第68章

THE MAN HIGHER UP

The Tocsin! By neither act, sign, nor word had she evidenced the slightest interest in that ring--and yet she must know, she certainly must know that it was now in his possession.Jimmie Dale was disappointed.Somehow, he had counted more than he had cared to admit on developments from that ring.

He pulled a little viciously at his cigarette, as he stared out of the St.James Club window.That was how long ago? Ten days? Yes;this would be the eleventh.Eleven days now and no word from her--eleven days since that night at old Isaac's, since she had last called him, the Gray Seal, to arms.It was a long while--so long a while even that what had come to be his prerogative in the newspapers, the front page with three-inch type recounting some new exploit of that mysterious criminal the Gray Seal, was being usurped.The papers were howling now about what they, for the lack of a better term, were pleased to call a wave of crime that had inundated New York, and of which, for once, the Gray Seal was not the storm centre, but rather, for the moment, forgotten.

He drew back from the window, and, settling himself again in the big leather lounging chair, resumed the perusal of the evening paper.

His eye fell on what was common to every edition now, a crime editorial--and the paper crackled suddenly under the long, slim, tapering fingers, so carefully nurtured, whose sensitive tips a hundred times had made mockery of the human ingenuity squandered on the intricate mechanism of safes and vaults.No; he was wrong--the Gray Seal had not been forgotten.

"We should not be surprised," wrote the editor virulently, "to discover at the bottom of these abominable attrocities that the guiding spirit, in fact, was the Gray Seal--they are quite worthy even of his diabolical disregard for the laws of God and man."Jimmie Dale's lips straightened ominously, and an angry glint crept into his dark, steady eyes.There was nothing then, nothing too vile that, in the public's eyes, could not logically be associated with the Gray Seal--even this! A series of the most cold-blooded, callous murders and robberies, the work, on the face of it, of a well-organized band of thugs, brutal, insensate, little better than fiends, though clever enough so far to have evaded capture, clever enough, indeed, to have kept the police still staggering and gasping after a clew for one murder--while another was in the very act of being committed! The Gray Seal! What exquisite irony! And yet, after all, the papers were not wholly to blame for what they said;he had invited much of it.Seeming crimes of the Gray Seal had apparently been genuine beyond any question of doubt, as he had intended them to appear, as in the very essence of their purpose they had to be.

"Yes; he had invited much--he and she together--the Tocsin and himself.He, Jimmie Dale, millionaire, clubman, whose name for generations in New York had been the family pride, was "wanted" as the Gray Seal for so many "crimes" that he had lost track of them himself--but from any one of which, let the identity of the Gray Seal be once solved, there was and could be no escape! What exquisite irony--yet full, too, of the most deadly consequences!

Once more Jimmie Dale's eyes sought the paper, and this time scanned the headlines of the first page:

BRUTAL MURDER OF MILL PAYMASTER.

THE CRIME WAVE STILL AT ITS HEIGHT.

HERMAN ROESSLE FOUND DEAD NEAR HIS CAR.

ASSASSINS ESCAPE WITH $20,000.

Jimmie Dale read on--and as he read there came again that angry set to his lips.The details were not pleasant.Herman Roessle, the paymaster of the Martindale-Kensington Mills, whose plant was on the Hudson, had gone that morning in his runabout to the nearest town, three miles away, for the monthly pay roll; had secured the money from the bank, a sum of twenty-odd thousand dollars; and had started back with it for the mill.At first, it being broad daylight and a well-frequented road, his nonappearance caused no apprehension; but as early afternoon came and there was still no sign of Roessle the mill management took alarm.Discovering that he had left the bank for the return journey at a few minutes before eleven, and that nothing had been seen of him at his home, the police were notified.

Followed then several hours of fruitless search, until finally, with the whole countryside aroused and the efforts of the police augumented by private search parties, the car was found in a thicket at the edge of a crossroad some four miles back from the river, and, a little way from the car, the body of Roessle, dead, the man's head crushed in where it had been fiendishly battered by some blunt, heavy object.There was no clew--no one could be found who had seen the car on the crossroad--the murderer, or murderers, and the twenty-odd thousand dollars in cash had disappeared leaving no trace behind.

There were several columns of this, which Jimmie Dale skimmed through quickly; but at the end he stared for a long time at the last paragraph.Somehow, strange, to relate, the paper had neglected to turn its "sob" artist loose, and the few words, added almost as though they were an afterthought, for once rang true and full of pathos in their very simplicity--at the Roessle home, where Mrs.Roessle was prostrated, two little tots of five and seven, too young to understand, had gravely received the reporter and told him that some bad man had hurt their daddy.

"Mr.Dale, sir!"

Jimmie Dale lowered his paper.A club attendant was standing before him, respectfully extending a silver card tray.From the man, Jimmie Dale's eyes fixed on a white envelope on the tray.One glance was enough--it was HERS, that letter.The Tocsin again! His brain seemed suddenly to be afire, and he could feel his pulse quicken, the blood begin to pound in fierce throbs at his heart.