第60章

And at that latter thought, once more chagrin seized Jimmie Dale--then he turned impulsively to the letter.All this was extraneous, apart--for another time, when every moment was not a priceless asset as it very probably was now.

"Dear Philanthropic Crook"--it always began that way, never any other way.He read on more and more intently, crouched there close to the light on the floor of his car, lips thinning as he proceeded--read it to the end, absorbing, memorising it--and then the abortive postscript:

"Look in the cupboard at the rear of the room.The man with the red wig is--"For an instant, as mechanically he tore the letter into little shreds, he held there hesitant--and the next, slamming the door tight, he flung himself into the seat behind the wheel, and the big, sixty-horse-power, self-starting machine was roaring down the street.

The Tocsin! There was a grim smile on Jimmie Dale's lips now.The alarm! Yes, it was always an alarm, quick, sudden, an emergency to face on the instant--plans, decisions to be made with no time to ponder them, with only that one fact to consider, staggering enough in itself, that a mistake meant disaster and ruin to some one else, and to himself, if the courts were merciful where he had little hope for mercy, the penitentiary for life!

And now to-night again, as it almost always was when these mysterious letters came, every moment of inaction was piling up the odds against him.And, too, the same problem confronted him.How, in what way, in what role, must he play the night's game to its end?

As Larry the Bat?

The car was speeding forward.He was heading down Broadway now, lower Broadway, that stretched before him, deserted like some dark, narrow canyon where, far below, like towering walls, the buildings closed together and seemed to converge into some black, impassable barrier.The street lights flashed by him; a patrolman stopped the swinging of his night-stick, and turned to gaze at the car that rushed by at a rate perilously near to contempt of speed laws;street cars passed at indifferent intervals; pedestrians were few and far between--it was the lower Broadway of night.

Larry the Bat? Jimmie Dale shook his head impatiently over the steering wheel.No; that would not do.It would be well enough for this young Burton, perhaps, but not for old Isaac, the East Side fence--for Isaac knew him in the character of Larry the Bat.His quick, keen brain, weaving, eliminating, devising, scheming, discarded that idea.The final coup of the night, as yet but sensed in an indefinite, unshaped way, if enacted in the person of Larry the Bat would therefore stamp Larry the Bat and the Gray Seal as one--a contretemps but little less fatal, in view of old Issac, than to bracket the Gray Seal and Jimmie Dale! Larry the Bat was not a character to be assumed with impunity, nor one to jeopardize--it was a bulwark of safety, at it were, to which more than once he owed escape from capture and discovery.

He lifted his shoulders with a sudden jerk of decision as the car swerved to the left and headed for the East Side.There was only one alternative then--the black silk mask that folded into such tiny compass, and that, together with an automatic and the curious, thin metal case that looked so like a cigarette case, was always in his pocket for an emergency!

The car turned again, and, approaching its destination, Jimmie Dale slowed down the speed perceptibly.It was a strange case, not a pleasant one--and the raw edges where they showed were ugly in their nakedness.Old Isaac Pelina, young Burton, and Maddon--K.

Wilmington Maddon, the wall-paper magnate! Curious, that of the three he should already know two--old Isaac and Maddon! Everybody in the East Side, every denizen of the underworld, and many who posed on a far higher plane knew old Isaac--fence to the most select clientele of thieves in New York, unscrupulous, hand in glove with any rascality or crime that promised profit, a money lender, a Shylock without even a Shylock's humanity as a saving grace! Yes;as Larry the Bat he knew old Isaac, and he knew him not only personally but by firsthand reputation--he had heard the man cursed in blasphemous, whole-souled abandon by more than one crook who was in the old fence's toils.They dealt with him, the crooks, while they swore to "get" him because he was "safe," but--Jimmie Dale's lips parted in a mirthless smile--some day old Isaac would be found in that spiders' den of his back of the dingy loan office with a knife in his heart or a bullet through his head! And K.Wilmington Maddon--Jimmie Dale's smile grew whimsical--he had known Maddon quite intimately for years, had even dined with him at the St.James Club only a few nights before.Maddon was a man in his own "set"--and Maddon, interfered with, was likely to prove none too tractable a customer to handle.And young Burton, the letter had said, was Maddon's private and confidential secretary.Jimmie Dale's lips thinned again.Well, Burton's acquaintance was still to be made!

It was a curious trio--and it was dirty work, more raw than cunning, more devilish than ingenious; blackmail in its most hellish form;the stake, at the least calculation, a cool half million.A heavy price for a single slip in a man's life!

He brought the car abruptly to a halt at the edge of the curb, and sprang out to the ground.He was in front of "The Budapest"restaurant, a garish establishment, most popular of all resorts for the moment on the East Side, where Fifth Avenue, in the fond belief that it was seeing the real thing in "seamy" life, engaged its table a week in advance.Jimmie Dale pushed a bill into the door attendant's hand, accompanied by an injunction to keep an eye on the machine, and entered the cafe.