THE LAST CARD
Two weeks had gone by--or was it three? How long was it since he had
found the Tocsin's letter in the secret hiding place of the new
Sanctuary! It had seemed to him then that he had been given a new lead,
a new hope; for, once he had recovered from his startled amazement at
the realisation that she was as conversant with the secrets of the new
Sanctuary as she had been with the old, there had come the thought of
turning that very fact to his own account--that if he were unable to
reach or find her by any other means, he might succeed, instead, by
letting her unwittingly come to him. She had come there once to the
Sanctuary when he had been absent; she was almost certain to come there
again--when she _thought_ he was absent! He had put his plan into
execution. For days at a stretch he had remained hidden in the
Sanctuary--and nothing had come of it--and then the inaction, coupled
with the knowledge that the peril which faced her, even though his
previous efforts to avert it had all been abortive, had made it
unbearable to remain longer passive, and he had given it up, and gone
out again, combing and searching through the dens and dives of the
underworld.
That had been two weeks ago--or three. And the net result had
been nothing!
Jimmie Dale allowed the evening newspaper to slip from his fingers. It
dropped to the arm of his lounging chair, and from there to the floor.
It was no use. He had been reading mechanically ever since he had
returned from the club half an hour ago, and he was conscious in only
the haziest sort of way of what he had been reading. The market, the
general news items, the editorials, had all blended one into the other
to form a meaningless jumble of words; even the leading article on the
front page, that proclaimed as imminent the final and complete exposé
of what had come to be known as "The Private Club Ring"--an
investigation that, from its inception, he had hitherto followed
closely, promising as it did to involve and link in partnership with
the lowest of the underworld names that heretofore had stood high up in
the social circles of New York--seemed uninteresting and unable to hold
his attention to-night.
He rose impulsively from his chair, and, walking down the length of the
richly furnished room, his tread soundless on the thick, heavy rug, drew
the portières aside, and stood looking out of the rear window; It was
dark outside, but presently the shadows formed into concrete shapes,
and, across the black space of driveway and yard, the wall of the garage
assumed a solid background against the night. He passed his hand over
his forehead heavily, and a wanness came into his face and eyes. Once
before he had stood here at this window of his den, the room that ran
the entire depth of his magnificent Riverside Drive residence, and old
Jason had stood at the front window--and they had watched, Jason and
he--watched the shadows, that were not shadows of walls and buildings,
close in around the house. That was the night before he had escaped from
the trap set by the Crime Club; the night before the old Sanctuary had
burned down, and police and underworld alike had believed the Gray Seal
buried beneath the charred and fallen walls; the night before she, the
Tocsin, had come for a little while into her own, and for a little
while--into his arms.
His lips twisted in pain. A little while! Days of glad and glorious
wonder! They were gone now; and in their place was emptiness and
loneliness--and a great, overmastering fear and terror that would clutch
at times, as it clutched now, cold at his heart.
It was not so very long ago that night, only a few months ago, but it
seemed as though the years had come and rolled away since then. She was
gone again, driven by a peril that menaced her life into hiding again--a
peril that she would not let him share--because she _loved_ him.
The pain that showed on his twisted lips was voiced in a low,
involuntary cry. Because she loved him! His hands clenched hard. Where
was she? Who was it that dogged and haunted her, that was wrecking and
ruining her life? God knew! And God knew, employing every resource he
possessed, he had done everything he could to reach her. And all that he
had accomplished had been the creation of a new character in the
underworld! That was all--and yet, strangely enough, in that way there
had come to him the one single gleam of relief that he had known, for
out of the creation of that character had sprung again the activities of
the Gray Seal, and with the resumption of those activities, since, as in
the old days, those "calls to arms" of hers had come again he knew that,
at least, she was so far alive and safe.
Jimmie Dale swung from the window, and began to pace rapidly up and down
the room. Safe--yes! But for how long? She had outwitted those against
her up to now, but for how long would--
He had halted abruptly beside the table. Some one was knocking at the
door.
"Come!" he called.
And old Jason entered--and it seemed to Jimmie Dale that he must laugh
out like one suddenly over-wrought and in hysteria. In the old butler's
hand was a silver card tray, and on the tray was--but there was no need
to look on the tray, old Jason's face, curiously mingling excitement and
disquiet, the imperturbability of the butler gone for the nonce, was
alone quite eloquent enough. But Jimmie Dale, master of many things, was
most of all master of himself.
