THE OLD-CLOTHES SHOP
Ten minutes later, still in the heart of the East Side, Jimmie Dale
reached his destination, and paused on the edge of the sidewalk,
ostensibly to light a cigarette while he looked tentatively around him,
before the entrance to a courtyard that ran in behind a row of cheap and
shabby tenements. He shook his head, as he tossed the match away. It was
still early; there were too many people about, to say nothing of the
group of half-naked children playing in the gutter under the street lamp
in front of the courtyard entrance, and "Smarlinghue" was far too well
known a character in that section of the Bad Lands to warrant him in
taking any chances. If anything was wrong in Melinoff's dingy little
place behind there, if anything had transpired, or was about to
transpire that would ultimately, say, invite the attention of the
police, it might prove extremely awkward--for Smarlinghue--should it be
remembered that he had entered there! There was a better way--a much
better way, and one that was exceedingly simple. It would hardly
occasion any comment, even if he were noticed, if he entered one of the
_tenements_, where, with probably a dozen families living in as many
rooms, one could come and go at all hours without question or hindrance.
He moved slowly along, and, out of the radius of the street lamp now and
away from the children, paused again, this time before the last tenement
in the row that the front of the courtyard in the rear. For the moment
there were no pedestrians in the immediate neighbourhood, and Jimmie
Dale, stepping through the tenement doorway, gained the narrow,
unlighted hall within. He stopped here, hugged close against the wall,
to listen, and, hearing or seeing nothing to disturb him, moved forward
again, silently, without a sound, along the hall. There must be, he
knew, a rear exit to the courtyard behind. Yes--here it was! He had
halted again, this time before a door. He tried it, found it unlocked,
opened it, stepped outside, and closed the door behind him.
It was dark out here in the courtyard, and objects were only faintly
discernible; but there were few localities in that neighbourhood with
which Jimmie Dale, either as Smarlinghue, or in the old days as Larry
the Bat, was not intimately acquainted. To call it a courtyard hardly
described the place. It was more an open backyard common to the row of
tenements, and rather narrow and confined in space at that. It was
dirty, cluttered with rubbish, and across it, facing the rear of the
tenements, was a small building that many years ago had been, possibly,
a stable or an outhouse belonging to some private and no doubt
pretentious dwelling, which long since now, with the progress northward
of the city, had been supplanted by the crowded, poverty-stricken, and
anything but pretentious tenements. This outhouse had been to a certain
extent remodelled, and to a certain extent made habitable, and as long
as any one could remember Melinoff with his old-clothes shop had been
its tenant.
Jimmie Dale began to make his way cautiously across the yard, wary of
the tin cans and general rubbish which an inadvertent step might
metamorphose most effectively into a decidedly undesirable advertisement
of his presence. There was no light that he could see in Melinoff's at
all; and he frowned now in a puzzled way. Had the Pippin been and gone;
or was he, Jimmie Dale, ahead of the Pippin? The Pippin would have had
ample time, of course, to get here, for he, Jimmie Dale, had probably
remained in Bristol Bob's a good half hour after the Pippin had left. In
that case, then, Melinoff must have gone away with the Pippin
again--that would account for there being no light. But, on the other
hand, if the Pippin had not yet arrived, and Melinoff _expected_ the
visit, it was most curious that the place was in darkness!
And then Jimmie Dale smiled a little mockingly at himself. His
deductions would perhaps have been of infinitely more value if he had
first waited to make sure of the premise on which they were based! As
a matter of fact, there _was_ a light! He had reached the front of the
little place, and peering cautiously through the window could make
out, across the black interior, a thread of light that came through
the crack of a closed door, and from what was, evidently, another room
in the rear.
Jimmie Dale's fingers closed on the heavy, cumbersome, old-fashioned
door latch, pressed it down noiselessly, and exerted a little tentative
pressure on the door itself. It was locked. A minute passed in absolute
silence, as a little steel instrument was inserted in the lock--and then
the door swung inward and was dosed again, and Jimmie Dale, rigid and
motionless, stood inside.
