THE TRAP
Had it not been for the stop the car had previously made, for the
possibility that he might have obtained a glimpse outside when the door
had been opened, the scarf over his eyes would have been superfluous;
for now, with it removed, he could scarcely distinguish the forms of the
three men around him, since the window curtains of the car were tightly
drawn. Nor was he given the opportunity to do more, even had it been
possible. The car stopped, the door was opened, he was pushed toward
it--and even as he reached the ground, the door was closed behind him,
and the car was speeding on again. But where he could not see before,
it took now but a glance to obtain his bearings--he was standing on a
corner on Riverside Drive, within a few doors of his own house.
Jimmie Dale stood still for a moment, watching the car as it disappeared
rapidly up the Drive. And with a sort of grim facetiousness his brain
began to correlate time and distance. Where had he come from? Where
was this Crime Club? They had been, as nearly as he could estimate, two
hours in making the journey; and, as nearly as he could estimate, in
their turnings and twistings had covered at least twice the distance
that would be represented by a direct route. Granting, then, an average
speed of forty miles an hour, which was overgenerous to be on the safe
side, and the fact that they certainly had not crossed the Hudson, which
now lay before him, flanking the Drive, the Crime Club was somewhere
within the area of a semicircle, whose centre was the corner on which he
now stood, and whose radius was forty miles--OR FORTY YARDS! He forced
a laugh. It was just that, no more, no less--he was as likely to have
started on his ride from within a biscuit throw of where he now stood,
as to have started on it from miles away!
But--he aroused himself with a start--he was wasting time! It must be
very late, near morning, and he would have need for every moment that
was left between now and daylight. He turned, walked quickly to his
house, mounted the steps, and with his latch-key--they had at least
permitted him to retain the contents of his pockets when they had forced
him to change his clothes--opened the front door softly, and, stepping
inside, closed the door as silently as he had opened it.
He paused for an instant to listen. There was not a sound. The servants,
naturally, would have been in bed hours ago. Even old Jason--Jimmie Dale
smiled, half whimsically, half affectionately--whose paternal custom it
was to sit up for his Master Jim, who, as he was fond of saying, he had
dandled as a baby on his knee, had evidently given it up as a bad job
on this occasion and had turned in himself. Jason, however, had left the
light burning here in the big reception hall.
Jimmie Dale stepped to the switch and turned off the light; then stood
hesitant in the darkness. Was there anything to be gained by rousing
Jason now and telling him what he intended to do--to instruct him to
answer any inquiries by the statement that “Mr. Dale had gone away for
a trip”? He could trust Jason; Jason already knew much--more than one
of those mysterious letters of the Tocsin's had passed through Jason's
hands.
Jimmie Dale shook his head. No; he could communicate with Jason from
downtown in the morning. He had half expected to find Jason up, and,
in that case, would have taken the other, as far as necessary, into
his confidence; but it was not a matter that pressed for the moment. He
could get into touch with Jason at any time readily enough. Was there
anything else before he went? He would not be able to get back as easily
as he got out! Money! He shook his head again--a little grimly this
time. He had been caught once before as Larry the Bat without funds!
There was plenty of money now hidden in the Sanctuary, enough for any
emergency, enough to last him indefinitely.
He stepped forward along the hall, his tread noiseless on the rich,
heavy rug, passed into the rear of the house, descended the back stairs,
and reached the cellar. It was below the level of the ground, of course;
but a narrow window here, though quite large enough to permit of egress,
gave on the driveway at the side of the house that led to the garage in
the rear.
Cautiously now, for the cement flooring was, in the stillness, little
less than a sounding board, Jimmie Dale reached the wall and felt along
it to the window, the lower edge of whose sill was just slightly below
the level of his shoulder. It opened inward, if he remembered correctly.
His fingers were feeling for the fastenings. It was too dark to see
a thing. He muttered in annoyance. Where were the fastenings! At
the sides, or at the bottom? His hand began to make a circuit of the
sill--and then suddenly, with a low, sharp cry, he leaned forward!
WHAT DID THIS MEAN? Wires! No wires had ever been there before! His
fingers were working now with feverish haste, telegraphing their message
to his brain. The wires ran through the sill close to the corner of
the wall--tiny fragments of wood, as from an auger, were still on the
sill--and here was a small particle of wire insulation that, those
sensitive finger tips proclaimed, was FRESH.
