CAUGHT IN THE ACT
It was one of those countless streets on the East Side each so identical
with another--dark, not over clean, flanked on both sides with small
shops, basement stores and tenement dwellings that crowded one upon the
other in a sort of helpless confusion. Jimmie Dale moved quickly along.
The whimsical smile was back on his lips. Sonnino, whose business, the
money-lending end of it, would naturally have kept him late at work, was
now evidently intent on a belated meal; Sonnino, therefore, could be
counted upon as a factor eliminated for at feast the next half hour--and
half an hour was enough, a little more than enough!
Jimmie Dale glanced back over his shoulder. There was no one in sight.
A yard ahead of him, one of those relics of barbaric architecture,
tunnelled as it were through the centre of a building that the space
overhead might not be wasted, was the black driveway that gave
entrance to the courtyard behind, where Sonnino lived alone in one of
a half dozen small, tottering-from-age frame houses. Jimmie Dale drew
closer to the wall, came opposite the driveway--and disappeared from
the street.
It was the Gray Seal now, the professional Jimmie Dale, as silent in his
movements as the shadows about him. He traversed the driveway, and
emerged on the courtyard. Here, it was scarcely less dark. There was no
moon, and no lights in any of the houses that made the rear of the
courtyard. He could just discern the houses as looming shapes against
the sky line, that was all.
He crossed the courtyard, and, reaching the line of door-stepless,
poverty-stricken hovels--they appeared to be little more than
that--crept stealthily along to the end house at the left, halted an
instant to press his face against a black window pane, then tried the
door cautiously. It was locked, of course. Again there came the
whimsical smile, but it was almost hidden now by the black silk mask
that he slipped quickly over his face. His finger tips, that were like a
magical sixth sense to Jimmie Dale, embodying all the other five, felt
tentatively over the lock, then slipped into his pocket, selected
unerringly one of his picklocks, and inserted the little steel
instrument in the keyhole. An instant more and the door was opening
without a sound under Jimmie Dale's hand. And then, the door open, he
stepped over the threshold, and, in the act of closing the door behind
him, stood suddenly rigid--and where the whimsical smile had been
before, his lips were now compressed into a thin, straight line.
"What's that?" came a hoarse, shaken whisper out of the blackness
beyond.
"What's _what_?" demanded another voice--the whisper this time sharp and
caustic. "I didn't hear anything!"
"Neither did I," admitted the first speaker. "It wasn't that--it was
like a draft of air--as though the door or a window had been opened."
"Forget it!" observed the second voice contemptuously. "Cut out the
jumps--we've got to get through here before Sonnino gets back. You'd
make a wooden Indian nervous!"
There was silence for an instant, then a curious gnawing sound
punctuated with quick, low, metallic rasps as of a ratchet at work--and
upon Jimmie Dale for a moment came stunned dismay. Time, the one factor
upon which he had depended, was lost to him; Clarie Archman and
Gentleman Laroque were already at work in there in that room beyond. He
stood motionless, his brain whirling; and then slowly, without a sound,
an inch at a time, he began to close the door behind him. He could see
nothing; but the door connecting the two rooms was obviously open--the
distinctness with which the whispering voices had reached him was proof
of that. They were working, too, without light, or he would have got a
warning gleam when he had looked through the window. And now--what now?
The picklock was shifted to his left hand, as he drew his automatic from
his pocket. There was only one answer to the question--to play the game
out to the end, whatever that end might be!
Beneath the mask his face drew into chiselled lines, as the picklock
silently locked the door. There was one exit from that inner room, and
only _one_--through the room in which he stood. The Tocsin had drawn an
accurate word-plan of the crude, shack-like place, and now in his mind
he reconstructed it here in the darkness. The doorway into a small hall
that led to the stairs adjoined the doorway of that inner room where
the two were now at work--and in that room were no windows, it was a
sort of blind cubby-hole where Niccolo Sonnino transacted his most
private business.