He was listening now for some sound, the sound of voices, or the sound
of movement from that lighted room. There was nothing. Jimmie Dale's
lips tightened suddenly. It was very curious! There was an "upstairs" to
the place, such as it was, but if Melinoff was up there alone, or with
the Pippin, they were up there in the dark unless they were in the rear
upstairs room; in which case they could not, in view of the ramshackle
nature of the building, have made the slightest movement without making
themselves heard from where he stood.
From his pocket Jimmie Dale produced a flashlight. The ray played once,
as though with queer, diffident curiosity, about him, swept once more in
a circuit around the room, swiftly, in an almost startled way this
time--and there was darkness again. And, instead of the flashlight,
Jimmie Dale's automatic was in his hand now, and he was moving quickly
and silently forward toward that thread of light and the closed door
leading into the rear room.
Around him everything was in disorder; not the disorder habitual to such
a place where odds and ends of the heterogeneous accumulation of
Melinoff's stock in trade might be expected to be deposited wherever
convenience and not system dictated, but a disorder that seemed to hold
within itself something of ominous promise. Old clothes, for instance,
that might at least have been expected, even with the most profound
carelessness and indifference, to have received better treatment, were
strewn and scattered about the floor in all directions.
And now Jimmie Dale stood still again. There was a sound at last; but a
sound that he could not immediately define. It came from the room
beyond--like a dull, muffled thud mingling with a low, long-drawn gasp.
It was repeated--and then, unmistakably, there came a moan.
In a flash now, Jimmie Dale, his automatic thrust forward, was at the
door. He stooped with his eye to the keyhole; and the next instant,
his face hard and tense, he flung the door open, and jumped forward
into the room.
Those words of the Pippin's note seemed to be searing through his brain
in letters of fire--"go the limit--go the limit." There was no need to
speculate longer on their meaning; they meant--_murder_. On the floor, a
dark ugly, crimson pool beside him, lay Melinoff, the old-clothes
dealer. And as Jimmie Dale sprang to the other's side, there came again
that curious muffled thud--as the old man weakly lifted his head a few
inches from the floor only to have it fall limply back again. The man
was nearly gone--it needed no experienced eye to tell that. Melinoff's
face was grayish in its pallor, and his eyes, open, seemed to have lost
their lustre; but as Jimmie Dale knelt and lifted the man's shoulders
and supported the other's head upon his knee, the light in the
old-clothes dealer's black eyes seemed suddenly to return and to glow
with a strange, passionate, eager fire, as they fixed on Jimmie Dale's
face. Melinoff's lips moved. Jimmie Dale bent his head to Catch the
words that were almost inaudible.
"The--the Pippin. Here"--the old man's hand struggled toward his side
where a dark crimson blotch had soaked his shirt--"here--he--he stabbed
me--because--because--" The voice failed and died away, and the man's
head fell back on Jimmie Dale's arm.
Jimmie Dale raised the other's head gently again.
"Yes!" he said quickly, striving to rouse the other. "Yes; go on! I
understand. The Pippin stabbed you. Because--what? Go on, Melinoff! Go
on! I am listening."
The eyes opened once more--but the light was dying out of them, and they
were filming now. And then suddenly the man forced himself forward into
a sitting posture, and his voice rang wildly through the room:
"It is a lie! A lie! I played square--do you hear! Old Melinoff
played square! I did not understand at first--but I did not
forget. I remembered. Old Melinoff would never forget--never
forget--never for--"
A tremor ran through the old man's form, the voice was stilled--it
was the end.
For a moment, his lips tight and set, Jimmie Dale held the other there
in his arms, as he stared at a little object on the floor where
Melinoff had been lying, and that previously had been hidden beneath
the other's body--an object that glittered and sparkled now as the
light caught it. There had even been then, it seemed, no need for
Melinoff's dying accusation--the evidence of the Pippin's guilt would
have been plain enough to the first person who found old Melinoff and
moved the old man's body. For himself, Jimmie Dale, the Pippin's note,
since it had actuated him in coming here, would have been enough to
have fixed the guilt in his mind where it belonged; but the police, for
instance, would not have been so well informed! The police, however,
would now have all, and more than all the evidence they required. That
little thing that glittered there was one of the Pippin's notorious
diamond-snake cuff links.