A cold thrill ran through Jimmie Dale; and there came again that
sickening sense of impotency in the face of the malignant, devilish
cunning arrayed against him, that once before he had experienced, that
night. He had thought to forestall them--and he had been forestalled
himself! This could only have been done--they had had no interest in
him before then--while they held him at the Crime Club, while he was
spending that two hours in the car! Was that why they had taken so long
in coming? Was that why the car had stopped that time--that those with
him might be told that the work here had been completed, and he need no
longer be kept away?
He edged away from the window, and, as cautiously as he had come,
retraced his steps across the cellar and up the stairs--and then, the
possibility of being heard from without gone, he broke into a run. There
was no need to wonder long what those wires meant. They could mean only
one of two things--and the Crime Club would have little concern in his
electric light! THEY HAD TAPPED HIS TELEPHONE. The mains, he knew,
ran into the cellar from the underground service in the street. He was
racing like a madman now. How long ago, how many hours ago, had they
done that! Great Scott, SHE was to have telephoned! Had she done so? Was
the game, all, everything, she herself, at their mercy already? If she
had telephoned, Jason would have left a message on his desk--he would
look there first--afterward he would waken Jason.
He gained the door of his den on the first landing, a room that ran the
entire length of one side of the house from front to rear, burst in,
switched on the light---and stood stock-still in amazement.
“Jason!” he cried out.
The old butler, fully dressed, rubbing and blinking his eyes at the
light, and with a startled cry, rose up from the depths of a lounging
chair.
“Jason!” exclaimed Jimmie Dale again.
“I beg pardon, sir, Master Jim,” stammered the man. “I--I must have
fallen asleep, sir.”
“Jason, what are you doing here?” Jimmie Dale demanded sharply.
“Well, sir,” said Jason, still fumbling for his words, “it--it was the
telephone, sir.”
“The--TELEPHONE!”
“Yes, sir. A woman, begging your pardon, Master Jim, a lady, sir, has
been telephoning every hour or so, and she--”
“YES!” Jimmie Dale had jumped across the room and had caught the other
fiercely by the shoulder. “Yes--yes! What did she say? QUICK, man!”
“Good Lord, Master Jim!” faltered Jason. “I--she--”
“Jason,” said Jimmie Dale, suddenly as cold as ice, “what did she say?
Think, man! Every word!”
“She didn't say anything, Master Jim. Nothing at all, sir--except to
keep asking each time if she could speak to you.”
“Nothing else, Jason?”
“No, sir.”
“You are SURE?”
“I'm sure, Master Jim. Not another thing but that, sir, just as I've
told you.”
“Thank God!” said Jimmie Dale, in a low voice.
“Yes, sir,” said Jason mechanically.
“How long ago was it since she telephoned last?” asked Jimmie Dale
quickly.
“Well, sir, I couldn't rightly say. You see, as I said, Master Jim, I
must have gone to sleep, but--”
They were staring tensely into each other's face. The telephone on the
desk was ringing vibrantly, clamourously, through the stillness of the
room.
Jason, white, frightened, bewildered, touched his lips with the tip of
his tongue.
“That'll be her again, sir,” he said hoarsely.
“Wait!” said Jimmie Dale tersely.
He was trying to think, to think faster than he had ever thought before.
He could not tell Jason to say that he had not yet come in--THEY knew he
was in, it would be but showing his hand to that “some one” who would
be listening now on the wire. He dared not speak to her, or, above all,
allow her to expose herself by a single inadvertent word. He dared not
speak to her--and she was here now, calling him! He could not speak
to her--and it was life and death almost that she should know what had
happened; life and death almost for both of them that he should know all
and everything she could tell him. True, it would take but a minute
to run to the cellar and cut those wires, while Jason held her on the
pretence of calling him, Jimmie Dale, to the 'phone; only a minute to
cut those wires--and in so doing advertise to these fiends the fact that
he had discovered their trick; admit, as though in so many words, that
their suspicions of him were justified; lay himself open to some new
move that he could not hope to foresee; and, paramount to all else, rob
her and himself of this master trump the Crime Club had placed in his
hands, by means of which there was a chance that he could hoist them
with their own petard!
