The Greatest Crime Novels of Frank L. Packard (14 Titles in One Edition). Frank L. Packard

      Chapter XXIII.

       Hunchback Joe

       Table of Contents

      Jimmy Dale flung himself back on the seat of the big touring car. It was an address, the Palace Saloon on the Bowery, that he had often given Benson before—the nearest point to which Benson, trusted as Benson was, had ever been permitted to approach the Sanctuary itself. The night air, the sweep of the wind was grateful, as the machine sped forward. He did not reason, he could not reason—his mind was in turmoil still. Only two things were clear, distinct, rising dominant out of that turmoil—that he had heard her voice, her voice that he had never thought to hear again; and that there was need, a desperate need for haste now, because he must reach the Sanctuary without an instant’s loss of time.

      And then gradually his brain began to clear, to adjust itself, to function normally; and when finally the car drew up at a corner on the Bowery, it was a Jimmie Dale, keen, self-possessed and alert, who sprang briskly to the pavement.

      “Will you need me any further, sir?” Benson asked.

      Jimmie Dale was lighting a cigarette deliberately—it was the same question that he was pondering in his own mind, but the answer was dependent upon the contents of that note which was waiting for him in the Sanctuary.

      “I am not quite sure, Benson,” he replied. “In any case, you had better wait here for twenty, minutes. If I am not back in that time, you may go home. Don’t wait any longer.”

      “Very good, sir,” Benson answered.

      It was only a short distance to the Sanctuary—down the cross street, a turn into another only to emerge again on one that parallelled the first, and then Jimmie Dale, walking slowly now, was sauntering along an ill-lighted thoroughfare flanked on either side with a miscellany of small shops and tenements of the cheaper class. There were but few pedestrians in sight; but, as he neared the tenement that made the corner of the lane ahead, Jimmie Dale’s pace became still more leisurely. A man and a woman were strolling up the street toward him. They passed. Jimmie Dale, at the corner of the lane now, glanced behind him. The two were self-absorbed. And then, like a shadow merging with the darkness of the lane, Jimmie Dale had disappeared.

      In an instant, he had gained the loose board in the high fence; and in another, pressing close to the rear wall of the tenement, he had reached the little French window that gave on the dingy courtyard. There was an almost inaudible sound, a faint metallic snip, as, kneeling, his fingers loosened the hidden catch beneath the sill—and the window on well-oiled hinges swung silently inward, and closed as silently again behind Jimmie Dale as he entered.

      The top-light, high up near the ceiling, threw a misty ray of moonlight along the greasy, threadbare carpet, and threw into relief a folded piece of dark-coloured paper at Jimmie Dale’s feet. He stooped and picked it up—and then moving close to the window again, his fingers, in the darkness, felt over the dilapidated roller shade to assure himself that the rents were securely pinned together against the possibility of prying eyes. He stepped quickly then across the room, tested the door lock; and then the single gas-jet, air-choked, hissing spitefully, illuminated the room with a wavering meagre yellow flame.

      Under the light, Jimmie Dale unfolded the paper, his face hardening suddenly. It was not like any note she had ever written him before—there was no white envelope here, no paper of fine and delicate texture, no ink-written message carefully penned; instead, evidence enough of her desperate haste, the desperate circumstances probably under which she had written it, the message was on a torn piece of brown wrapping paper, and the words, in pencil, were scrawled in hurried, broken sentences. And standing there, fighting for a grip upon himself, Jimmie Dale read the message——almost illegible! in places—and then, as though a strange incredulity, a strange inability to grasp and understand its import fully, were prompting him, he read it again, murmuring snatches of it aloud.

      “… I did not mean to bring you into the shadows… but there is another life, not mine, at stake … I have no right to do anything else … if I intervened, or gave warning, the evidence that will convict Clarke’s agent, and will convict Clarke through the agent, is lost… that is why, in spite of all, I am writing this … do you understand? … for three nights he disappeared, and somehow, I do not yet know how, evaded me in the daytime … no trace, just as I believed I had the man through whom Clarke is working trapped … dared not take the chance of giving up watch for an instant … did not know about this afternoon until an hour ago … too late … Jathan Lane’s murder at the bank … Klanner, the janitor of the bank … very fair hair, scar on left cheek bone … worked at night … under passage from private office … blackjack with which murder was done, document and money in Klanner’s room … unmarried … lives in rear room, first floor of tenement at … you must get the evidence … unto Caesar!.. ship chandler’s store, junk shop … Larens, Joe Larens, the hunchback … Clarke’s agent … another murder to cover up their tracks … must get Clarke through Hunchback Joe … will squeal if he sees no way of escape … Klanner’s room at once … Klanner with Kid Greer will be at Baldy Jack’s at ten o’clock … will stop at nothing … innocent bystander … document of international importance, … gold and details … Federal authorities, not the police … will see that Secret Service men get tip where to raid at midnight … under the sail cloth in left corner …”

      Jimmie Dale was tearing the paper into little shreds. His brain, eagerly now, was leaping from premise to conclusion, fitting the strange, complex parts of her story, seemingly so utterly at variance one with another, into a single, concrete whole. Yes, he understood why, in spite of herself, she had been forced to bring him within those shadows at the last—to save another’s life, which she could not do alone without forfeiting the opportunity of securing the evidence that would condemn those actually guilty, and reach, through the lesser lights, the man higher up—Marre, alias Clarke. Yes, he understood, too, that this was the end—if all went well! A grim smile came and flickered across Jimmie Dale’s lips. She believed that Hunchback Joe, if caught and trapped, would squeal to the police. The grim smile deepened. Hunchback Joe might, or might not, squeal to the police—but in any case Hunchback Joe would tell his story! He, Jimmie Dale, would see to that—whatever the cost, whatever the consequences, if he had to choke and wring it from the man’s lips. It was a surer way than trusting to the police—it was the only sure way of reaching the end. The cost! The risk! What did it matter? What was cost, or risk! Her life was in the balance!

      He glanced quickly around him. Would it be as Smarlinghue to-night? He shook his head. No, if it were really the end, if he won through to-night, this would be the last time he would ever stand here in the Sanctuary, and to leave the clothes of Jimmie Dale here, even in so secure a hiding place as behind that movable section of the base-board, would impose upon him the necessity of returning—was but to hamper himself, and, indeed, as likely as not, if hard pressed, to court disaster.

      His glance, strangely whimsical, strangely wistful now, travelled again over the room. If it was the end to-night, this was his good-by to Smarlinghue, to Larry the Bat—and the Gray Seal. This was his exit from the sordid stage of the underworld—forever. Yes, in time, suspicious of Smarlinghue’s continued absence, they would investigate and search the Sanctuary here; they might even discover that hiding place in the wall—but what did it matter? They would find only the trappings of a character that had passed out of existence; and out of that fact the police and the underworld would be privileged to make what capital they could! No, it would not be as Smarlinghue that he would work to-night—he was well enough as he was. He had not worn evening clothes since that letter came, for the