Jimmie Dale did not disturb it. He laid old Melinoff back on the floor,
and the old man's body covered the cuff link again as it had done
before. He stood up then, and looked around him. The room seemed to have
been used for no one particular purpose. It was partitioned off from the
shop proper, it was true; but, equally, it appeared to have been used as
a sort of overflow for the shop's stock in trade. Here, as in front,
clothing of all descriptions littered the floor; and also there were
signs that a violent struggle had taken place. The room, which had
obviously served, apart from being a store-room, as kitchen, dining
room, and, in fact, for everything save a bedroom, was in a state of
chaos--chairs were upset, a table stood up-ended against the wall, aid
broken crockery was strewn everywhere.
At the rear of the room was another door. Jimmie Dale reached up, turned
off the gas-jet, crossed to the door, found it unlocked, opened it a few
inches, and looked out. It gave on the rear of the courtyard, and in the
darkness he could just make out a high fence that bordered the adjoining
property. It was presumably the way by which the Pippin had made his
escape, since he, Jimmie Dale, had found the front door locked.
He closed the door again, relighted the gas, and, moving swiftly now,
passed through into the shop and locked the front door. Then, returning
to the upper end of the shop close to the connecting door, which he
closed until it was just ajar, Jimmie Dale slipped a black silk mask
over his face, seated himself on a box of some sort that he found at
hand, and, save that his fingers mechanically tested the automatic in
his hand, remained motionless, his eyes fixed on the rear door across
the lighted room in which old Melinoff lay.
It was dark here and silent, except that from out across the courtyard
came faintly now and then the voices of the children at play in the
gutters, and except that a faint glow stole timidly out from the
slightly opened door only to merge almost immediately with the
surrounding blackness. The tight lips had curved downward at the
corners of his mouth into a grim, merciless droop; and into the dark,
steady eyes there had come a smouldering fire. It was a brutal,
cowardly thing that had been done there in that room, and the Pippin
had finished his work and gone--but it was not at all unlikely that the
Pippin would be back!
The sharp lines at the corners of Jimmie Dale's mouth grew a little more
pronounced. Nor should the Pippin be long in returning! A man could not
very well lose a cuff link and be unaware of that fact for any extended
length of time. And that cuff link was damning, irrefutable,
incontrovertible evidence, exactly the evidence the police required to
convict the guilty man! Yes, undoubtedly, the Pippin would be back--and
at any moment now. Figuring that the Pippin had left Bristol Bob's half
an hour before he, Jimmie Dale, had started out, and allowing, say,
twenty minutes for the struggle and subsequent murder here, the Pippin
could only have been gone a matter of some ten minutes. In the
excitement, and probably a run through lanes and alleyways, it was quite
possible that the Pippin would not have noticed his loss in that length
of time; but he could not, with a loose cuff, and especially when it was
usually fastened by so highly prized a link, have remained much longer
than that in ignorance of his loss.
