THE CRIME CLUB
For what length of time he had remained unconscious, Jimmie Dale had not
the slightest idea. He regained his senses to find himself lying on a
couch in a strange room that had a most exquisitely brass-wrought dome
light in the ceiling. That was what attracted his attention, because
the light hurt his eyes, and his head was already throbbing as though a
thousand devils were beating a diabolical tattoo upon it.
He closed his eyes against the light. Where was he? What had happened?
Oh, yes, he remembered now! That smash on Lower Broadway! He had been
hurt. He moved first one limb and then another tentatively, and was
relieved to find that, though his body ached as if it had been severely
shaken, and his head was bad, he had apparently escaped without serious
injury.
Where was he? In a hospital? His fingers, resting at his side upon the
couch, supplied him with the information that it was a very expensive
couch, upholstered in finest leather. If he were in a hospital, he would
be in a cot.
He opened his eyes again to glance curiously around him. The room was
quite in keeping with the artistic lighting fixture and the refined, if
expensive, taste that was responsible for the couch. A heavy velvet
rug of rich, dark green was bordered by a polished hardwood floor;
panellings of dark-green frieze and beautifully grained woodwork made
the lower walls; while above, on a background of some soft-toned paper,
hung a few, and evidently choice, oil paintings. There was a big,
inviting lounging chair; a massive writing table, or more properly, a
desk of walnut; and behind the desk, his back half turned, apparently
intent upon a book, sat a man in immaculate evening dress.
Jimmie Dale closed his eyes again. There was something reassuring about
it all, comfortably reassuring. Though why there should be any occasion
for a feeling of reassurance at all, he could not for the moment make
out. And then, in a sudden flash, the details of the night came back to
him. The Tocsin's letter--the package he was to get--the taxicab--the
chauffeur, who was not a chauffeur--the chase--the trap. He lay
perfectly still. It was the professional Jimmie Dale now whose brain, in
spite of the throbbing, brutally aching head, was at work, keen, alert.
The chauffeur! What had happened to him? Had the man been killed in the
auto smash; or, less fortunate than himself, fallen into the hands of
those whose power he seemed both to fear and rate so highly? And that
package! Box--what was the number?--yes, 428. What did that mean? What
box? Where was it? Who was John Johansson? He hadn't heard any more than
that; the smash had come then. And lastly, he was back again to the
same question he had begun with: Where was he now himself? It looked as
though some good Samaritan had picked him up. Who was this gentleman so
quietly reading there at the desk?
Jimmie Dale opened his eyes for the third time. How still, how
absolutely silent the room was! He studied the man's back speculatively
for a moment, then his gaze travelled on past the man to the wall,
riveted there, and his fingers, without movement of his arm, pressed
against the outside of his coat pocket. He thought as much! His
automatic was gone!
Not a muscle of Jimmie Dale's face moved. His eyes shifted to a picture
on the wall. THE MAN WAS WATCHING HIM--NOT READING! Just above the level
of the desk, a small mirror held the couch in focus--but, equally,
it held the man in focus, and Jimmie Dale had seen the other's eyes,
through a black mask that covered the face to the top of the upper lip,
fixed intently upon him.
There was a chill now where before there had been reassurance, something
ominous in the very quiet and refinement of the room; and Jimmie Dale
smiled inwardly in bitter irony--his good Samaritan wore a mask! His
self-congratulations had come too soon. Whatever had happened to the
chauffeur, it was evident enough that he himself was caught! What was it
the chauffeur had said? Something about a chance through being unknown.
Was it to be a battle of wits, then? God, if his head did not ache so
frightfully! It was hard to think with the brain half sick with pain.
Those two eyes shining in that mirror! There seemed something horribly
spectre-like about it. He did not look again, but he knew they were
there. It was like a cat watching a mouse. Why did not the man speak,
or move, or do something, and--He turned his head slowly; the man was
laughing in a low, amused way.
“You appear to be taken with that picture,” observed a pleasant voice.
“Perhaps you recognise it from there? It is a Corot.”
Jimmie Dale, with a well-simulated start, sat up--and, with another
quite as well simulated, stared at the masked man. The other had laid
down his book, and swung around in his chair to face the couch. Jimmie
Dale stood up a little shakily.
“Look here!” he said awkwardly. “I--I don't quite understand. I remember
that my taxi got into a smash-up, and I suppose I have to thank you for
the assistance you must have rendered me; only, as I say”--he looked in
a puzzled way around the room, and in an even more perplexed way at the
mask on the other's face--“I must confess I am at a loss to understand
quite the meaning of this.”
“Suppose that instead of trying to understand you simply accept things
as you find them.” The voice was soft, but there was a finality in it
that its blandness only served to make the more suggestive.
Jimmie Dale drew himself up, and bowed coldly.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I did not mean to intrude. I have only to
thank you again, then, and bid you good-night.”
