The Adventures of Jimmie Dale. Frank L. Packard
wrote under the drawing: “The Man Who Captured the Gray Seal.”
“That's a cracking good sketch!” pronounced the reporter at his side. “Let the inspector see it.”
“What is it?” demanded Clayton, scowling.
Jimmie Dale handed him the notebook modestly.
Inspector Clayton took it, looked at it, looked at Jimmie Dale; then his scowl relaxed into a self-sufficient and pleased smile, and he grunted approvingly.
“That's the stuff to put over,” he said. “Mabbe you're not much of a reporter, but you can draw. Y're all right, sport—y're all right. Forget what I said to you a while ago.”
Jimmie Dale smiled too—deprecatingly. And put the notebook in his pocket.
An officer entered the room hurriedly, and, drawing Clayton aside, spoke in an undertone. A triumphant and malicious grin settled on Clayton's features, and he started with a rush for the door.
“Come around to headquarters in two hours, boys,” he called as he went out, “and I'll have something more for you.”
The room cleared, the reporters tumbling downstairs to make for the nearest telephones to get their “copy” into their respective offices.
On the street, a few doors up from the house where they were free from the crowd, Carruthers halted Jimmie Dale.
“Jimmie,” he said reproachfully, “you certainly made a mark of us both. There wasn't any need to play the 'cub' so egregiously. However, I'll forgive you for the sake of the sketch—hand it over, Jimmie; I'm going to reproduce it in the first edition.”
“It wasn't drawn for reproduction, Carruthers—at least not yet,” said Jimmie Dale quietly.
Carruthers stared at him. “Eh?” he asked blankly.
“I've taken a dislike to Clayton,” said Jimmie Dale whimsically. “He's too patently after free advertising, and I'm not going to help along his boost. You can't have it, old man, so let's think about something else. What'll they do with that bit of paper that's on the poor devil's forehead up there, for instance.”
“Say,” said Carruthers, “does it strike you that you're acting queer? You haven't been drinking, have you, Jimmie?”
“What'll they do with it?” persisted Jimmie Dale.
“Well,” said Carruthers, smiling a little tolerantly, “they'll photograph it and enlarge the photograph, and label it 'Exhibit A' or 'Exhibit B' or something like that—and file it away in the archives with the fifty or more just like it that are already in their collection.”
“That's what I thought,” observed Jimmie Dale. He took Carruthers by the lapel of the coat. “I'd like a photograph of that. I'd like it so much that I've got to have it. Know the chap that does that work for the police?”
“Yes,” admitted Carruthers.
“Very good!” said Jimmie Dale crisply, “Get an extra print of the enlargement from him then—for a consideration—whatever he asks—I'll pay for it.”
“But what for?” demanded Carruthers. “I don't understand.”
“Because,” said Jimmie Dale very seriously, “put it down to imagination or whatever you like, I think I smell something fishy here.”
“You WHAT!” exclaimed Carruthers in amazement. “You're not joking, are you, Jimmie?”
Jimmie Dale laughed shortly. “It's so far from a joke,” he said, in a low tone, “that I want your word you'll get that photograph into my hands by to-morrow afternoon, no matter what transpires in the meantime. And look here, Carruthers, don't think I'm playing the silly thickhead, and trying to mystify you. I'm no detective or anything like that. I've just got an idea that apparently hasn't occurred to any one else—and, of course, I may be all wrong. If I am, I'm not going to say a word even to you, because it wouldn't be playing fair with some one else; if I'm right the MORNING NEWS-ARGUS gets the biggest scoop of the century. Will you go in on that basis?”
Carruthers put out his hand impulsively. “If you're in earnest, Jimmie—you bet!”
“Good!” returned Jimmie Dale. “The photograph by to-morrow afternoon then. And now—”
“And now,” said Caruthers, “I've got to hurry over to the office and get a write-up man at work. Will you come along, or meet me at headquarters later? Clayton said in two hours he'd—”
“Neither,” said Jimmie Dale. “I'm not interested in headquarters. I'm going home.”
“Well, all right then,” Carruthers returned. “You can bank on me for to-morrow. Good-night, Jimmie.”
“Good-night, old man,” said Jimmie Dale, and, turning, walked briskly toward the Bowery.
But Jimmie Dale did not go home. He walked down the Bowery for three blocks, crossed to the east side, and turned down a cross street. Two blocks more he walked in this direction, and halfway down the next. Here he paused an instant—the street was dimly lighted, almost dark, deserted. Jimmie Dale edged close to the houses until his shadow blended with the shadows of the walls—and slipped suddenly into a pitch-black areaway.
He opened a door, stepped into an unlighted hallway where the air was close and evil smelling, mounted a stairway, and halted before another door on the first landing. There was the low clicking of a lock, three times repeated, and he entered a room, closing and fastening the door behind him.
Jimmie Dale called it his “Sanctuary.” In one of the worst neighbourhoods of New York, where no questions were asked as long as the rent was paid, it had the further advantage of three separate exits—one by the areaway where he had entered; one from the street itself; and another through a back yard with an entry into a saloon that fronted on the next street. It was not often that Jimmie Dale used his Sanctuary, but there had been times when it was no more nor less than exactly what he called it—a sanctuary!
He stepped to the window, assured himself that the shade was down—and lighted the gas, blinking a little as the yellow flame illuminated the room.
It was a rough place, dirty, uninviting; a bedroom, furnished in the most scanty fashion. Neither, apparently, was there anything suspicious about it to reward one curious enough to break in during the owner's absence—some rather disreputable clothes hanging on the wall, and flung untidily across the bed—that was all.
Alone now, Jimmie Dale's face was strained and anxious and, occasionally, as he undressed himself, his hands clenched until his knuckles grew white. The gray seal on the murdered man's forehead was a GENUINE GRAY SEAL—one of Jimmie Dale's own. There was no doubt of that—he had satisfied himself on that point.
Where had it come from? How had it been obtained? Jimmie Dale carefully placed the clothes he had taken off under the mattress, pulled a disreputable collarless flannel shirt over his head, and pulled on a disreputable pair of boots. There were only two sources of supply. His own—and the collection that the police had made, which Carruthers had referred to.
Jimmie Dale lifted a corner of the oilcloth in a corner of the room, lifted a piece of the flooring, lifted out a little box which he placed upon the rickety table, and sat down before a cracked mirror. Who was it that would have access to the gray seals in the possession of the police, since, obviously, it was one of those that was on the dead man's forehead? The answer came quick enough—came with the sudden out-thrust of Jimmie Dale's lower jaw. ONE OF THE POLICE THEMSELVES—no one else. Clayton's heavy, cunning face, Clayton's shifty eyes, Clayton's sudden rush when he had touched the dead man's forehead, pictured themselves in a red flash of fury before Jimmie Dale. There was no mask now, no facetiousness, no acted part—only a merciless rage, and the muscles of Jimmie Dale's face quivered and twitched. MURDER, foisted, shifted upon another, upon the Gray Seal—making of that name a calumny—ruining forever the work that she and he might do!
And