Jimmie Dale smiled grimly now in the darkness. It was almost analogous
to Meighan's waiting for the return of the Magpie, except that he,
Jimmie Dale, had neither the desire nor the intention of usurping the
functions of the police. "Smarlinghue," for very obvious reasons, could
neither appear nor bear witness in the case; he could take no chances of
the discovery being made that "Smarlinghue" was but a _character_ that
cloaked Jimmie Dale and the Gray Seal--and, above all, he could take no
chances to-night when at last he was on the threshold of the return to
his old normal life again! But he had, nevertheless, no intention of
permitting the Pippin to elude the law, or to escape the consequences of
the act to which that mute form lying in there on the crimsoned floor
bore hideous testimony. The cuff link, obviously loosened and dropped
unnoticed on the floor during the struggle, would not only connect the
Pippin with the crime, but would convict him of it as well; he, Jimmie
Dale, therefore, did not propose to allow the Pippin to return and
remove that evidence--that was all. It should not be very difficult to
prevent it; nor should it even necessitate his showing himself to the
Pippin. A shot, for instance, fired at the floor, as the Pippin stole in
through that rear door again should be enough to send the man flying
back for shelter to the recesses of the underworld. The Pippin's nerves,
as he crept back to the scene of his crime, would be badly frayed and
unstrung, unless he was a man lacking wholly in imagination, which the
Pippin, once having been an actor, inherently could not be; and, coupled
with this, prompting the Pippin to run at once for cover, would be the
fact that he could not by any means be certain that the link had been
lost there in the room itself, since it might equally have, been forced
loose during his escape, say, for instance, while climbing the series of
backyard fences that would have confronted him from the moment he left
Melinoff's rear door--providing always, of course, that the Pippin, as
it seemed logical and as the evidence seemed to indicate, _had_ made his
escape in that manner.
The minutes passed; at first quickly enough, and then they began to drag
heavily. Jimmie Dale's mind was back now on old Melinoff. What had the
man meant by his feverish, eager, pitiful insistence that he had not
forgotten, that he had remembered, that he could never forget, and that
he had not understood at first? The answer to that question would supply
the motive for the Pippin's crime, and for half an hour, sitting there
in the darkness, Jimmie Dale pondered the question, but the answer would
not come. There were theories without number that he could formulate;
but theories at best were indefinite. What had Melinoff meant by saying
he had played square? Was it some previous criminal undertaking between
himself and the Pippin, in which the Pippin believed himself to have
been betrayed by Melinoff, while Melinoff, on the other hand, protested
that--and then Jimmie Dale shrugged his shoulders impatiently. What was
the use of speculation? The vital matter of the moment was the Pippin's
delay in returning for that cuff link!
Another fifteen minutes passed, and still another--and then Jimmie Dale
restored his mask to his pocket, rose from his seat, and made his way to
the front door of the shop. He had waited there a full hour and over
now, his only purpose had been to prevent the removal of the evidence of
the Pippin's guilt by the Pippin, and logic told him it was useless to
wait longer. It was only fair to assume that the Pippin would have
discovered his loss within a reasonably short time after leaving
Melinoff's; and, granting that, it was absolutely certain that the
Pippin, if he were coming back at all, would have come without an
instant's delay if he believed that his life hung on the recovery of his
property. He had not come, and therefore, conversely, the Pippin must
have weighed the chances and concluded that the risk attendant on his
return to the scene of his crime was greater than the risk he ran of the
cuff link having been lost in that exact spot. Nor was the Pippin's
presumed reasoning entirely faulty--from the Pippin's standpoint. It was
obvious that he did not know _where_ he had lost the link; it was only a
_chance_ that he had lost it on the actual scene of the crime; and even
if he had lost it there, and even if he returned, it was only a _chance_
that he would be able to find it again--and against this was the very
grave risk and danger of returning to Melinoff's after having once got
safely away. But whatever the Pippin's reasoning might have been, the
one morally certain fact remained--every minute of delay increased the
risk that the cuff link would be found by some one else, and if the
Pippin were coming back at all he would have been back long before this.
Jimmie Dale closed the door of the old-clothes shop behind him, crossed
the yard, and using the back door of the tenement again; gained the
street. Well, he was quite satisfied! The hour he had spent there
mattered little. He had desired only one thing--that the evidence of the
Pippin's guilt should not be disturbed. And for the rest--he smiled
whimsically as he started briskly along the street--there was
Carruthers, of the _Morning News-Argus,_ who, if, in the old days, he
had been one of the most dogged and relentless in his efforts to run the
Gray Seal to earth, was at the same time, though without knowing
it--Jimmie Dale's smile broadened--the Gray Seal's most intimate friend
and old college pal! If the Pippin was just as surely brought to book
that way, why do old Carruthers and his sheet out of a "scoop"!