Jimmie Dale crept forward up the room. There was no answering creak of
board or flooring, no sound save that gnawing sound, and the rasping
click of the ratchet. His place of vantage was against the wall between
the two doors--there, he could both command the exit from, and see into,
the inner room, while the doorway into the hall provided him with a
means of retreat should the necessity arise. And then, suddenly,
halfway up the room, he dropped down behind what was evidently a
jeweller's workbench. A whisper, obviously Laroque's this time, came
once more from the inner room.
"Shoot the flash again!" And then, savagely: "Curse it, not on the
_ceiling_! Can't you hold it steady! What the devil is the matter
with you!"
There was no answer. A dull glimmer of light filtered through the
doorway, but from the position in which he lay Jimmie Dale could
distinguish nothing in the inner room itself.
"All right! That'll do!" Laroque growled presently.
The light went out. Jimmie Dale crept forward again. And now he gained
the rear wall of the room, and crouched down close against it between
the two doorways.
Came the sound of breathing now, heavy, as from sustained exertion,
making almost an undertone of the steady _click-click-click_ of the
ratchet, and the sullen gnaw of the bit. The minutes passed. The
flashlight went on again--and Jimmie Dale strained forward. Two dark
forms, backs to him, were outlined against the face of the safe which
was at the far side of the room, a nickel dial glistened in the white
ray--he could make out nothing else.
Then darkness again. And again, after a time, the flashlight. Ten,
fifteen, perhaps twenty minutes dragged by. Jimmie Dale might have been
a shadow moving against the wall for all the sound he made as he changed
his cramped position; but, just below the mask, his lips were pressed
fiercely together. Would Gentleman Laroque never get through! Sonnino
was not only likely to return in a very few minutes now, but was almost
certain to do so. Under his breath Jimmie Dale cursed the gangster's
bungling methods--and not for their crudity alone. His first impulse
had been to surprise the two, hold them up at the revolver point, but
the result of such an act would have been abortive, for the disfigured
safe would stand a mute, incontrovertible witness to the fact that an
_attempt_ to force it had been made--and, whether it was actual robbery
or attempted robbery that was proved against the son, it in no way
deflected the blow aimed at David Archman. And, besides, there was the
letter! If he, Jimmie Dale, had been in time even to have prevented
Gentleman Laroque from sinking a bit into the safe, the letter would
have counted not at all--but now it counted to the extent that it
literally meant life and death. Who had it? Not Clarie Archman--that was
certain. And the Tocsin had not said--obviously because she, too, had
been in the dark in that respect. Therefore he could only wait, watch
and follow every move of the game throughout the rest of the night, if
necessary! It was the only course open to him; the letter, not the
robbery, was paramount now.
A curious, muffled, metallic thump, mingled with a quick, low-breathed,
triumphant oath, came suddenly from the inner room--and then Laroque's
voice, eager, the words clipped off as though in feverish elation:
"There she is! One nice little job--eh? Well, come on--shoot your light
into her, and let's take a look at the Christmas tree!"
The flashlight's ray flooded the interior of the open safe. Laroque, on
his knees, laughed suddenly, and thrust his hand inside.
"What did I tell you, eh?" he chuckled. "I got the straight tip, eh?
Four thousand, if there's a cent!"
Laroque began to remove what were evidently packages of banknotes from
the safe--but Jimmie Dale was no longer watching the scene. He had edged
suddenly back into the doorway of the hall, and was listening now
intently. A footstep--he could have sworn he had caught the sound of a
footstep--seemed to have come from just outside the front window. But
all was still again. Perhaps he had been mistaken. No! Slight as was the
sound, he heard, unmistakably now, a key grate in the lock--and then,
stealthily, the front door began to open.
A bewildered look came into Jimmie Dale's face, as he retreated further
back into the hallway itself now. It was probably Sonnino; but why did
Sonnino come stealing into his own house like--well, like any one of the
three predatory guests already there before him? And then Jimmie Dale's
face cleared. Of course! From the window the glow of the flashlight in
the inner room could be seen. Sonnino was forewarned, and
undoubtedly--forearmed!