"Well, Jason?" His voice was quiet and contained as he spoke. He reached
out and took from the tray a white, unaddressed envelope. It was from
her, of course--even Jason knew that it was another of those mysterious
epistles, one of the many that had passed through the old butler's
hands, that had in the last few years so completely revolutionised, as
it were, his, Jimmie Dale's, mode of life. "Well, Jason?" He was toying
with the envelope in his hand. "How did it come this time?"
"It was in another envelope, Master Jim, sir--addressed to me, sir,"
explained the old butler nervously. "A messenger boy brought it, sir. I
opened the outside envelope, Master Jim, and--and I knew at once, sir,
that--that it was one of those letters."
"I see." Jimmie Dale smiled a little mirthlessly. What, after all, did
the "how" of it matter? It was a foregone conclusion that, as it had
been a hundred times before, it would avail him nothing so far as
furnishing a clue to her whereabouts was concerned! "Very well, Jason."
His tones were a dismissal.
But Jason did not go; and there was something more in the act than
that of a well-trained servant as the old man stooped, picked up the
newspaper from the floor, and folded it neatly. He laid the paper
hesitantly on the table, and began to fumble awkwardly with the
silver tray.
"What is it, Jason?" prompted Jimmie Dale.
"Well, Master Jim, sir," said Jason, and the old face grew suddenly
strained, "there _is_ something that, begging your pardon for the
liberty, sir, I would like to say. I don't know what all these strange
letters are about, and it's not for me, sir, it's not my place, to ask.
But once, Master Jim, you honoured me with your confidence to the extent
of saying they meant life and death; and once, sir, the night this house
was watched, I could see for myself that you were in some great danger.
I--Master Jim, sir--I--I am an old man now, sir, but I dandled you on my
knee when you were only a wee tot, sir, and--and you'll forgive me, sir,
if I presume beyond my station, only--only--" His voice broke
suddenly; his eyes were full of tears.
Jimmie Dale's hand went out, both of them, and were laid affectionately
on the old man's shoulders.
"I put my life in your hands that night, Jason," he said simply. "Go on.
What is it?"
"Yes, sir. Thank you, Master Jim, sir." Jason swallowed hard; his voice
choked a little. "It isn't much, sir, I--I don't know that it's anything
at all; but nights, sir, when I'm sitting up for you, Master Jim, and
you don't come home, I--"
"But I've told you again and again that you are not to sit up for me,
Jason," Jimmie Dale remonstrated kindly.
"Yes, I know, sir." Jason shook his head. "But I couldn't sleep, sir,
anyway--thinking about it, Master Jim, sir. I--well, sir--sometimes I
get terribly anxious and afraid, Master Jim, that something will
happen to you, and it seems as though you were all alone in this, and
I thought, sir, that perhaps if--if some one--some one you could
trust, Master Jim, could do something--_anything_, sir, it might make
it all right. I--I'm an old man, Master Jim, it--it wouldn't matter
about me, and--"
Jimmie Dale turned abruptly to the table. His own eyes were wet. These
were not idle words that Jason used, or words spoken without a full
realisation of their meaning. Jason was offering, and calling it
presumption to do so, his life in place of his, Jimmie Dale's, if by so
doing he could shield the master whom he loved.
"Thank you, Jason." Jimmie Dale turned again from the table. "There is
nothing you can do now, but if the time ever comes--" He looked for a
long minute into Jason's face; then his hands were laid again on the
other's shoulders, and he swung the old man gently around. "There's the
door, Jason--and God bless you!"
Jason went slowly from the room. The door closed. For the first time
that he had ever held a letter of hers in his hand Jimmie Dale was for a
moment heedless of it. If the time ever came! He smiled strangely. The
love and affection that had come with the years of Jason's service were
not all on one side. Not for anything in the world would he put a hair
of that gray head in jeopardy! It was not lack of faith or trust that
held him back from taking Jason into his full confidence--it was the
possibility, always present, that some day the house of cards might
totter, the Gray Seal be discovered to be Jimmie Dale, and in the ruin,
the disaster, the debacle that must follow, the less old Jason knew, for
old Jason's own sake, the better! It was the one thing that would save
Jason. The charge of complicity would fall to the ground before the old
man's very ingenuousness!
