The Greatest Crime Novels of Frank L. Packard (14 Titles in One Edition). Frank L. Packard
again, of late, in Mother Margot's absence, and despite the Tocsin's warning that they were a trap for himself, he had explored them, searched them—and found nothing.
And now the men around the table, the room itself, his immediate surroundings, existed only in a subconscious way in Jimmie Dale's mind. That was the negative side of the week just past. There was equally the positive side.
Shiftel had returned to the underworld.
Not openly. Not to his old quarters. At first the rumour had flown from mouth to mouth through the underground exchanges of the Bad Lands that Shiftel was back; that he had been seen a dozen times in the hidden places, the lairs, the hang-outs, the breeding dens of vice: that crooks of his old, exclusive clientele had talked with him, done business with him. And at first, he, Jimmie Dale, had not believed it; and then he had seen the man himself. He was sure of it. Shiftel! Isaac Shiftel, alias Gentleman Laroque, alias Limpy Mack, alias the Gentleman with the Gold Spectacles—the Phantom! The man that the Tocsin had so truly said possessed a score of domiciles and, yes—entities—there was no better word, for in each of his disguises the man seemed to have established himself as a known and breathing entity in the life and surroundings of the particular character which for the moment he might have assumed. As witness Shiftel, the fence, known far and wide in the underworld: as witness Gentleman Laroque, long the leader of this band here, long the most notorious gangster in the Bad Lands.
He had seen Shiftel three nights ago in the Green Dragon, a dance hall of unsavoury repute. And Shiftel, the man who was the cause of his, Jimmie Dale's, return to the life of Smarlinghue and the squalor of the Sanctuary, the man who sought the Tocsin's life, the one man that he, Jimmie Dale, would gladly have sacrificed his all to bring to a final reckoning and account, had escaped him that night in the Green Dragon.
He shook his head, mumbling to himself, almost mechanically continuing to play his part in the presence of these underlings around the table even while his mind was far away. It was not his fault that Shiftel, once seen, had got away. He could not in any fairness hold himself to blame. He had caught but a glimpse of the man far across the hall, as in the swirl of the bunny-hug the dancers on the polished centre of the floor had opened for a moment and closed again. When he had reached the other end of the room Shiftel had disappeared. That was all.
It was strange! What was the game? What was the meaning of this reappearance? The man was running a tremendous risk, and the motive must certainly be commensurate with the danger. What was that motive? Shiftel was wanted, and wanted badly, by the police for his connection with the diamonds stolen from Jathan Lane, the murdered banker. There was no such person, of course, as Shiftel—it was the Phantom. Shiftel was only one of the Phantom's disguises to be put on or off at will. But it was the known character of Shiftel that the police sought. Why had the man shown himself in that character, lived it again? He need only have discarded it utterly, never returned to it, and as far as “Shiftel” was concerned he could have laughed at the police until the day he died.
What was it? What was at the back of that crafty brain whose evil genius had prompted this move? No little thing! Had the Tocsin's note that he, Jimmie Dale, had found amongst the mail Jason had handed him when he had appeared at home for his lunch yesterday, any bearing on the Phantom's motive? He did not think so; rather, out of the ruck of explanations that had suggested themselves, and which were for the most part hopelessly untenable, there had finally come one that he was almost ready to accept.
Smarlinghue's lips twisted in a grin—apparently one inspired by Spud MacGuire as the man scooped a pot on a bare-faced bluff. Well, why not? Even if it was a back-handed compliment to himself! The Phantom was shy of funds. Time after time of late he, Jimmie Dale, as the Gray Seal, had forestalled the other, and snatched away the fruits of the man's criminal schemes. Where, in the past few weeks, the Phantom had counted upon thousands, many of them, and had even spent lavishly to pave the way to the expected profits, he had received instead not a single penny. The Phantom, therefore, unless he possessed the reserve wealth of a Crœsus, was certainly shy of funds. Yes, that was it. It must be it. And as almost irrefutable evidence of this was the fact that the Phantom, as Shiftel, was said to be in communication again with some of those who composed that carefully selected circle of crooks who had been tried and successful business associates in the past; and that was why, too, it was as Shiftel, and not as Limpy Mack, not as Gentleman Laroque, or any one of his other aliases, that the Phantom had ventured, cautiously it was true, but nevertheless had ventured out into the underworld again.
The Tocsin's note! It came uppermost into his mind now. It was the first sign of existence she had given since that night at old Miser Scroff's.
His lips were still twisted in a smile, but there was something cold, forbidding, far removed from smiles, that seemed suddenly now to weigh upon his spirits. She had written; but it had only been to accentuate, as it were, her decision, what she had said that night when he had been so sure of taking his place again beside her. Alone! That was it—alone! It was her love, of course, her great unselfish love, that prompted her to try to keep him out of the “shadows,” out of her dangers. The note reiterated it; he knew it word for word:
“Dear Philanthropic Crook:—I see that you are incorrigible. If I thought that it would do any good I would implore you again—oh, Jimmie, I do implore you to leave all this to me, and to go back at once to your own life. I am half mad with fear for you. There is something, some trap being laid, and I cannot find out what it is. I only know that the Phantom has become suspicious that behind the Gray Seal's repeated blows there is more than a mere desire to reap where the Phantom has sown. I only know that the Phantom is convinced that he himself is the Gray Seal's one and only object; and, in turn, the Phantom means to move heaven and earth now to get the Gray Seal—first. Oh, I know you won't do as I ask you! I know you too well. I know that, if anything, this hint of danger will perhaps even urge you on. But I had to write. I had to warn you because I am afraid, and because I know that in some way, with all his hideous cunning behind it, the Phantom is laying a trap for you that——”
Bunty Myers swung around in his chair, and made a grimace at the hypodermic syringe with whose needle Jimmie Dale was now pricking the skin of his forearm.
“Say, can dat, Smarly!” he complained. “Youse give me nerves. Youse've been monkeyin' wid dat squirt gun for de last half hour. If it won't work, for Gawd's sake go down to de Chink's, or somewhere else, and hit a pipe.”
The door opened.
Mechanically Jimmie Dale restored the hypodermic to his pocket. He was staring at the doorway. It was not the sudden appearance of that hag-like, black-shawled figure that set his brains at work in swift, lightning flashes, and brought every faculty he possessed into play to preserve the indifference, even apathy, that became the supposedly drug-dulled Smarlinghue, for Mother Margot, he knew, was a frequent visitor here. It was not Mother Margot who caused his pulse to stir now; it was the man who had stepped into the room behind her—Little Sweeney.
It seemed somehow to dovetail and fit most curiously into his thoughts of Shiftel of a few moments gone. His hand, inside his pocket, as it released the hypodermic closed instead upon his automatic. He kept staring at the door—behind Little Sweeney. Was there still some one else? The last time these two had been together there had been another with them. That night at Mrs. Kinsey's, when they had tried to rob the old deaf woman of her savings! There had been another with them then—Limpy Mack. But Limpy Mack was also Shiftel, also Gentleman Laroque; in a word, the Phantom. Was Shiftel, or the Phantom in whatever guise he chose to assume, there behind these two to-night? Little Sweeney had not been heard of or seen since that night. This was Little Sweeney's first appearance, and——
The door closed.
Little Sweeney, with a nod that embraced everybody, leaned nonchalantly back against the door and lighted a cigarette. Mother Margot stared around the room, and then her eyes fixed on Jimmie Dale. He saw her glance swiftly then, interrogatively, at Bunty Myers.
Bunty Myers waved his hand.
“Smarly, meet Mother Margot,” he said off-handedly. “Mabbe youse knows Little Sweeney.”
Meet Mother Margot!