The front door closed softly, so softly that had Jimmie Dale,
supersensitive as his hearing was, not been intent upon it, it would
have escaped him. The glow from the inner room, faint as it was,
threw into shadowy relief a man's form tiptoeing forward--and then a
board creaked.
"_What's that_!" came in a wild whisper from Clarie Archman.
"Got 'em again!" Laroque snapped back. "You make me tired!"
"Let's get out of here! Let's get out of here--quick!" Clarie Archman's
voice, not so low now, held a tone of frantic appeal.
"Nix!" said Laroque, in a vicious sneer. "Not till the job's done! D'ye
think I'm going to spend half an hour cracking a safe and take a chance
of missing any bets? We've got the coin all right, but there ought to
be one or two of Sonnino's sparklers lying around in some of these
drawers, and--"
There was a click of an electric-light switch, a cry from Clarie
Archman, the inner room was ablaze with light, and--Jimmie Dale had
edged forward again out of the hallway--Sonnino, revolver in hand, was
standing just over the threshold facing Gentleman Laroque and the
assistant district attorney's son.
Then silence--a silence of seconds that were as minutes. And then
Gentleman Laroque laughed gratingly.
"Hello, Sonnino!" he said coolly. "A little late, aren't you? You've
kept me stalling for the last five minutes. Know my friend--Mr. Martin
Moore, alias Mr. Clarie Archman? Clarie, this is Signor Niccolo Sonnino,
the proprietor of this joint."
And then to Jimmie Dale, where before his mind had groped in darkness to
reconcile apparently incongruous details, in a flash there came the
light. The "plant" was a little more intricate, a little more cunning, a
little more hellish--that was all!
The boy, white to the lips, was swaying on his feet, grasping at the
table in the centre of the room. He looked from one to the other, a
miserable, dawning understanding in his eyes.
"You--you know my name?" His voice was scarcely audible.
"Sure!" said Laroque--and yawned insolently.
"So!" purred Sonnino, in excellent English. "Is it so! A thief! The son
of the so-honest Mister Attorney--a thief!"
"It's a lie!" The boy's hands, clenched, were raised above his head,
and then shaken almost maniacally in Gentleman Laroque's face. "It's
a lie! I--I don't understand, but--but you two, you devils, are
together in this!"
"Sure!" retorted Laroque, as insolently as before--and flung the other's
hands away. "Sure, we are!"
"It's a lie!" said the boy again. "I was in a hole. I needed money. You
told me you knew a man who would lend it to me. That's why I came here
with you, and then--and then you held me here with your revolver, and
began to open that safe."
"Sure!" returned Laroque, for the third time. "Sure--that's right! Well,
what's the answer?"
"This!" cried the boy wildly. "I don't know what your game is, but this
is my answer! Do you think I would have touched that money, or have let
you--once I got out of here where I could have got help! I'm not a
thief--whatever else I may be. That's my answer!"
Niccolo Sonnino's smile was oily.
"It is a little late, is it not?" he leered. "Listen, my little young
friend; I will tell you a story. You work for a bank, eh? The bank does
not like its young men to speculate--yes? But why should you not
speculate a little, a very little, if you like--if you get the very
private and good tips, eh? It is not wrong--no, certainly, it is not
wrong. But at the same time the bank must not know. Very well! They
shall not know--no one shall know. You are not the young Mr. Archman any
more, you are--what is the name?--Martin Moore. But Martin Moore must
have an address, eh? Very well! On Sixth Avenue there is a little store
where one rents boxes for private mail, and where questions are never
asked--is it not so, my very dear young friend?"
The boy was staring in a demented way into Sonnino's face, but he did
not speak.