The telephone rang again--imperatively, persistently.
“Listen, Jason.” Jimmie Dale was speaking rapidly, earnestly. “Say that
I've come in and have gone to bed--in a vile humour. That you told me a
lady had been calling, but that I said if she called again I wasn't
to be disturbed if it was the Queen of Sheba herself--that I wouldn't
answer any 'phone to-night for anybody. Do you understand? No argument
with her--just that. Now, answer!”
Jason lifted the receiver from the hook.
“Yes--hello!” he said. “Yes, ma'am, Mr. Dale has come in, but he has
retired. . . . Yes, I told him; but, begging your pardon, ma'am, he
was in what I might say was a bit of a temper, and said he wasn't to be
disturbed by any one.”
Jimmie Dale snatched the receiver from Jason, and put it to his own ear.
“Kindly tell Mr. Dale that unless he comes to the 'phone now,” a
feminine voice, her voice, in well-simulated indignation, was saying,
“it will be a very long day before I shall trouble myself to--”
Jimmie Dale clapped his hand firmly over the mouthpiece of the
instrument. Thank God for that clever brain of hers! She understood!
“Repeat what you said before, Jason,” he instructed hurriedly. “Then say
'Good-night.'”
He removed his hand from the mouthpiece.
“It's quite useless, ma'am,” said Jason apologetically. “In the rare
temper he was in, he wouldn't come, to use his own words, ma'am, not for
the Queen of Sheba herself, ma'am. Good-night, ma'am.”
Jimmie Dale hung the receiver back on the hook--and with his hand
flirted away a bead of moisture that had sprung to his forehead.
“Good Lord, Master Jim, what's wrong, sir? What's happened, sir?
And--and those clothes, Master Jim, sir! They aren't the ones you went
out in, sir--they aren't yours at all, sir!” Jason ventured anxiously.
“Jason,” said Jimmie Dale, “switch off the light, and go to the front
window and look out. Keep well behind the curtains. Don't show yourself.
Tell me if you see anything.”
“Yes, sir,” said Jason obediently.
The light went out. Jimmie Dale moved to the rear of the room--to the
window overlooking the garage and yard.
“I don't see anything, sir,” Jason called.
“Watch!” Jimmie Dale answered.
A minute passed--two--three. Jimmie Dale was staring down into the black
of the yard. She understood! She knew, of course, before she 'phoned
that something had gone wrong to-night. She knew that only peril of the
gravest moment would have kept him from the 'phone--and her. She knew
now, as a logical conclusion, that it was dangerous to attempt to
communicate with him at his home. Those wires! Where did they lead to?
Not far away--that would be almost a mechanical impossibility. Was it
into the Crime Club itself--near at hand? Or the basement, say, of that
apartment house across the driveway? Or--where?
And then Jimmie Dale spoke again:
“Do you see anything, Jason?”
“I'm not sure, sir,” Jason answered hesitantly. “I thought I saw a man
move behind a tree out there across the road a minute ago, sir. Yes,
sir--there he is again!”
There was a thin, mirthless smile on Jimmie Dale's lips.
Below, in the shadow of the garage, a dark form, like a deeper shadow,
stirred--and was still again.
“What time is it, Jason?” Jimmie Dale asked presently.
“It'll be about half-past four, sir.”
“Go to bed, Jason.”
“Yes, sir; but”--Jason's voice, low, troubled, came through the darkness
from the upper end of the room--“Master Jim, sir, I--”
“Go to bed, Jason--and not a word of this.”
“Yes, sir. Good-night, Master Jim.”
“Good-night, Jason.”
Jimmie Dale groped his way to the big lounging chair in which he had
found Jason asleep, and flung himself into it. They had struck quickly,
these ingenious, dress-suited murderers of the Crime Club! The house
was already watched, would be watched now untiringly, unceasingly; not a
movement of his henceforth but would be under their eyes!
His hands, resting on the arms of the chair, closed slowly until they
became tight-clenched, knotted fists. What was he to do? It was not only
the Crime Club, it was not only the Tocsin and her peril--there was the
underworld snapping and snarling at his heels, there was the police,
dogged and sullen, ever on the trail of the Gray Seal! His life, even
before this, in his fight against the underworld and the police, had
depended upon his freedom of action--and now, at one and the same time,
that freedom was cut away from beneath his feet, as it were, and a third
foe, equally as deadly as the others, was added to the list!