The lips beneath the mask parted slightly in a politely deprecating
smile.
“There is no hurry,” said the man, a sudden sharpness creeping into his
tones. “I am sorry that the rule I apply to you does not work both ways.
For instance, I might be quite at a loss to account for your presence in
that taxicab.”
Jimmie Dale's smile was equally polite, equally deprecating.
“I fail to see how it could be of the slightest possible interest to
you,” he replied. “However, I have no objection to telling you. I hailed
the taxi at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Waverly Place, told the
chauffeur to drive me to the St. James Club, and--”
“The St. James Club,” broke in the other coldly, “is, I believe, north,
not SOUTH of Waverly Place--and on Broadway not at all.”
Jimmie Dale stared at the other for an instant in patient annoyance.
“I am quite well aware of that,” he said stiffly. “Nevertheless I told
the man to drive me to the St. James Club. We came across Waverly Place,
but on reaching Broadway, instead of turning uptown, he suddenly whirled
in the other direction and sent the car flying at full speed down Lower
Broadway. I shouted at the man. I don't know yet whether he was drunk
or crazy or”--Jimmie Dale's eyes fixed disdainfully on the other's
mask--“whether there might not, after all, have been method in his
madness. I can only say that before we had gone more than two or three
blocks, a wild effort on his part to avoid a collision with an auto
swinging out from a side street resulted in an even more disastrous
smash with another on the other side, and I was knocked senseless.”
“'Victim,' I presume, is the idea you desire to convey,” observed the
other evenly. “You were quite the victim of circumstances, as it were!”
Jimmie Dale's eyebrows lifted slightly.
“It would appear to be fairly obvious, I should say.”
“Very clever!” commented the man. “But now suppose we remove the buttons
from the foils!” His voice rasped suddenly. “You are quite as well aware
as I am that what has happened to-night was not an accident. Nor--in
case the possibility may have occurred to you--are the police any the
wiser, save for the existence of two wrecked cars on Lower Broadway, and
another which escaped, and for which doubtless they are still searching
assiduously. The ownership of the taxicab you so inadvertently entered
they will have no difficulty in establishing--you, perhaps, however,
are in a better position than I am to appreciate the fact that the
establishment of its ownership will lead them nowhere. As I understand
it, the man who drove you to-night obtained the loan of the cab from one
of the company's chauffeur's in return for a hundred-dollar bill. Am I
right?”
“In view of what has happened,” admitted Jimmie Dale simply, “I should
not be surprised.”
There was a sort of sardonic admiration in the other's laugh.
“As for the other car,” he went on, “I can assure you that its ownership
will never be known. When the nearest patrolman rushed up, there were
no survivors of the disaster, save those in the third car which he was
powerless to stop--which accounts for your presence here. You will admit
that I have been quite frank.”
“Oh, quite!” said Jimmie Dale, a little wearily. “But would you mind
telling me what all this is leading to?”
The man had been leaning forward in his chair, one hand, palm downward,
resting lightly on the desk. He shifted his hand now suddenly to the arm
of his chair.
“THIS!” he said, and on the desk where his hand had been lay the
Tocsin's gold signet ring.
Jimmie Dale's face expressed mild curiosity. He could feel the other's
eyes boring into him.
“We were speaking of ownership,” said the man, in a low, menacing
tone. “I want to know where the woman who owns this ring can be found
to-night.”
There was no play, no trifling here; the man was in deadly earnest. But
it seemed to Jimmie Dale, even with the sense of peril more imminent
with every instant, that he could have laughed outright in savage
mockery at the irony of the question. Where was she? Even WHO was she?
And this was the hour in which he was to have known!
“May I look at it?” he requested calmly.
The other nodded, but his eyes never left Jimmie Dale.
“It will give you an extra moment or so to frame your answer,” he said
sarcastically.
Jimmie Dale ignored the thrust, picked up the ring, examined it
deliberately, and set it back again on the table.
“Since I do not know who owns it,” he said, “I cannot answer your
question.”
“No! Well, then, there is still another matter--a little package that
was in the taxicab with you. Where is that?”
“See here!” said Jimmie Dale irritably. “This has gone far enough! I
have seen no package, large or small, or of any description whatever.
You are evidently mistaking me for some one else. You have only to
telephone to the St. James Club.” He reached toward his pocket for his
cardcase. “My name is--”
“Dale,” supplied the other curtly. “Don't bother about the card, Mr.
Dale. We have already taken the liberty of searching you.” He rose
abruptly from his chair. “I am afraid you do not quite realise your
position, Mr. Dale,” he said, with an ominous smile. “Let me make
it clear. I do not wish to be theatrical about this, but we do not
temporise here. You will either answer both of those questions to my
satisfaction, OR YOU WILL NEVER LEAVE THIS PLACE ALIVE.”