"Aw, hand it to him straight!" Gentleman Laroque broke in roughly. "I
don't want to hang around here all night. Here, Archman, you listen to
me! We piped you off on that lay about two weeks ago--and it looked good
to us, and we played it for a winner, see? You got introduced to me, and
found me a pretty good sort, and we got thick together--you know all
about that. Also, you get introduced to some new brokers, who said
they'd take good care of your margins--maybe they only ran a
bucket-shop, but you didn't know it! All right! You got snarled up good
and plenty. Yesterday you were wiped out, and three thousand dollars to
the bad besides, and they were yelling for their money and threatening
to expose you. They gave you until to-morrow morning to make good. You
told me about it. I told you this morning I thought I knew a man who
would lend you the coin, and"--he laughed mockingly, and jerked his hand
toward the safe--"well, I led you to it, didn't I?"
"I--I don't understand," the boy mumbled helplessly.
"Don't you!" jeered Laroque. "Well, it looks big enough for a blind man
to see! We've got this robbery wished on you to a fare-thee-well! A
young man who speculates, who uses an assumed name, and runs a private
letter box on Sixth Avenue, and has forty-eight hours in which to square
up his debts or face exposure, has a hell of a chance with a
jury--_not_!"
The boy circled his lips with the tip of his tongue.
"But why--why?" he whispered. "I--I never did anything to you."
"Sure, you didn't!" Laroque's tones were brutally amiable now. "It's
your father. We've an idea that maybe he won't be so keen about going
ahead with that little investigation of the private clubs after we've
put a certain little proposition about his son up to him."
"No, no! No--you won't!" Clarie Archman's voice rose suddenly shrill,
beyond control. "You won't! You can't! You're in it yourselves"--he
pointed his finger wildly at one and then the other of the two
men--"you--you!"
"Think so?" drawled Laroque. "All right, you tell 'em so--tell the jury
about it, tell your father, who is such a shark on evidence, about it.
Sure, I'm in on it with you--but you don't know who I am. They'll have
a hot time finding J. Barca, Esquire! I'm thinking of taking a little
trip to Florida for my health, and my valet's got my grip all packed!
Savvy? And now listen to Sonnino. Sonnino's a wonder in the witness box.
Niccolo, tell the jury what you know about this unfortunate young man."
Sonnino, a wicked grin on his face, made a dramatic flourish with the
hand that held the revolver.
"Well, I was asleep upstairs. I wakened. I thought I heard a noise
downstairs. I listened. Then I got up, and went down the stairs quiet
like a mouse. I turned on the light quick--like this"--he snapped his
fingers. "Two men have broken open my safe, and they have my money, a
lot of money, for I keep all my money there; I do not bank--no. They
rush at me, they knock me down, they make their escape, but I
recognise one of them--it is Mister the young Archman, who I have many
times seen at The Sphinx Café--yes. Well, and then on the floor I find
a letter." He grinned wickedly again. "Have you the letter that I
find--Mister Barca?"
"Sure," said Gentleman Laroque--and reached into his pocket. "It was
addressed to Martin Moore on Sixth Avenue, wasn't it?"
"My God!" It came in a sudden, pitiful cry from the boy, and his hand
involuntarily went to his own pocket. "You--you've got that letter!"
"Do you think you're up against a piker game!" exclaimed Laroque
maliciously. "Well then, forget it! You didn't have this in your pocket
half an hour before it was lifted by one of the slickest poke-getters in
the whole of little old New York." He was taking a letter from its
envelope and opening out the sheet. "That's the kind of a crowd that's
in on this, my bucko! Listen, and I'll read the letter. It looked
innocent enough when you got it, in view of what I told you about
knowing a man who would lend you the money. But pipe how it sounds with
Sonnino's safe bored full of holes. Are you listening? 'It's all right.
Niccolo Sonnino has got his safe crammed full to-night. Meet me at
Bristol Bob's at eleven. J. Barca.'"
There was silence in the room. Clarie Archman had dropped into a
chair, and had buried his face in his arms that were out-flung across
the table.