And then Jimmie Dale shrugged his shoulders, a sort of whimsical
fatalistic philosophy upon him, and, as he tore the envelope open, he
sat down in the lounging chair close to the table. Another "call to
arms"! An appeal for some one else--never for herself! He shook his
head. How often had he hoped that the summons, instead, would prove to
be the one thing he asked and lived for--to take his place beside her,
to aid _her_! Not one of these letters had he ever opened without the
hope that, in spite of the intuition which told him his hope was futile,
it would prove at last to be the call to him for herself! Perhaps this
one--he was eagerly unfolding the pages he had taken from the
envelope--perhaps this one--no!--a glance was enough--it was far remote
from any personal relation to her.
"Dear Philanthropic Crook"--he leaned back in his chair, as his eyes
travelled hurriedly over the opening paragraphs, a keen sense of
disappointment upon him, despite the intuition that had bade him expect
nothing else--and then suddenly, startled, tense, he sat upright,
strained forward in his seat. He could not read fast enough. His eyes
leaped over words and sentences.
"... They are playing their last card to-night ... David Archman ... it
is murder, Jimmie ... letter signed J. Barca ... Sixth Avenue stationer
... Martin Moore ... Gentleman Laroque, the gangster ... Niccolo Sonnino
... end house to left of courtyard entrance ... safe in rear room ...
lives alone ... tonight ..."
For a moment Jimmie Dale did not move as he finished reading the letter,
save that his fingers began to tear the pages into strips, and the
strips over and over again into tiny fragments--then, mechanically, he
dropped the pieces into the pocket of his dinner jacket and mechanically
reached for the newspaper that Jason had picked up and laid on the
table. And now a dull red burned in his cheeks, and the square jaw was
clamped and hard. Strange coincidence! Yes, it was strange--but perhaps
it was more than mere coincidence! He had an interest, a very personal,
vital interest in that article on the front page now, in this combine of
those who were frankly of the dregs of the criminal world and those of a
blacker breed who hid behind the veneer of respectability and station.
He read the article slowly. It was but the résumé of the case that had
been under investigation for the past few weeks, the sensation it had
created the greater since the publicity so far given to it had but
hinted darkly at the scope of the exposure to come, while as yet no
names had been mentioned. "The Private Club Ring," as set forth in the
paper, operated a chain of what purported to be small, select and very
exclusive clubs, but which in reality were gambling traps of the most
vicious description--and the field of their operations was very wide and
exceedingly lucrative. Men known to have money, whether New Yorkers or
from out of town, were "introduced" there by "members" whose standing
and presumed respectability were beyond reproach--and they were bled
white; while, to add variety to the crooked games, orgies, revels and
carousals of the most depraved character likewise furnished the lever
for blackmail--the "member" _ostensibly_ being in as bad a hole, and in
as desperate a predicament as the "guest" he had introduced!
The article told Jimmie Dale nothing new, nothing that he did not
already know, save the statement that the evidence now in the possession
of the authorities was practically complete, and that the arrest and
disclosure of those involved might be expected at any moment.
He put down the paper, and stood up--and for the second time that night
began to pace the room. If the article had told him nothing new, it at
least explained that sentence in the Tocsin's letter--_they are playing
their last card to-night._ They must strike now, or never--the exposure
could be but a matter of a few hours off!
A face crowned with its gray hair rose before him, a kindly face, grave
and strong and fine, the face of a man of sterling honesty and
unimpeachable integrity--the face of David Archman, the assistant
district attorney, who had both instituted and was in charge of the
investigation that now threatened New York with an upheaval that
promised to shake many a social structure to its foundations. Yes, they
would play their last card, a vile, despicable and hellish card--but how
little they knew David Archman! They would break his life; it would,
indeed, as the Tocsin had said, be murder--but they would never break
David Archman's unswerving loyalty to principle and duty! They had tried
that--by threats of personal violence, by the offer of bribes in sums
large enough to have tempted many!
His face hard, his forehead gathered in puzzled furrows, Jimmie Dale
stepped to the door, and locked it; then, drawing aside the portière
that hung before the little alcove at the lower end of the room, knelt
down before the squat, barrel-shaped safe, and his fingers began to play
over the knobs and dials.
Yes, it was a vitally personal matter now; there was an added incentive
to-night spurring the Gray Seal on to act. David Archman had been his
father's closest friend; and he, Jimmie Dale, himself had always looked
on David Archman, and with reason, as little less than a second father.
His frown grew deeper--he did not understand. But Tocsin did _not_ make
mistakes. He had had evidence of that on too many occasions when he had
thought otherwise to question it now--but David Archman's son in _this_!