Jimmie Dale's face hardened. His eyes met the other's steadily.
“Ah, I think I begin to see!” he said caustically. “When I have been
thoroughly frightened I shall be offered my freedom at a price. A sort
of up-to-date game of holdup! The penalty of being a wealthy man! If you
had named your figure to begin with, we would have saved a lot of idle
talk, and you would have had my answer the sooner: NOTHING!”
“Do you know,” said the other, in a grimly musing way, “there has always
been one man, but only one until now, that I have wished I might add
to my present associates. I refer to the so-called Gray Seal. To-night
there are two. I pay you the compliment of being the other. But”--he was
smiling ominously again--“we are wasting time, Mr. Dale. I am willing to
expose my hand to the extent of admitting that the information you are
withholding is infinitely more valuable to me than the mere wreaking of
reprisal upon you for a refusal to talk. Therefore, if you will answer,
I pledge you my word you will be free to leave here within five minutes.
If you refuse, you are already aware of the alternative. Well, Mr.
Dale?”
Who was this man? Jimmie Dale was studying the other's chin, the lips,
the white, even teeth, the jet-black hair. Some day the tables might be
turned. Could he recognise again this cool, imperturbable ruffian who so
callously threatened him with murder?
“Well, Mr. Dale? I am waiting!”
“I am not a magician,” said Jimmie Dale contemptuously. “I could not
answer your questions if I wanted to.”
The other's hand slid instantly to a row of electric buttons on the
desk.
“Very well, Mr. Dale!” he said quietly. “You do not believe, I see, that
I would dare to carry my threat into execution; you perhaps even doubt
my power. I shall take the trouble to convince you--I imagine it will
stimulate your memory.”
The door opened. Two men were standing on the threshold, both in evening
dress, both masked. The man behind the desk came forward, took Jimmie
Dale's arm almost courteously, and led him from the room out into a
corridor, where he halted abruptly.
“I want to call your attention first, Mr. Dale, to the fact that as far
as you are concerned you neither have now, nor ever will have, any idea
whether you are in the heart of New York or fifty miles away from it.
Now, listen! Do you hear anything?”
There was nothing. Only the strange silence of that other room was
intensified now. There was not a sound; stillness such as it seemed to
Jimmie Dale he had never experienced before was around him.
“You may possibly infer from the silence that you are NOT in the city,”
suggested the other, after a moment's pause. “I leave you to your own
conclusions in that respect. The cause, however, of the silence is
internal, not external; we had sound-proof principles in mind to a
perhaps exaggerated degree when this building was constructed. If you
care to do so, you have my permission to shout, say, for help, to your
heart's content. We shall make no effort to stop you.”
Jimmie Dale shrugged his shoulders. He was staring down a brilliantly
lighted, richly carpeted corridor. There were doors on one side, windows
on the other, the windows all hung with heavy, closely drawn portieres.
The corridor was certainly not on the ground floor, but whether it was
on the second or third, or even above that again, he had no means of
knowing. From appearances, though, the place seemed more like a large,
private mansion than anything else.
“Just one word more before we proceed,” continued the other. “I do not
wish you to labour under any illusion. Here we are frankly criminals.
This is our home. It should have some effect in impressing you with the
power and resource at our command, and also with the class of men with
whom you are dealing. There is not one among us whose education is not
fully equal to your own; not one, indeed, but who is chosen, granting
first his criminal tendencies, because he is a specialist in his own
particular field--in commerce, in the government diplomatic service, in
the professions of law and medicine, in the ranks of pure science.
We are bordering on the fantastical, are we not? Dreaming, you will
probably say, of the Utopian in crime organisation. Quite so, Mr. Dale.
I only ask you to consider the POSSIBILITIES if what I say is true. Now
let us proceed. I am going to take you into three rooms--the three whose
doors you see ahead of you. You will notice that, including the one you
have just left, there are four on this corridor. I do not wish to strain
your credulity, or play tricks upon you; so I am going to ask you to fix
an approximate idea of the length of the corridor in your mind, as it
will perhaps enable you to account more readily for what may appear to
be a discrepancy in the corresponding size of the rooms.”
One of the men opened the door ahead. Jimmie Dale, at a sign from his
conductor, moved forward and entered. Just what he had expected to find
he could not have told; his brain was whirling, partly from his aching
head, partly from his desperate effort to conceive some way of escape
from the peril which, for all his nonchalance, he knew only too well
was the gravest he had ever faced; but what he saw was simply a cozily
furnished bedroom. There was nothing peculiar about it; nothing out of
the way, except perhaps that it was rather narrow.