Then Laroque spoke again:
"Do you see where you stand--Clarie? Tell your story--and it's the
_story_ that sounds like a neat 'plant' of your lawyer's to get you off.
You only get in deeper with the jury for trying to _trick_ them, see?
Here's the evidence--and it's got you cold. Sonnino recognises you. The
letter is identified at the Sixth Avenue place, and _you_ are identified
as the guy that's been travelling under the name of Martin Moore. J.
Barca has flown the coop and can't be found, and--well, I guess you get
it, don't you?"
"What--what do you want?" The boy did not lift his head.
"We want your father to let up, and let up damned quick," said Laroque
evenly. "But we'll give _you_ a chance to get out from under, and you
can take it or leave it--it doesn't matter to us. Your father's got the
papers and the affidavits in the 'Private Club' case in his safe at home
to-night, and a lot of those affidavits he can never replace--we've seen
to that! All right! You've got the combination of the safe. Go home and
get that stuff and bring it here. If it's here by four o'clock--that
gives you about three hours--you're out of it. If it isn't, then your
father gets inside information that the gang is wise to the fact that
his son pulled a break tonight, but that they can keep Sonnino's mouth
shut if he throws up the sponge, and that if he doesn't call it off
with the 'Private Club Ring,' if he's so blamed fond of prosecuting,
he'll get a chance to prosecute his own son--as a thief!"
The boy did not move.
"And just one last word," added Laroque sharply. "Don't make the mistake
of thinking that if you refuse to get the affidavits it puts a crimp in
us. It's only because we're playing white with you, and to give you a
chance, that you're getting any choice at all. We didn't intend to give
you one, but we don't want to be too rough on you, so if you want to get
out that way, and will agree to keep on queering your father's game if
he starts it over again, all right. But you want to understand that we
hold just as big a club over your father's head the other way."
"_White!_ Playing white! Oh, my God!" Clarie Archman had lurched up
from the chair to his feet. His face, haggard and drawn, was the face
of one damned.
"Good-night!" said Laroque callously. "You know the way out! You've got
till four o'clock. If you're not back here then--" He shrugged his
shoulders significantly. "You see, I'm not even asking you what you are
going to do. We don't care. It's up to you. Either way suits us. And
now--beat it!"
Jimmie Dale drew back for a second time that night into the hallway. A
step, slow, faltering, unsteady, like that of a man blinded, passed out
from the inner room, and passed on down the length of the front
room--and the door opened and closed. Clarie Archman, with God alone
knew what purpose in his heart, was gone.
From the thin metal case, by means of the tiny tweezers, Jimmie Dale
took out a gray seal, laid the seal on his handkerchief, folded the
handkerchief carefully, placed it in his pocket--and crept forward
toward the inner door again. The two men were bending over the table,
over the money on the table, dividing it. Jimmie Dale's lips were
mercilessly thin; a fury, not the white, impetuous heat of passion, but
a fury that was cold, deadly, implacable, possessed his soul. He crept
nearer--still nearer.
"The crowd that put this up says we keep it between us for our work,"
said Laroque shortly. "A third for you, the rest for me. You sure you
put _all_ they gave you in the safe--Niccolo?" He screwed up his eyes
suspiciously. "You sure you ain't trying to hold anything out on me? If
you are, I'll make you--"
The words died short on his lips--his jaw sagged helplessly.
Jimmie Dale was standing in the doorway.
"Niccolo, drop that revolver!" said Jimmie Dale softly. His automatic
held a bead on the two men.
The revolver clattered to the table top. Neither of the men spoke--only
their faces worked in a queer, convulsive sort of way, as they gazed in
startled fascination at Jimmie Dale.
