The Greatest Crime Novels of Frank L. Packard (14 Titles in One Edition). Frank L. Packard
and, for an instant, the two men rocked, reeled, and swayed in each other's embrace; then, both men losing their balance, they shot suddenly backward, the Wowzer, undermost, striking his head against the table's edge—and men, table, and lamp crashed downward in a heap to the floor.
It had been no more, at most, than a matter of seconds since Jimmie Dale had hurled himself into the room; and now, with a gurgling sigh, the Wowzer's arms, that had been wound around Jimmie Dale's back and shoulders, relaxed, and, from the blow on his head the man, lay back inert and stunned. And then it seemed to Jimmie Dale as though pandemonium, unreality, and chaos at the touch of some devil's hand reigned around him. It was dark—no, not dark—a spurt of flame was leaping along the line of trickling oil from the broken lamp on the floor. It threw into ghastly relief the sprawled form of Dago Jim. Outside, from along the passageway, came a confused jangle of commotion—whispering voices, shuffling feet, the swish of Chinese garments. And the room itself began to spring into weird, flickering shadows, that mounted and crept up the walls with the spreading fire.
There was not a second to lose before the room would be swarming with that rush from the passageway—and there was still the letter, the pocketbook! The table had fallen half over Dago Jim—Jimmie Dale pushed it aside, tore the crushed letter and the pocketbook from the man's hands—and felt, with a grim, horrible sort of anxiety, for the other's heartbeat, for the verdict that meant life or death to himself. There was no sign of life—the man was dead.
Jimmie Dale was on his feet now. A face, another, and another showed in the doorway—the Wowzer was regaining his senses, stumbling to his knees. There was one chance—just one—to take those crowding figures by surprise. And with a yell of "Fire!" Jimmie Dale sprang for the doorway.
They gave way before his rush, tumbling back in their surprise against the opposite wall; and, turning, Jimmie Dale raced down the passageway. Doors were opening everywhere now, forms were pushing out into the semi-darkness—only to duck hastily back again, as Jimmie Dale's automatic barked and spat a running fire of warning ahead of him. And then, behind, the Wowzer's voice shrieked out:
"Soak him! Kill de guy! He's croaked Dago Jim! Put a hole in him, de—"
Yells, a chorus of them, took up the refrain—then the rush of following feet—and the passageway seemed to racket as though a Gatling gun were in play with the fusillade of revolver shots. But Jimmie Dale was at the opening now—and, like a base runner plunging for the bag, he flung himself in a low dive through and into the open cellar beyond. He was on his feet, over the boxes, and dashing up the stairs in a second. The door above opened as he reached the top—Jimmie Dale's right hand shot out with clubbed revolver—and with a grunt Chang Foo went down before the blow and the headlong rush. The next instant Jimmie Dale had sprung through the tea shop and was out on the street.
A minute, two minutes more, and Chinatown would be in an uproar—Chang Foo would see to that—and the Wowzer would prod him on. The danger was far from over yet. And then, as he ran, Jimmie Dale gave a little gasp of relief. Just ahead, drawn up at the curb, stood a taxicab—waiting, probably, for a private slumming party. Jimmie Dale put on a spurt, reached it, and wrenched the door open.
"Quick!" he flung at the startled chauffeur. "The nearest subway station—there's a ten-spot in it for you! Quick man—QUICK! Here they come!"
A crowd of Chinese, pouring like angry hornets from Chang Foo's shop, came yelling down the street—and the taxi took the corner on two wheels—and Jimmie Dale, panting, choking for his breath like a man spent, sank back against the cushions.