Jimmie Dale made his way rapidly now over to the Bowery, and here headed
in an uptown direction. Two blocks further along, however, on the corner
occupied by the Crescent saloon, he turned into the cross street, and
passed in through the saloon's side entrance. The Crescent saloon, as he
had previously more than once had occasion to remark, was nothing if not
thoughtful of the peculiar needs of its somewhat questionable class of
patrons. Around the corner of the little passageway, just as it turned
into a small lounging room before the barroom proper was reached, was a
telephone booth whose privacy could scarcely be improved upon. He opened
the door of the booth, stepped inside, and closed the door carefully and
tightly behind him. The _Argus_ being a morning paper, Carruthers,
except on very rare occasions, was always to be found at his office
until late into the night; but Jimmie Dale, having deposited his coin in
the slot, was rewarded with the information that he had met with one of
those "rare occasions." Carruthers was at his home on Long Island, and
had not been at the office at all that day. Jimmie Dale shrugged his
shoulders, as he found and gave the Long Island number. It did not
matter very much; it was simply the difference in time, amounting to,
say, the half hour or so that it would take Carruthers to get back to
the city and act.
The 'phone was answered.
"Mr. Carruthers, if you please ... yes, personally," said Jimmie Dale
pleasantly.
There was a moment's wait, then Jimmie Dale spoke again--his voice still
pleasant, but changed in pitch and register to a bass that was far from
Jimmie Dale's, though one that Carruthers might possibly remember!
"Mr. Carruthers? ... Good evening, Mr. Carruthers--this is the Gray Seal
speaking, and I--" A receptive smile stole suddenly across Jimmie
Dale's lips--Carruthers, to put it mildly, was impulsive. "The Gray
Seal--yes. I can hear _you_ perfectly.... What? ... No, it is not a
hoax!"--Jimmie Dale's voice had sharpened perceptibly--"I called you
once before, you will perhaps remember though it is a very long time
ago, in reference to a certain diamond necklace and a--you will pardon
the term--gentleman by the name of Markel. ... Ah, you recognise the
Gray Seal's voice now, do you! ... No, don't apologise.... I thought
perhaps you might be interested in the possibility of another scoop....
Yes, quite so! ... I would suggest then that you get the police to
accompany you to the back room of Melinoff's, the old-clothes dealer's
shop.... Yes, I thought you might know the place. Perhaps, too, you know
of a man who is commonly called the Pippin? ... No? Well, no matter. The
police do! You'll find the evidence under Melinoff's body.... I beg your
pardon? ... Yes--murder.... What? ... It is a cuff link, the Pippin's
cuff link, that was dropped in the struggle.... What? ... No, I do not
know why; I have told you all I know. There is nothing more, Mr.
Carruthers--except that I should advise you to work as quickly as
possible, as otherwise some one may stumble on the crime before you do.
Good-night, Mr. Carruthers."
Carruthers was still talking, wildly, excitedly. Jimmie Dale calmly hung
up the receiver, left the telephone booth, and went out to the street
again--by the side entrance. If Carruthers made inquiry of central as to
where the call had come from, the reply that it was from the Crescent
saloon would in no way serve Carruthers, or any one else. No one, even
in the Crescent saloon, would be able to furnish any information as to
who had telephoned. It was, therefore, in a word, up to Carruthers now;
the Pippin would be brought to account; and as far as he, Jimmie Dale,
was concerned, his connection with the affair was at an end.
Jimmie Dale walked quickly along, turning from one street into another.
Here and there, in front of various resorts, and on the corners, he
passed little groups of men engaged in bated, low-toned conversation.
Ordinarily this would have interested Jimmie Dale, for the groups were
composed, not of ordinary citizens, but of the dregs and scum of the
underworld, and it was evident that something quite out of the usual run
of things had suddenly seized upon the Bad Lands as a subject for
gossip. But it was already long after eleven o'clock, and to-night, with
Melinoff's murder disposed of now, he was through, he hoped, with the
underworld forever. He was anxious only to reach the Sanctuary without
any further delay, and, thereafter, equally without further loss of
time, to get to his home or to the club, where at any moment he might
expect to hear from the Tocsin, and where, most important of all, she
would bare no difficulty in communicating instantly with him.