"Thank you!" said Jimmie Dale politely. He stepped briskly into the
room, shoved Sonnino unceremoniously to one side, shoved his revolver
muzzle none too gently into Laroque's ribs, and went through the
latter's clothes. "Yes," he said, "I thought quite possibly you might
have one." He pocketed Laroque's revolver, and also Sonnino's from the
table. "And now that letter--thank you!" He whipped the letter from
Laroque's inside coat pocket and transferred it to his own, then
stepped back, and smiled--but the smile was not inviting. "I've only
about five minutes to spare," murmured Jimmie Dale. "I'm in a _hurry_,
Niccolo. I see some wrapping paper and string over there on top of the
safe. Get it!"
The man obeyed mechanically, in a stupefied sort of way, and placed
several of the sheets and a quantity of string upon the table. Laroque,
silent, sullen, under the spell of Jimmie Dale's automatic, watched the
proceedings without a word.
"Now," said Jimmie Dale, and an icy note began to creep into the velvet
tones, "you two are going to make the first charitable contribution you
ever made in your lives--say, to one of the city hospitals. Make as neat
and as small a parcel of that money as you can, Niccolo."
"Not by a damned sight!" Laroque roared out suddenly. "Who the blazes
are you! Curse you, I--" He shrank hastily back before the ominous
outthrust of Jimmie Dale's automatic.
"Wrap it up, Niccolo, and tie a string around it!" snapped Jimmie Dale.
And again, but snarling, cursing now, the man obeyed.
Jimmie Dale's hand went into his pocket, and came out with his
handkerchief. He carried the handkerchief to his mouth, moistened the
adhesive side of the gray paper seal, and pressed the handkerchief down
upon the top of the parcel.
"It would hardly do for any one to know where the money really came
from--would it?" observed Jimmie Dale, and smiled uninvitingly again.
The two men were leaning, straining forward, their eyes on the
diamond-shaped gray seal--and into their faces there crept a
sickly fear.
"The Gray Seal!" Sonnino stumbled the words.
"Put an outside wrapper around that package!" instructed Jimmie Dale
coldly. He watched Sonnino perform the task with trembling fingers; and
then, placing the package under his arm, Jimmie Dale backed to the door.
There was a key in the lock on the inner side. He transferred it coolly
to the outer side--and his voice rasped suddenly with the fury that
found vent at last.
"You are a pair of hell hounds," he said between his teeth; "but you
are angels compared with the gang that hired you for this. Well, the
game is up! David Archman will settle with _them_ when they face the
investigation--and I will settle with _you_! One night, a year ago, in
last January, a certain Fourth Avenue bank was looted of eighteen
thousand dollars--_do you remember, Laroque?_ Ah, I see you do! The
police are still looking for the man who pulled that job. What would you
say, Laroque, would be the sentence handed out for that little affair to
a man with, say, _your_ past record?"
Laroque's lips were twitching; his face had gone gray.
"Fourteen years would be a light sentence, wouldn't it?" resumed Jimmie
Dale, an even colder menace in his voice. "And you remember Stangeist,
and the Mope, and Australian Ike, don't you, Laroque--you remember they
went to the death house in Sing Sing--and you remember that the Gray
Seal sent them there? Yes, I see you do; I see your memory is good
to-night! Listen, then! I have heard it said that Gentleman Laroque,
with his gangsters behind him, would stop at nothing where Gentleman
Laroque's own skin was concerned. I have heard it said that where
Gentleman Laroque was known he was _feared_. Very well, Laroque, it is
your turn to choose. You can choose between yourself and this 'Private
Club Ring' who have purchased your services in this game to-night. I
fancy you can find a means of inducing Sonnino here to keep his mouth
shut; and I fancy that of the two evils--holding young Archman as a club
over his father, or of your employers facing their trial and
conviction--you can convince the 'Private Club Ring' that the lesser,
the lesser as regards _your_ risk, say, is to face that trial and
conviction. Do I make myself plain--Laroque? It is simply a question of
not a word being said of what has happened to-night--or fourteen years
in Sing Sing for you! I do not think you will find the task difficult
when you add, to whatever arguments of your own you may see fit to
employ, the fact that the Gray Seal, if your principals make a move,
will expose them for this night's work on top of what they will already
have to answer for. Well--Laroque?"