But five minutes later it was quite another Jimmie Dale, composed, nonchalant, imperturbable, who entered an up-town subway train, and, choosing a seat alone near the centre of the car, which at that hour of night in the downtown district was almost deserted, took the crushed letter from his pocket. For a moment he made no attempt to read it, his dark eyes, now that he was free from observation, full of troubled retrospect, fixed on the window at his side. It was not a pleasant thought that it had cost a man his life, nor yet that that life was also the price of his own freedom. True, if there were two men in the city of New York whose crimes merited neither sympathy nor mercy, those two men were the Wowzer and Dago Jim—but yet, after all, it was a human life, and, even if his own had been in the balance, thank God it had been through no act of his that Dago Jim had gone out! The Wowzer, cute and cunning, had been quick enough to say so to clear himself, but—Jimmie Dale smiled a little now—neither the Wowzer, nor Chang Foo, nor Chinatown would ever be in a position to recognise their uninvited guest!
Jimmie Dale's eyes shifted to the letter speculatively, gravely. It seemed as though the night had already held a year of happenings, and the night was not over yet—there was the letter! It had already cost one life; was it to cost another—or what?
It began as it always did. He read it through once, in amazement; a second time, with a flush of bitter anger creeping to his cheeks; and a third time, curiously memorising, as it were, snatches of it here and there.
"DEAR PHILANTHROPIC CROOK: Robbery of Hudson-Mercantile National Bank—trusted employee is ex-convict, bad police record, served term in Sing Sing three years ago—known to police as Bookkeeper Bob, real name is Robert Moyne, lives at —— Street, Harlem—Inspector Burton and Lannigan of headquarters trailing him now—robbery not yet made public—"
There was a great deal more—four sheets of closely written data. With an exclamation almost of dismay, Jimmie Dale pulled out his watch. So that was what Burton and Lannigan were up to! And he had actually run into them! Lord, the irony of it! The—And then Jimmie Dale stared at the dial of his watch incredulously. It was still but barely midnight! It seemed impossible that since leaving the theatre at a few minutes before eleven, he had lived through but a single hour!
Jimmie Dale's fingers began to pluck at the letter, tearing it into pieces, tearing the pieces over and over again into tiny shreds. The train stopped at station after station, people got on and off—Jimmie Dale's hat was over his eyes, and his eyes were glued again to the window. Had Bookkeeper Bob returned to his flat in Harlem with the detectives at his heels—or were Burton and Lannigan still trailing the man downtown somewhere around the cafe's? If the former, the theft of the letter and its incident loss of time had been an irreparable disaster; if the latter—well, who knew! The risk was the Gray Seal's!
At One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Street Jimmie Dale left the train; and, at the end of a sharp four minutes' walk, during which he had dodged in and out from street to street, stopped on a corner to survey the block ahead of him. It was a block devoted exclusively to flats and apartment houses, and, apart from a few belated pedestrians, was deserted. Jimmie Dale strolled leisurely down one side, crossed the street at the end of the block, and strolled leisurely back on the other side—there was no sign of either Burton or Lannigan. It was a fairly safe presumption then that Bookkeeper Bob had not returned yet, or one of the detectives at least would have been shadowing the house.
Jimmie Dale, smiling a little grimly, retraced his steps again, and turned deliberately into a doorway—whose number he had noted as he had passed a moment or so before. So, after all, there was time yet! This was the house. "Number eighteen," she had said in her letter. "A flat—three stories—Moyne lives on ground floor."
Jimmie Dale leaned against the vestibule door—there was a faint click—a little steel instrument was withdrawn from the lock—and Jimmie Dale stepped into the hall, where a gas jet, turned down, burned dimly.
The door of the ground-floor apartment was at his right, Jimmie Dale reached up and turned off the light. Again those slim, tapering, wonderfully sensitive fingers worked with the little steel instrument, this time in the lock of the apartment door—again there was that almost inaudible click—and then cautiously, inch by inch, the door opened under his hand. He peered inside—down a hallway lighted, if it could be called lighted at all, by a subdued glow from two open doors that gave upon it—peered intently, listening intently, as he drew a black silk mask from his pocket and slipped it over his face. And then, silent as a shadow in his movements, the door left just ajar behind him, he stole down the carpeted hallway.
Opposite the first of the open doorways Jimmie Dale paused—a curiously