The Greatest Crime Novels of Frank L. Packard (14 Titles in One Edition). Frank L. Packard
thousand dollars … bonds … will try it … Meighan of headquarters … half-past one at Virat’s … Gray Seal … Larry the Bat … if dangerous, keep away …”
One glance around the room Jimmie Dale gave instinctively; and then he was crawling through the window, and, outside, regaining his feet, he darted across the yard, and out into the lane. Kenleigh, the insurance broker—he repeated the address she had given in the note over to himself. It was an apartment house on Avenue near Washington Square.
He ran on, as he had come, through lane and alley, working his way out of the Bad Lands. It was dangerous, of coarse, in any case, but once clear of that section of the city which houses the underworld, his risk of discovery was greatly minimised, since, though familiar to every denizen of gangland, Larry the Bat was naturally not the same intimate figure in the more law-abiding and respectable districts; and he should, except for an extraordinary piece of bad luck, pass in the quarters he was now heading for as no more than exactly what his appearance proclaimed him to be—a disreputable and seedy vagrant.
It was slow work, hurry as he would, doubling and zigzagging his way up through the East Side; discouraging, when time was so great a factor, to cover three and four times the actual distance in order to keep to the lanes and alleys whose shelter he dared not leave; but he was spurred on now by a sort of grim, unholy joy. He knew now who had murdered the Magpie, and why; he knew now who was making a tool, a cat’s-paw of the Gray Seal; he knew now who had so cynically elected him, if caught, as a substitute for the other to the electric chair. It was Virat! Frenchy Virat, the suave, sleek gambler, confidence man and crook! Well, the game was of Virat’s choosing—and they would play it out now to the end, Virat and the Gray Seal, if it was the last act of his, Jimmie Dale’s, life! It was only a question now of whether or not Virat had completed all his work, of whether there was yet time to get to Kenleigh’s.
It was close to midnight, as Jimmie Dale came out on Washington Square. He crossed to Waverly Place, and, on the point of starting along Fifth Avenue, drew suddenly back around the corner. A man, walking rapidly, was just turning into Fifth Avenue from the opposite corner. Jimmie Dale drew in his breath sharply. He had got out of sight just in time. He recognised the quick, springy walk of the other. It was Meighan, of Headquarters. And then Jimmie Dale smiled a little whimsically. They were both bound for the same place, he and Meighan, of Headquarters—Kenleigh’s apartment, that was a little way further on there along the Avenue.
A short distance behind the other, but on the opposite side of the street, Jimmie Dale followed the detective. There was hardly any use now in going to Kenleigh’s, for, if the detective was really bound for there, it made his, Jimmie Dale’s, errand useless—the summoning of the Headquarters’ man was prima facie evidence that the robbery had already been committed. And yet a certain grim curiosity remained. Just how had it been done? And besides, she had said, “half-past one at Virat’s,” so there was time to spare. The distorted lips of Larry the Bat thinned ominously. No; it was not useless even now. He had a very strong personal interest in all that had taken place—Virat would be the less likely to slip through his fingers, or through the fingers of the law, for the information that the scene of the robbery might supply!
Meighan disappeared suddenly inside an apartment house, which Jimmie Dale recognised as a rather fashionable one, devoted exclusively to bachelors’ quarters, Jimmie Dale quickened his step, walked on to the next corner, crossed the street, and came back along the block. As he approached the apartment-house entrance, voices reached him from the vestibule, and then he heard the closing of a door.
“Ground floor—left,” murmured Larry the Bat to himself. He smiled facetiously. “Saves an interview with the janitor!”
He glanced sharply around him in all directions—and the next instant was inside the vestibule—and in another, without a sound, was crouched close against the apartment door. A delicate little steel picklock was working now, the deft fingers manipulating it silently, and then stealthily he pushed the door open a crack. A man’s voice, agitated, came to him from within: “… Perhaps twenty minutes, I don’t know—the length of time it took you to get here. I was dining out. I ‘phoned Headquarters the instant I came in.”
Jimmie Dale pushed the door further open, slipped through, and left the door just ajar behind him. He was in the hallway of a very small apartment, of not more than two or three rooms, he judged. Diagonally ahead of him a light streamed out from an open door. He stole toward this, and, pressed close against the jamb of the door, peered in.
It was a sort of sitting-room, or den, cosily furnished with deep, comfortable lounging chairs. There was a flat-topped desk in the centre, a telephone on the desk; and at the rear of the room a connecting door, leading presumably to the bedroom, was open. A clean-shaven, dark-eyed man of perhaps thirty-five, Kenleigh obviously, was pacing nervously up and down. His face was pale, his hair ruffled; and, in his distraction, apparently, he had forgotten to remove the cloak which he was wearing over his evening clothes. In the far corner of the room, Meighan, the detective, knelt upon the floor amidst a scene of grotesque disorder. The door of a very small safe had been “souped,” and now sagged open. Books and papers littered the floor, and were strewn over a mattress that, evidently dragged from the inner room, had been swaddled around the safe to deaden the sound of the explosion.
“You don’t understand!” Kenleigh burst out, with a groan. “This means absolute ruin to me! A hundred thousand dollars in bonds—payable to bearer—and—and, God help me, they weren’t mine!”
“Say”—Meighan, still busily occupied with the fractured safe, spoke gruffly, though not unkindly, over his shoulder—“I understand all right, but don’t lose your nerve, Mr. Kenleigh. It won’t get you anywhere, and it doesn’t follow because the swag is gone that we can’t get it back. I know the guy that pulled this job.”
“You—what!“ Kenleigh, his face lighting up as though with a sudden hope, stepped quickly toward the detective. “What did you say? You know who did it!”
“Don’t get excited!” advised Meighan coolly. “Sure, I know! That is, it’s a toss-up between one of two, and that’s easy. We’ll round ‘em both up before morning, and then I guess it won’t be much of a trick to pick the winner. They won’t be looking for trouble as quick as this. We’ll get ‘em, all right. It’s a toss-up between Mug Garretty and the Magpie.”
Kenleigh was staring incredulously at the detective.
“How do you know?” he gasped out. “I—I don’t—”
“I daresay you don’t.” Meighan was chuckling now. “It’s like this, Mr. Kenleigh. A crook’s like any one else, like an artist, say—you get to know ‘em, get to spot ‘em, especially safe workers, from certain peculiarities about their work. They can’t any more help it than stop breathing. Here, for instance, the way he—” Meighan stopped suddenly. He had been pulling the mattress away from the front of the safe, and now, with a sharp, exultant exclamation, he stooped quickly and picked up a small object from the floor. He held it out, twirling It between thumb and forefinger, for Kenleigh’s inspection—a flashy scarf pin, horseshoe-shaped, of blatantly imitation diamonds.
Kenleigh shook his head bewilderingly.
“I suppose you mean that you recognise it?” he ventured.
“Recognize it!” Meighan laughed low, and, stepping past Kenleigh to the desk, picked up the telephone, and called Headquarters. “Recognise it!” With the receiver to his ear, waiting for his connection, he turned toward Kenleigh. “Why, say, walk over to the Bowery and show it to the first person you meet, and he’d call the turn. Pretty, isn’t it? When he’s dolled up, he’s some—hello!” He swung around to the telephone. “Headquarters?… Meighan speaking from Kenleigh’s apartment… Get a drag out for the Magpie on the jump…. Eh?… Yes!… Left his visiting card…. What?… Yes, wound a mattress around the box and souped it; his scarf pin must have caught in the ticking and pulled out…. Sure, that’s the one—the horseshoe—found it on the floor…. What?… Yes, the chances are ten to one he will, it’s his only play…. All right, I’ll