And then suddenly, rubbing his eyes involuntarily, he was staring in a
dazed way before him. The whole right-hand side of the wall was sinking
without a sound into the floor, increasing the width of the room by some
five or six feet--and in this space was disclosed what appeared to be a
sort of chemical laboratory, elaborately equipped, extending the entire
length of the room.
“The wall is purely a matter of mechanical construction, operated
hydraulically.” The man was speaking softly at Jimmie Dale's side.
“The room beneath is built to correspond; the base, ceiling, and wall
mouldings here do not have to be very ingenious to effect a disguise.
I might say, however, that few visitors, other than yourself, have ever
seen anything here but a bedroom.” He waved his hand toward the retorts,
the racks of test tubes, the hundred and one articles that strewed the
laboratory bench. “As for this, its purpose is twofold. We, as well,
as the police, have often need of analysis. We make it. If we require a
drug, a poison, say, we compound it from its various ingredients, or,
as the case may be, distil it, perhaps--it is, you will agree, somewhat
more difficult to trace to its source if procured that way. And speaking
of poisons”--he stepped forward, and lifted a glass-stoppered bottle
containing a colourless liquid from a shelf--“in a modest way we have
even done some original research work here. This, for instance, is
as Utopian from our standpoint as the formation, and personnel of the
organisation I have briefly outlined to you. It possesses very essential
qualities. It is almost instantaneous in its action, requires a very
small quantity, and defies detection even by autopsy.” He uncorked the
bottle, and dipped in a long glass rod. “Will you watch the experiment?”
he invited, with a sort of ghastly pleasantry. “I do not want you to
accept anything on trust.”
With a start, Jimmie Dale swung around. He had heard no sound, but
another man was at his elbow now--and, struggling in the man's hand, was
a little white rabbit.
It was over in an instant. A single drop in the rabbit's mouth, and the
animal had stiffened out, a lifeless thing.
“It is quite as effective on the human organism,” continued the other,
“only, instead of one drop, three are required. If I make it ten”--he
was carefully measuring the liquid into two wineglasses--“it is only
that even you may be satisfied that the quantity is fatal.” He filled up
the glasses with what was apparently wine of some description, which he
poured from a decanter, and held out the glasses in front of him.
And again Jimmie Dale started, again he had heard no one enter, and yet
two men had stepped forward from behind him and had taken the glasses
from their leader's hands. He glanced around him, counting quickly--they
were surely the two who had entered with him from the corridor. No!
Including the leader, there were now six men, all in evening dress, all
masked, in the room with him.
A wave of the leader's hand, and the two men holding the glasses left
the room. The man turned to Jimmie Dale again.
“Shall we proceed to the second room, Mr. Dale?” he asked politely.
“I think it is now prepared for us--I do not wish to bore you with a
repetition of magical sliding walls.”
There was something now that numbed the ache in Jimmie Dale's brain--a
sense of some deadly, remorseless thing that seemed to be constantly
creeping closer to him, clutching at him--to smother him, to choke him.
There was something absolutely fiendish, terrifying, in the veneer of
culture around him.
They had entered the second room. This, like the other, was a
pseudo-bedroom; but here the movable wall was already down. Ranged along
the right-hand side were a great number of cabinets that slid in and
out, much after the style and fashion used by clothing dealers to stock
and display their wares. These cabinets were now all open, displaying
hundreds of costumes of all kinds and descriptions, and evidently
complete to the minutest detail. The cabinets were flanked by
full-length mirrors at each end of the room, and on little tables before
the mirrors was an assortment, that none better than Jimmie Dale himself
could appreciate, of make-up accessories.
The man smiled apologetically.
“I am afraid this is rather uninteresting,” he said. “I have shown it to
you simply that you may understand that we are alive to the importance
of detail. Disguise, that is daily vital to us, is an art that depends
essentially on detail. I venture to say we could impersonate any
character or type or nationality or class in the United States at a
moment's notice. But”--he took Jimmie Dale's arm again and conducted him
out into the corridor, while the two men who were evidently acting
the role of guards followed closely behind--“there is still the third
room--here.” He halted Jimmie Dale before the door. “I have asked you
to answer two questions, Mr. Dale,” he said softly. “I ask you now to
remember the alternative.”
They still stood before the door. There was that uncanny silence
again--it seemed to Jimmie Dale to last interminably. Neither of the
three men surrounding him moved nor spoke. Then the door before him was
opened on an unlighted room, and he was led across the threshold. He
heard the door close behind him. The lights came on. And then it seemed
as though he could not move, as though he were rooted to the spot---and
the colour ebbed from his face. Three figures were before him: the two
men who had carried the glasses from the first room, and the chauffeur
who had driven him in the taxicab. The two men still held the
glasses--the chauffeur was bound hand and foot in a chair. One of the
glasses was EMPTY; the other was still significantly full.
Jimmie Dale, with a violent effort at self-control, leaned forward.
The man in the chair was dead.