He turned the corner of the street on which the Sanctuary was
situated--and halted abruptly. A man coming rapidly from the other
direction had grabbed his arm.
"'Ello, Smarly!" greeted the other. "Heard de news?"
Jimmie Dale, with the top of his tongue, shifted the half burnt section
of the cigarette that was hanging from his upper lip to the opposite
corner of his mouth, as he looked at the other. It was the Wowzer, dip
and pick-pocket, the erstwhile pal of one Dago Jim, who, on a certain
night, also of the very long ago, that Jimmie Dale had very good cause
to remember, had killed Dago Jim in a certain infamous dive. Well, if
he, Jimmie Dale, was, after all, to learn the cause of the excitement
that seemed suddenly to have possessed the underworld, he could at least
have asked for no better or more thoroughly posted informant than the
Wowzer. And now his curiosity was aroused. For an instant the idea that
it might be Melinoff's murder flashed across his mind; but he dismissed
that idea at once. Murder was too trite a thing in the underworld to
cause any widespread commotion!
"Hello, Wowzer!" he returned, as he shook his head. "No, I ain't heard
anything."
"Youse can take it from me den," said the Wowzer, "dat dere's something
doin'! Dey got her!"
"Got who?" enquired Jimmie Dale in a puzzled way.
The Wowzer leaned forward secretively.
"Silver Mag!" he said.
It seemed to Jimmie Dale as though the clutch of an icy hand was
suddenly at his heart, as though the ground beneath his feet had grown
suddenly unstable and that the Wowzer's face, close to his own, was
swirling around and around in swift and endless gyrations--but he was
conscious, too, that he was master of himself. The muscles of his face
twitched--but it was to express incredulity. His tongue carried the
cigarette butt languidly back to the other corner of his mouth.
"Aw, go on!" said Jimmie Dale. "Try it on somebody else! Silver Mag
croaked out the night they had that fire down there in the old
tenement."
"Yes, she did--nix!" scoffed the Wowzer, with a short laugh. "De same
way dat blasted snitch of a Gray Seal did--eh? Say, Smarly, I'm handin'
it to youse straight. Dey caught her snoopin' around one of de en-trays
into Foo Sen's half an hour ago. Say, de whole mob all de way up de
line's been tipped off. I'm givin' youse de real thing. Youse must have
been asleep somewhere, or youse'd have been wise before."
"Sure--I believe you!" said Jimmie Dale earnestly. "Who caught
her, Wowzer?"
"De Mole," replied the Wowzer. "An' he's got her now over in his
layout."
It was a moment before Jimmie Dale spoke. There seemed to be a horrible,
ghastly dryness in his mouth; there seemed to well up from his soul and
overwhelm him a world of mocking and sardonic irony. The Mole! The Mole
was the leader of the gang with which the Pippin was allied; it was at
the Mole's place that the Pippin usually lived; it was at the Mole's
place that the police would first institute their search for the
Pippin--and five minutes ago, through Carruthers, he had unleashed the
police! The Wowzer's face seemed to be swirling around and around in
front of him again. To get away--and _think_! He could have groaned,
cried out aloud!
"Say, thanks, Wowzer, for piping me off!" said Jimmie Dale effusively.
"Oh, dat's all right," responded the Wowzer graciously. "Only keep it
under yer hat except wid de crowd. De bulls ain't on, an' de Mole saw
her first--see? Dere ain't goin' to be no buttin' in till she gets hers!
An' de word's out not to do any pushin' an' crowdin' around de Mole's
fer front seats, 'cause den de bulls 'd get wise--savvy? Just leave it
to de Mole--get me?"
"Sure--I get you," said Jimmie Dale. "Well, so long, Wowzer--and
thanks again."
"S'long, Smarly," replied the Wowzer.