For months, to preserve and sustain the character of Larry the Bat, he
had been forced to assume the role almost daily; for, in that sordid
empire below the dead line, whose one common bond and aim was the
Gray Seal's death, where suspicion, one of the other, was rampant and
extravagant, where each might be the one against whom all swore their
vengeance, Larry the Bat could not mysteriously disappear from his
accustomed haunts without inviting suspicion in an active and practical
form--an inquisitorial visit to his squalid lodgings, the Sanctuary--and
the end of Larry the Bat!
If, as he had thought only a few hours before, he was through forever
with his dual life, that would not have mattered, the underworld would
have been welcome to make what it chose of it--but now the preservation
of the character of Larry the Bat was more vital and necessary to him
than it had ever been before. It was a means of defense and offense
against these men who lurked now outside his doors. It was the sole
means now of communication with her; for, warned both by Jason's
words, and what must be an obvious fact to her, that their plans had
miscarried, that it was dangerous to communicate with him as Jimmie
Dale, she would expect him, count on him to make that move. There
would be no longer either reason or attempt on her part to maintain the
mystery with which she had heretofore surrounded herself, the crisis
had come, she would be watching, waiting, hoping, seeking for him
more anxiously and with far more at stake than he had ever sought for
her--until now!
He got up impulsively from his chair, and, in the blackness, began to
pace the room. The next move was clear, pitifully clear; it had been
clear from the first, it had been clear even in that ride in the car--it
was so clear that it seemed veritably to mock him as he prodded his
brains for some means of putting it into execution. He must get to the
Sanctuary, become Larry the Bat--but how? HOW! The question seemed at
last to become resonant, to ring through the room with the weight of
doom upon it.
Schemes, plans, ideas came, bringing a momentary uplift--only to be
discarded the next instant with a sort of bitter, desperate regret.
These men were not men of mere ordinary intelligence; their cleverness,
their power, the amazing scope of their organisation, all bore grim
witness to the fact that they would be blinded not at all by any paltry
ruse.
He could walk out of the house in the morning as Jimmie Dale without
apparent hindrance--that was obvious enough. And so long as he pursued
the usual avocations of Jimmie Dale, he would not be interfered
with--only WATCHED. It was useless to consider that plan for a moment.
It would not help him to reach the Sanctuary--without leading them there
behind him! True, there was always the chance that he might shake them
off his trail, but he could hardly hope to accomplish anything like that
without their knowing that it was done DELIBERATELY--and that he dared
not risk. The strongest weapon in his hands now was his secret knowledge
that he was being watched.
That telephone there, for instance, that most curiously kept on
insisting in his mind that it, and it alone was the way out, was the
last thing he could place in jeopardy. Besides, there was another reason
why such a plan would not do; for, granting even that he succeeded in
eluding them on the way, and managed to reach the Sanctuary, his freedom
of action would be so restricted and limited as to be practically
worthless--he would have to return to his home here again within a
reasonable time as Jimmie Dale, within a few hours at most--or again
they would be in possession of the fact that he had discovered their
surveillance.
That, it was true, had been his original plan when he had entered the
house half an hour previously, but it was an entirely different matter
now. Then, he had counted on GETTING AWAY without their knowing it,
before they, as he had fondly thought, would have had a chance to
establish their espionage, and when they would have had no reason to
suspect, for a time at least, that he was not still within the house,
when they would have been watching, as it were, an empty cage.
He stopped in his walk, and, after a moment, dropped down into the
lounging chair again. That was it, of course. An empty cage! If he could
escape from the house! Not so much without their seeing him; that
was more or less a mechanical detail. But escape--and leave them in
possession of a sort of guarantee or assurance that he was still there!
That would give him the freedom of action that he must have. He smiled
with bitter irony. That solved the problem! That was all there was
to it--just that! It was very simple, exceedingly simple; it was
only--impossible!
The smile left his lips, and once more his hands, clenched fiercely. No;
it was not impossible! It MUST be done--if he was to win through, if
he was even to save himself! It must be done--or FAIL her! It COULD be
done; there was a way--if he could only see it!