The Greatest Crime Novels of Frank L. Packard (14 Titles in One Edition). Frank L. Packard
She made no answer. There was only her low, quick breathing coming from somewhere near him. He made another step toward the lamp—and stopped.
"I tell you, no!" he said again, and took another step forward—and stopped once more.
Still she made no answer. A minute passed—another. His hand lifted and swept across his forehead in an agitated way. Still silence. She neither moved nor spoke. His hand dropped slowly to his side. There was a queer, twisted smile upon his lips.
"You win!" he said hoarsely.
"Thank you, Jimmie," she said simply.
"And your name, who you are"—he was speaking, but he did not seem to recognise his own voice—"the hundred other things I've sworn I'd make you explain when I found you, are all taboo as well, I suppose!"
"Yes," she said.
He laughed bitterly.
"Don't you know," he cried out, "that between the police and the underworld, our house of cards is likely to collapse at any minute—that they are hunting the Gray Seal day and night! Is it to be always like this—that I am never to know—until it is too late!"
She came toward him out of the darkness impulsively.
"They will never get you, Jimmie," she said, in a suppressed voice. "And some day, I promise you now, you shall have your reward for to-night. You shall know—everything."
"When?" The word came from him with fierce eagerness.
"I do not know," she answered gently. "Soon, perhaps—perhaps sooner than either of us imagine."
"And by that you mean—what?" he asked, and his hand reached out for her again through the blackness.
This time she did not draw away. There was an instant's hesitation; then she spoke again hurriedly, a note of anxiety in her voice.
"You are beginning all over again, aren't you, Jimmie? And I have told you that to-night I can explain nothing. And, besides, it is what has brought me here that counts now, and every moment is of—"
"Yes. I know," he interposed; "but, then, at least you will tell me one thing: Why did you come to-night, instead of sending me a letter as you always have before?"
"Because it is different to-night than it ever was before," she replied earnestly. "Because there is something in what has happened that I cannot explain myself; because there is danger, and where I could not see clearly I feared a trap, and so I dared not send what, in a letter, could at best be only vague and incomplete details. Do you see?"
"Yes," said Jimmie Dale—but he was only listening in an abstracted way. If he could only see that face, so close to his! He had yearned for that with all his soul for years now! And she was here, standing beside him, and his hand was upon her arm; and here, in his own den, in his own house, he was listening to another call to arms for the Gray Seal from her own lips! Honour! Was he but a poor, quixotic fool! He had only to step to the desk and switch on the light! Why should—he steadied himself with a jerk, and drew away his hand. She was in HIS house. "Go on," he said tersely.
"Do you know, or did you ever hear of old Luther Doyle?" she asked.
"No," said Jimmie Dale.
"Do you know a man, then, named Connie Myers?"
Connie Myers! Who in the Bad Lands did not know Connie Myers, who boasted of the half dozen prison sentences already to his credit? Yes; he knew Connie Myers! But, strangely enough, it was not in the Bad Lands or as Larry the Bat that he knew the man, or that the other knew him—it was as Jimmie Dale. Connie Myers had introduced himself one night several years ago with a blackjack that had just missed its mark as the man had jumped out from a dark alleyway on the East Side, and he, Jimmie Dale, had thrashed the other to within an inch of his life. He had reason to know Connie Myers—and Connie Myers had reason to remember him!
"Yes," he said, with a grim smile; "I know Connie Myers."
"And the tenement across the street from where you live as Larry the Bat—that, of course, you know." He leaned toward her wonderingly now.
"Of course!" he ejaculated. "Naturally!"
"Listen, then, Jimmie!" She was speaking quickly now. "It is a strange story. This Luther Doyle was already over fifty, when, some eight or nine years ago, his parents died within a few months of each other, and he inherited somewhere in the neighbourhood of a hundred thousand dollars; but the man, though harmless enough, was mildly insane, half-witted, queer, and the old couple, on account of their son's mental defects, took care to leave the money securely invested, and so that he could only touch the interest. During these eight or nine years he has lived by himself in the same old family house where he had lived with his parents, in a lonely spot near Pelham. And he has lived in a most frugal, even miserly, manner. His income could not have been less than six thousand dollars a year, and his expenditures could not have been more than six hundred. His dementia, ironically enough from the day that he came into his fortune, took the form of a most pitiable and abject fear that he would die in poverty, misery, and want; and so, year after year, cashing his checks as fast as he got them, never trusting the bank with a penny, he kept hiding away somewhere in his house every cent he could scrape and save from his income—which to-day must amount, at a minimum calculation, to fifty thousand dollars."
"And," observed Jimmie Dale quietly. "Connie Myers robbed him of it, and—"
"No!" Her voice was quivering with passion, as she caught up his words. "Twice in the last month Connie Myers TRIED to rob him, but the money was too securely hidden. Twice he broke into Doyle's house when the old man was out, but on both occasions was unsuccessful in his search, and was interrupted and forced to make his escape on account of Doyle's return. To-night, an hour ago, in an empty room on the second floor of that tenement, in the room facing the landing, old Luther Doyle was MURDERED!"
There was silence for an instant. Her hand had closed in a tight pressure on his arm. The darkness seemed to add a sort of ghastly significance to her words.
"In God's name, how do you know all this?" he demanded wildly. "How do you know all these things?
"Does that matter now?" she answered tensely. "You will know that when you know the rest. Oh, don't you understand, Jimmie, there is not a moment to lose now? It was easy to lure a half-witted creature like that anywhere; it was Connie Myers who lured him to the tenement and murdered him there—but from that point, Jimmie, I am not sure of our ground. I do not know whether Connie Myers is alone in this or not; but I do know that he is going to Doyle's house again to-night to make another search for the money. There is no question but that old Doyle was murdered to give Connie Myers and his accomplices, if there are any, a chance to tear the house inside out to find the money, to give them the whole night to work in without interruption if necessary—but Doyle dead in his own house could have interfered no more with them than Doyle dead in that tenement! Why was he lured to the tenement by Connie Myers when he could much more easily have been put out of the way in his own house? Jimmie, there is something behind this, something more that you must find out. There may be others in this besides Connie Myers, I do not know; but there is something here that I am afraid of. Jimmie, you must get that man, you must get the others if there are others, and you must stop them from getting the money in that house to-night! Do you understand now why I have come here? I could not explain in a letter; I do not quite seem to be explaining now. It would seem as though there were no need for the Gray Seal—that simply the police should be notified. But I KNOW, Jimmie, call it intuition, what you will, I know that there is need for us, for you to-night—that behind all this is a tragedy, deeper, blacker, than even the brutal, cold-blooded murder that is already done."
Her voice, in its passionate earnestness, died away; and an anger, cold, grim, remorseless, settled upon Jimmie Dale—settled as it always settled upon him at her call to arms. His brain was already at work in its quick, instant way, probing, sifting, planning. She was right! It was strange, it was more than strange that, with the added risk, the danger, the difficulty, the man should have been brought miles to be done away with in that tenement! Why? Connie Myers