimsically, a little wanly, as he stole back across
the room. It was a strange life, a _dangerous_ life! He wondered often
enough, as he was wondering now, what the end of it would be--would he
find the Tocsin--or would he find death at the hands of the
underworld--or judicial murder at the hands of the law for a hundred
crimes attributed to the Gray Seal! Crimes! The smile grew serious and
wistful, as he knelt on the floor and began to loosen the section of the
baseboard in front of him. There had never been a crime committed by the
Gray Seal! Yes, it was strange, bizarre, incredulous even to himself
sometimes, this life of his--the strange partnership formed so long ago
now with _her_, the Tocsin, who had prompted those "crimes" that righted
a wrong, that brought sunlight into some life where there had been gloom
before, and hope where there had been misery--and the love that had
come--and then disaster again, and her disappearance--and his resumption
once more of a dual life and a role in the underworld--and, yes, in
spite of her own danger, those "calls to arms" to the Gray Seal again
for the sake of others, while she refused, through love for him, through
fear of the peril that it would bring him, help for herself.
He shook his head, as, the base-board removed now, he reached into the
hollow beyond for the neatly-folded, expensively-tailored tweeds of
Jimmie Dale. She was wrong in that. Could anything add to the peril in
which he lived, as it was! If only in some way he might reach her, see
her, talk to her, if only for a moment, he could make her see that, and
understand, and--
A low, startled cry burst suddenly from his lips; he felt the blood ebb
from his cheeks--and surge back again in a burning, mighty tide. It was
dark, he could not see; but those wonderfully sensitive finger tips,
that were ears and eyes to Jimmie Dale, were telegraphing a wild, mad,
amazing message to his brain. The Tocsin had been here--here in the
_Sanctuary_! She had been here--here in this room--and within the last
few hours--sometime since seven o'clock that evening, when, as Jimmie
Dale, he had come here to assume the role of Smarlinghue preparatory to
his vigil in Foo Sen's!
His hand, thrust in through the opening to reach for his clothes, had
found an envelope where it lay on the top of the folded garments--and
his hand was still thrust inside--there was no need to look--the texture
of the paper was hers--_hers_--the Tocsin's! The blood was racing
wildly through his veins. There was a mad joy upon him--and a sense of
keen and bitter emptiness. Wild thoughts, in lightning flashes, swept
his brain. She must have been here, then, many times before ... she knew
the Sanctuary as well as he did ... she knew the secret hiding place
behind the base-board ... she had come, of course, knowing he was absent
... she might come some day _thinking_ he was absent ... yes, why
not--why not ... perhaps--perhaps that was the way ... some day she
might come again....
He laughed a little in a shaken way, and drew out the letter. With a
mental wrench, he forced his mind into a calmer state. It was very
singular that she should have placed the letter in that hiding place!
It could evidence but one thing--that the contents of the letter,
unlike any she had ever written before, were not of a pressing nature,
for she would know very well that it might have been many hours, days
even, before he might go there for the clothes of Jimmie Dale again!
What, then, did it mean? Had she decided at last to tell him all, to
let him take his place beside her, share her danger, fight with her!
Was that it?
He reached hurriedly into the opening again, drew out the little
leather girdle, and from one of its pockets took out a flashlight. He
had not dared to light the gas before; dressed, or, rather, undressed,
as he was at present, and no longer Smarlinghue, he dared much less to
light it now.
He tore the envelope open, and, still kneeling on the floor, the
flashlight upon the pages, began to read:
"Dear Philanthropic Crook: You will be surprised to find this letter in
such a place, won't you? Yes, you are quite right, for once, as you will
already have told yourself, there is no hurry--for it is too late to
hurry. Listen, then! Henry Grenville's safe--the old East Side lawyer,
you know--"
He had read eagerly so far. He stared at the letter now, and the words
only danced in an unmeaning jumble before him. It was not for herself,
it was not that she had thrown the barriers down and was bidding him
come to her; it was again another "call to arms" to the Gray Seal--and
for another's sake. And there came to Jimmie Dale a miserable
disappointment, for his hope, shattered now, had been greater than he
had admitted even to himself. And then he was aware that,
subconsciously, it had seemed to him a most curious coincidence that the
letter should be dealing with the robbery of Henry Grenville's safe that
night. Yes, certainly, it was a most curious coincidence, when he was
even then on his way--to the Rat! He shrugged his shoulders in his
whimsical way. Well, for once, he had forestalled the Tocsin! There
could be little here that he did not already know. He began to read
again, but skimming over the words and sentences hurriedly now.
"... Curley ... liquor business ... buying out partner, Haines ... this
afternoon ... fifteen thousand dollars ... large bills, one-hundred,
five-hundred and thousand-dollar denominations ... sealed in envelope by
Grenville ... placed by Grenville in his safe ... head of one of the
most successful and desperate gangs in the country ... years under cover
through position occupied ... take your time, Jimmie, and be careful
before you act ... rest of gang is 'working' Boston and New England this
week ... backyard from lane, high board fence ... in cellar ... cleverly
concealed door at right of coal bin ... knot in wood seventh board from
wall on level with your shoulders ... short passage beyond leading to
door of den ... sound-proof room ... exit through other side ... sliding
panel to room above ... opened by hanging weight inside ..."
In a stunned way now, Jimmie Dale stared for a long minute at the
letter in his hand--then he read it again--and yet again. And then, the
flashlight out, as he tore the letter into fragments, he stared again,
for a long minute--into the blackness.
It was damnable, it was monstrous, this thing that he had read; it
plumbed the dregs of human deviltry--but for once the Tocsin was at
fault. Of the plot that had been hatched, of those details that she
described, there could be no doubt, there was no question there, and
there the Tocsin, he knew, had made no mistake; but the Tocsin, yes, and
those who had hatched the crime themselves, had taken no account of the
possible intervention of an outsider in the person of--the Rat! There
was even a sort of grim irony in it all--that the Rat should quite
unconsciously have feathered his nest at the expense of a far more
elaborately arranged crime than his own, and at the expense of those who
were of even a more abandoned, dangerous and unscrupulous type of
criminal than himself!
Jimmie Dale's face hardened suddenly--and suddenly he stooped and pulled
his clothes from their hiding place, and began to dress. For once, his
inside information outreached hers. It was still--the Rat. Her letter
changed nothing, save that afterwards, perhaps--well, that afterwards,
perhaps, there was another, others beside the Rat, with whom an
accounting would be made!