It seemed incredible! The boy, he was little more than a boy, scarcely
twenty, was and always had been, perhaps, a little wild, but a thief, an
associate and accomplice of the city's worst crooks and criminals was
something of which he, Jimmie Dale, had never dreamed until this
instant, and now, while it staggered him, it brought, too, a sense of
merciless fury--a fury against those who would stab like inhuman
cowards, pitilessly, at the father through the son. Their last card! The
safe swung open. Their last card was--Clarie Archman, the son!
He reached into the safe, took out an automatic, and placed it in his
pocket. There was no necessity to go to the Sanctuary--what he would
need was here in duplicate, and it would be Jimmie Dale, not
Smarlinghue, who played the rôle of the Gray Seal to-night. A dozen
small steel picklocks in graded sizes followed the revolver, and
after these a black silk mask and a pocket flashlight--the thin,
metal insignia case containing the little diamond-shaped,
gray-coloured paper seals, never absent from his person since the
night he had lost and recovered it again, was already reposing in an
inner pocket of his clothes.
His face was still hard, as he stood up and closed the safe. The way
out, the way to save David Archman was plain, of course. It was even
simple--if it was not too late! And the way out was another "crime"
committed by the Gray Seal! Instead of Clarie Archman and J. Barca,
alias Gentleman Laroque, robbing the safe of one Niccolo Sonnino, dealer
in precious stones, it would be the Gray Seal--if it was not already too
late to forestall the others!
If it was not too late! He looked at his watch. It was twenty minutes
after eleven. Yes, there should be time; but, if not--what then? And
what of that letter? His teeth clamped. Well, he would try it; and he
would make every second count now! He was lifting the telephone receiver
of the private house installation now, calling the garage. Benson, his
chauffeur, answered him almost on the instant.
"The light touring car, Benson, please, and as quickly as possible,"
said Jimmie Dale pleasantly.
"Yes, sir--at once," Benson answered.
Jimmie Dale replaced the receiver on the hook, and, running now across
the floor, unlocked the door, crossed the hall, and entered his
dressing room. Here, he changed his dinner clothes for a dark tweed
suit--the location of Niccolo Sonnino's place of business was in a
neighbourhood where one in evening dress, to say the least of it,
would not go unobserved--transferred the metal case and the articles
he had taken from the safe to the pockets of the tweed suit, and
descended the stairs.
Standing in the hallway, Jason, that model of efficiency, with an
appraising glance at his master's changed attire, handed Jimmie Dale a
soft hat--and opened the door.
"Benson is outside, Master Jim," said Jason; but the look in the old
man's eyes was eloquent far beyond the respectful and studied quiet of
his words. The old face was pale and grave with anxiety.
"It's all right, Jason--all right _this_ time," Jimmie Dale smiled
reassuringly.
"Thank you, sir," said Jason, in a low voice. "I hope so, sir. And,
begging your pardon, Master Jim, sir, I pray God it is."
And for answer Jimmie Dale smiled again, and passed down the steps, and
entered the car. But the smile was gone as he leaned back in his seat
after giving Benson his directions--speed, and a corner a few blocks
away from Chatham Square--he was not so sure that it was all right. It
was entirely a question of time. Given the time and the
opportunity--Niccolo Sonnino out of the road, for instance--given twenty
minutes ahead of Clarie Archman and Gentleman Laroque, it would be
simple enough. But otherwise--his lips thinned--otherwise, he did not
know. Otherwise, there was promise of strange, grim work before
daylight came, work that might lead him out of necessity to the role of
Smarlinghue, and as Smarlinghue--anywhere! He did not know; he knew only
one thing--that, at any cost, if it lay within any power of his to
prevent it, David Archman should not live a broken man.
The car speeded its way rapidly along in a downtown direction, Benson
keeping, wherever possible, to the unfrequented streets. Jimmie Dale,
busy with his problem, his mind sifting and turning this way and that
the curious, and in some cases apparently conflicting details of the
Tocsin's letter, paid little attention to his surroundings, save to note
approvingly from time to time that a request to Benson to hurry was
equivalent to something perilously near to a contempt of speed laws. It
still seemed incredible that Clarie Archman was a thief, a safe-tapper,
even if but an amateur one. The boy must have travelled a pace of late
that was fast and furious. How had he ever become intimate enough with
Gentleman Laroque to be associated with the other in such a crime as
this? How had Laroque come to play a part in the miserable scheme of
trickery that was the Private Club Ring's last card.