There was silence for a minute. Sonnino, cringing, the suavity, the
oiliness of manner gone, a man afraid, kept his eyes on the table, and
kept passing his hands one over the other. Laroque was the gambler--a
twisted smile was forced to his lips.
"You win," he said hoarsely. "You can take it from me, I'll go up the
river for fourteen years for no one--I'll take blasted good care of
that! But you"--a rage, ungovernable and elemental, found voice in a
sudden torrent of blasphemous invective--"you--we'll get you yet! Some
day we'll get you, you cursed snitch, you--"
"Good-night!" said Jimmie Dale grimly, and, stepping swiftly back over
the threshold, shut and locked the door.
He gained the street, gained his car in front of The Sphinx--and, twenty
minutes later, after a break-neck run in which Benson for the second
time that night defied all speed laws, Jimmie Dale alighted from his car
at a street corner well uptown, dismissed Benson for the night, retraced
his way half the distance back along the block, disappeared into a lane,
and presently, taking a high fence with the agility of a cat in spite
of, his encumbering package, dropped noiselessly down into a backyard.
It was well known ground to Jimmie Dale--as a boy he had played here in
the Archman's backyard, played here with Clarie Archman. His face
masked again, he moved swiftly toward the rear of the house. There was
still Clarie Archman. What would the boy do? Jimmie Dale's hand, a
picklock in it again, clenched fiercely. It was a hell's choice they
had given the boy--to rob his father, or go down himself, and drag his
father with him, in ruin and disgrace! What would the boy do? Jimmie
Dale was working silently at the back door now. It opened, and he
stepped inside. He was here well ahead of the other, there was no
possibility, granting even the start the boy had had, that Clarie
Archman could have made the trip uptown in the same time. It was more
likely that the boy might even linger a long while in misery and
indecision before he came home. That was why he, Jimmie Dale, had
dismissed Benson and the car for the night, and--
With a mental jerk, Jimmie Dale focused his mind on his immediate
surroundings. It was dark; there were no lights in any part of the
house, but he needed none, not even his flashlight--he knew the house as
well and as intimately as his own. He was in the rear hall now, and now
he opened a door, paused cautiously as the dull yellow glow from a dying
grate fire illuminated the room faintly, then stepped inside. It was the
Archman library, the room where David Archman did a great deal of his
work at night A desk stood at the lower end of the room; and in the
corner near the portièred windows was the lawyer's safe.
Jimmie Dale closed the door, moved toward the window, drew the
portieres aside, released the window catch, silently raised the window
itself--it was only a drop a few feet to the yard! And then Jimmie Dale
sat down at the desk.
A clock somewhere in the house struck a single note--that would be
halfpast one. Time passed slowly, interminably. The clock struck
again--two o'clock. And then suddenly Jimmie Dale rose from his chair,
and slipped into the window recess behind the portières. The front door
closed, a step came along the hall, the library opened, closed
again--and Clarie Archman, his face as the flickering firelight played
upon it, like a face of death, came forward into the room.
For a moment the boy held motionless beside the desk, his eyes fixed in
a sort of horrible fascination upon the safe--and then, slowly, he moved
toward it, and dropped on his knees before it, and his fingers began to
twirl the knob of the dial. His fingers shook, and he was a long time at
his task--and then the handle turned, and the safe was unlocked, but
Clarie Archman did not open the door. Instead, he drew back suddenly,
and rose swaying to his feet, and covered his face with his hands.
"I can't! Oh, my God, I--I can't!" he moaned. He lowered his hands after
a moment, and gazed around him unseeingly, a queer, ghastly look came
into his face. "I--I guess--I guess there's only one--one way to--to
beat them," he whispered. "One way to beat them, and--"
The package in Jimmie Dale's hand dropped suddenly to the floor, he
wrenched the portières aside, and, with a low, sharp cry, sprang
forward. The boy had taken a revolver from his pocket, and was lifting
it to his head. Jimmie Dale struck up the other's hand--but in time only
to deflect the shot; too late to prevent it being fired. There was a
flash in mid-air, the roar of the report went racketing through the
silent house, and the revolver, spinning from the other's hands, struck
against the wall across the room.
