The Greatest Crime Novels of Frank L. Packard (14 Titles in One Edition). Frank L. Packard
this in the open and it would be the end. Thank God, the Sanctuary was just around the corner! If he had ever needed it in his life, he needed it now. They might see him enter the tenement; but by the time they had been able to search the place even cursorily the Gray Seal would have vanished, and only Smarlinghue of the underworld, the drug-wrecked peer of that inglorious realm to which they themselves belonged, would be found.
He turned the corner, ran on the few yards up the block to the Sanctuary, and as he flung himself inside the tenement door he saw them swing into the street behind him, and heard them like a pack of bloodhounds give tongue again at sight of their quarry. But in a second now he was along the dark hallway and inside the Sanctuary itself, the door locked behind him.
And now he worked with lightning speed. He could have run on out through the French window, and by the lane perhaps might have had a fair chance of getting away—but almost as important as his life was the vital necessity of protecting the character of Smarlinghue from suspicion, and the Gray Seal making straight for Smarlinghue's room and disappearing thereby, marked an intimacy in time of stress with Smarlinghue's habitation too significant to go unchallenged. He tore off his evening clothes, wrenched open the movable section of the baseboard, brought out the seedy, tattered garments of Smarlinghue, and put them on.
He needed no light—only a few more precious seconds. They were stumbling around outside in the hall now; and now he could hear them break into one of the other rooms. Just a few more seconds—that was all he needed. There were still the little pieces of wax that distorted lips and nostrils, that gave a peculiar set to cheeks and ears; still the facial solution to give the gaunt, pallor-like effect that Smarlinghue—Cold beads of sweat stood out suddenly on Jimmie Dale's forehead. His mask as he pulled it off was sticky; his hand as he put it to his face came away wet. No, there was no need for light. He knew! It was blood. His face had been bruised and cut when he had fallen from the window. No make-up, no clothes, no “Smarlinghue” would explain that!
They were coming to his door now, weren't they? His wits—if he had ever possessed any! A chance for his life—and Smarlinghue's! The wax went into the nostrils, under the lips, behind the ears, inside the cheeks—there was no need for pallor on blood-stained skin—and the mask was over his face again.
A footstep was almost at the door.
And then, not Jimmie Dale, but Smarlinghue spoke.
“Help! Help!” he cried in a strange, gurgling, strangled voice. “Help! Let me alone! Help!”
He loosened the catch on the inside of the French window, but without opening the window itself; then, seizing a chair, he hurled it over his head in the direction of the easels and canvases that stood against the far wall. There was an answering crash. He scuffled with his feet, as he flung the evening clothes he had just taken off—saving out only his hat, which he put on—into the hiding place, and put back the movable section of the baseboard again. Another instant, and he had sent the table in the centre of the room hurtling to the floor, and had sprung—silently now—to the door.
They were pounding upon it, flinging themselves against it in an effort to break it in. In the darkness of the hall they would not be able to distinguish clothes. If they followed him, then, with luck, he might still save both himself and Smarlinghue; if they didn't, then—well, it was the end.
He turned the key with a sudden twist of his fingers, and swept the door open. Dark forms loomed before him. He struck right and left with all his body weight behind his blows, cleaving a passage for himself as he plunged forward.
A volley of furious oaths greeted the unexpected attack. Hands snatched at him. He broke from their clutches as they tried to grasp him, and sped down the hall. Yes, they were following! Thank God, they were following!
It was only a step from the street door to the lane, and in barely the fraction of a second he had gained the latter, leaving his hat behind him on the sidewalk as though it had been swept from his head in his flight; in another second he was through the board in the fence that swung aside at a touch of his hand, and was creeping along the rear of the tenement to the French window of the Sanctuary. An instant here he listened as he slipped the mask from his face, then the French window opened and closed silently again—and Smarlinghue, with battered, blood-stained face lay prone and motionless upon the floor amidst the débris and ruin of his squalid room.
A minute passed—two. Fellow tenants began to gather at the doorway, and finally to crowd into the room. The poverty-stricken gas-jet hissed as some one lighted it, and threw a pale, yellow, inadequate light over the surroundings. Jimmie Dale felt some one grasp him by the shoulders and lift him to a sitting posture. He rubbed his hand across his eyes, and stared dazedly around him. Then suddenly he seemed to rouse himself. He shook his fist wildly.
“Get the police!” he croaked hoarsely, as he recognised as Bunty Myers a man who was elbowing his way forward. “Get the police! I want the police! Some one bust in here and said if I made a peep he'd lay me out. I—I was scared for a minute, mabbe two, and then I—I started something.”
“Sure! You look it!” snapped Bunty Myers. He swung fiercely on the little crowd and brushed them back to the doorway. “Get outer here!” he snarled. “Dis ain't yer hunt!” He turned again to Jimmie Dale. “Blast youse, Smarly!” he swore. “I ain't blamin' youse, but if youse'd kept quiet we'd have had him cornered cold. He's got away now down the lane.” He lowered his voice. “Wot I come back for was to find out if youse'd got a better look at him dan some of de boys wid me on account of his mask, an' if youse'd know him again if youse saw him?”
Jimmie Dale shook his head.
“No, I didn't get no look at him,” he said viciously. “But I'll have the police on him, and——”
“De police!” Bunty Myers' laugh was forced, unmirthful. “De police'll be a long time findin' dat bird, youse can take it from me! Say, youse give me de pip, Smarly! Dat was de Gray Seal!”
Jimmie Dale's jaw dropped. He stared helplessly.
“My God!” gasped Jimmie Dale. “The Gray Seal! Him!”
And he was still staring in a dazed and helpless way about him as Bunty Myers swung hurriedly from the room again, presumably to join his companions in their search along the lane.
X.
Beggar Pete
The street lights showed mistily, like vague, filmy patches in the darkness. It was raining in torrents, pitilessly. The water dripped from the brim of Smarlinghue's old felt hat, and beating into his face soaked the bandage around his cheek, threatening to displace it. He smiled grimly in reminiscence, as he raised his hand and tightened the dressing a little in its place.
It was four nights ago now since his accident when he had made his escape from Pedler Joe's window, and subsequently had saved himself by playing the dual rôle in the imaginary fight he had staged between Smarlinghue and the Gray Seal in the Sanctuary; and since then the character of Smarlinghue had virtually been a little Old Man of the Sea that had clung with almost sinister tenacity to him, and that he had not been able to shake off and discard as before at will. It was strange! A queer trick of fate, perhaps; and not an over-kindly one, for it had tied his hands, and for the moment had left him seriously crippled in his efforts to pick up the clues, already found and lost so many times, that must eventually, if there were ever to be life and freedom for the Tocsin, happiness for himself and the woman that he loved, lead to—the Phantom.
Jimmie Dale's face grew hard, anxious, perturbed. Things had not gone well in those four days. Smarlinghue, if such a thing were possible when his life itself had been the stake, had played his part too well that night in the Sanctuary! Already one of the acknowledged aristocracy of the underworld, he had been suddenly elevated to the status of little less than demi-god. Smarlinghue had been in actual, physical combat with the Gray Seal! Smarlinghue had become the idol of a morbid awe and curiosity! It