Jimmie Dale shook his head helplessly at the first question--and shook
it again at the second. He knew Laroque--he knew him for one of the most
degraded, as well as one of the most dreaded, gang leaders in crimeland.
Laroque, in unvarnished language, was a devil, and, worse still, a most
callous devil. Laroque stood first and all the time for Laroque. If
murder would either further or safeguard Laroque's personal interests,
Laroque was the sort of man who would stop only to consider, not whether
the murder should be committed, but the method that might best be
employed in order to implicate as little as possible one Laroque! Also,
to those in the secrets of the underworld, Gentleman Laroque added to
his accomplishments, or had done so before he rose to the eminence of
gang leader, the profession of "box-worker"--not a very clever exponent
of the art, crude perhaps in his methods, but at the same time
efficacious, as a dozen breaks and looted safes in the years gone by
bore ample witness.
Grimly whimsical came Jimmie Dale's smile. Gentleman Laroque would have
made a very much better "confidence" man than safe-worker. The man was
suave, polished when he wanted to be, educated; he possessed all the
requisites, and, in abundance, the prime requisite of all--a cunning
that was the cunning of a fox. This might even have explained his
acquaintanceship with Clarie Archman, except for the fact that it did
not explain Clarie Archman's co-operation in a premeditated robbery
with any one!
Again Jimmie Dale shook his head--and there came another question, one
for which no answer, even of a suggestive nature, had been supplied in
the Tocsin's letter. Why had Niccolo Sonnino's safe been selected as the
one especial and desirable nut to crack? He knew Niccolo Sonnino, too,
in a general way, as all who resided near or had any dealings in the
neighbourhood where Sonnino lived, knew the man. True, combined with a
small trade in jewelry and precious stones, the former cheap and the
latter of an inferior grade to fit the purses of his customers, the man
was a money-lender--but in an equally small way. Loans of minor amounts,
a very few dollars as a maximum, was probably the extent of Sonnino's
ventures along this line. Sonnino himself was a crafty little man, but
craftiness, if it did not transgress the law, was not a crime; he was
undoubtedly a usurer in his petty way, and he was both feared and
disliked, but beyond that no one pretended to know anything about him.
Ordinarily, Sonnino's safe, then, might be expected to be rather a
barren affair, hardly a lure for a Gentleman Laroque brand of crook!
Why, then, Sonnino's safe to-night? What was in that letter signed "J.
Barca" that Clarie Archman had received? J. Barca was Gentleman Laroque;
that would have been evident in any case, even if the Tocsin had not
expressly said so--but the letter! Did the letter, apart from its
incriminating ingenuity, supply the answer to his question? Had Sonnino,
for instance, by some lucky turn, disposed of his stock in bulk, and was
thus for the moment in possession of an unusually large amount of cash;
or, inversely, had Sonnino received an unusual stock of stones? Either
of these theories, and equally neither one of them, might furnish the
answer! Jimmie Dale shrugged his shoulders grimly. He would find the
answer--in Sonnino's safe! One thing, however, one thing that might have
had some bearing on Laroque's choice, one thing for which he, Jimmie
Dale, was grateful to Laroque for making such a choice, was that
Sonnino's place lent itself admirably to attack--from the standpoint of
the attacker! A black courtyard, screened completely from the street; a
house that--
Jimmie Dale looked up suddenly, and, as suddenly, leaning forward, he
touched Benson's shoulder. They were just approaching a restaurant and
music hall known as "The Sphinx," that was popular for the moment with
the slumming parties from uptown.
"This will do. You may let me out here at The Sphinx, Benson," he said
quietly; and then, as the car stopped: "I shall not be long,
Benson--perhaps half an hour--wait for me."
Benson touched his cap. Jimmie Dale ran up the steps of the restaurant,
entered, threaded his way through several crowded rooms where the
midnight revelry was in full swing--and passed out of the place by a
convenient rear exit that gave on the adjoining cross street. The car
standing in front of The Sphinx would attract no notice; and he was now
on the same street as Sonnino's place, and only two short blocks away.
He started forward from the restaurant door--and paused, struggling with
a refractory match in an effort to light a cigarette. A man brushed by
him, making for the restaurant door, a tall, wiry-built, swarthy,
sharp-featured man--and Jimmie Dale flipped the stub of his match away
from him, and went on. Sonnino himself! There was luck then at the
start--the coast was clear!