And then Jimmie Dale had the boy by the shoulders, and was shaking him
violently. Clarie Archman was like one stunned, numbed, and bereft of
his senses.
"It's all right--you're clear! Do you hear--try and understand--you're
clear!" Jimmie Dale whispered fiercely. "Here's your letter!" He thrust
it into the other's hand. "Destroy it! Those men--Sonnino--Barca--will
say nothing. You don't owe anybody any money--that bucket-shop was in
the game with the rest, and--" Cries, voices, were coming from above
now; and Jimmie Dale, like a flash, turned from the boy, leaped for the
safe, wrenched the door open, reached in with both hands, and, snatching
up an armful of the contents, spilled books and papers on the floor. He
was back beside the boy in an instant. "Listen! You heard some one in
here as you entered the house--you came into the room--_you caught me in
the act_--you fired--you missed. And now--_fight_! Fight--pull yourself
together--fight. They are coming!"
He caught the boy around the waist, and the two, locked together, reeled
this way and that about the room. A chair, deliberately kicked over by
Jimmie Dale, crashed to the floor. The cries drew nearer. Footsteps came
racing madly down the stairs--and then the door of the library burst
open, and David Archman, in pajamas, dashed through the doorway, and
without a second's hesitation, made for the two struggling forms--and
Jimmie Dale, releasing his hold upon the boy, suddenly sent the other
staggering backwards full into David Archman, checking David Archman's
rush--and, turning, sprang for the window, snatched up his package,
hurled himself over the sill, dropped to the ground, and, racing for the
fence, climbed it, and made the lane, just as a shot, from David
Archman, no doubt, was fired from the window.
A moment more, and Jimmie Dale, his mask in his pocket, had emerged from
the lane, and was walking nonchalantly along to the street corner;
another, and he had boarded a street car--but under Jimmie Dale's coat
was a most suspicious bulge. Conscious of this, he left the street car a
few blocks farther along, when he was far enough away to be certain that
he would have eluded all pursuit--and walked the rest of the distance to
Riverside Drive. If he had escaped unscathed, the package of banknotes
had not--it was his coat that shielded them from view, not the wrappers,
for the wrappers had been torn almost entirely away in his hasty exit
over the fence.
He reached his home, and mounted the steps cautiously. There was Jason
to consider--Jason with his lovable pernicious habit of sitting up for
his master. Jason must not see those banknotes, that was obvious, and if
Jason--yes!--Jimmie Dale was peering now through the monogrammed lace
that covered the plate glass doors in the vestibule--yes, Jason was
still sitting up. And then Jimmie Dale smiled that strange whimsical
smile of his. Jason was still sitting up--asleep in the hall chair.
Softly, without a sound, Jimmie Dale opened the front door, entered,
passed the old man, and went up the stairs. In his dressing room, he hid
away the package that tomorrow, or at the first opportunity, would
enrich some deserving charity, and, as silently as he had come up the
stairs, he descended them again, passed by the old man again, and went
out to the street once more. There was just one reason why Jason, tired
out and asleep, sat there--only one--because Jason, old Jason,
faithful, big-hearted Jason, loved his Master Jim.
Into Jimmie Dale's eyes there came a mist. Perhaps that was why, because
he could not see clearly, that he stumbled on his way up the steps
again; perhaps that was why he made so much noise that it was Jason who
opened the door and held out his hands for Jimmie Dale's coat and hat.
"What!" said Jimmie Dale severely. "Sitting up again, Jason? Jason, go
to bed at once!"
"Yes, sir," said Jason. "Thank you, sir. Thank you, Master Jim,
sir--I will."