The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale Part 11

There was silence for a moment. Then Meighan spoke again:

"Let's have your story, Mr. Kenleigh. How did you come to bring a hundred thousand dollars' worth of bonds home with you? And how did the Magpie get onto the lay?"

"I don't know, unless he stood in with the bond firm's messenger; that's the only way in which I could account for it," said Kenleigh huskily.

"And I've no right to say that G.o.d knows I've no wish to get an innocent man into trouble. I've no proof--but I can't see any other solution."

Kenleigh's voice broke. He seemed to steady himself with an effort. "I'm an insurance broker with an office on Wall Street, as I daresay you know. A client of mine, a well-known millionaire here in the city, wanted a hundred thousand dollars' worth of the Canadian War Loan bonds, but for business reasons, he has a large German connection, he did not want his name to appear in the transaction." Kenleigh hesitated.

"Sure!" said Meighan. "I see. Wise guy! Go on!"

"He commissioned me to get them for him." Kenleigh's voice was agitated as he continued. "I telephoned Thorpe, LeLand and Company, the brokers, where I was personally known, explained the circ.u.mstances, and placed the order. My client was to give me a check for the amount on the delivery of the bonds to him. I was to place this to my own credit in the bank, and check against it in favour of Thorpe, LeLand and Company.

They sent the bonds over to my office by a messenger about five o'clock this afternoon. It was too late to put them in a safe-deposit vault. I locked them first in my office safe, and then I grew nervous about them, and took them out again."

"Anybody see you do that?" queried Meighan quickly.

"No; I don't see how they could. I've only a small one-room office, and there was n.o.body there but myself."

"And so they kind of got your goat, and you figured the safest thing to do was to bring them home with you?" suggested Meighan.

"Yes." There was a miserable note of dejection in Kenleigh's voice.

"Yes; that's what I did. And I put them in that safe. You know the rest, and--and, oh, my G.o.d, what am I to do! My client, naturally, won't pay for what he does not receive, and I owe Thorpe, LeLand and Company a hundred thousand dollars." He laughed out a little hysterically. "A hundred thousand dollars! It sounds like a joke, doesn't it? I've got a little money, all I've been able to save in ten years' work, a few thousand. I'm ruined."

"Don't talk so loud!" cautioned Meighan. He whistled low under his breath. "You're certainly up against it, Mr. Kenleigh, but you buck up!

We'll get 'em. And, anyway, bonds can be traced."

"These are payable to bearer," said Kenleigh numbly. "There were three cla.s.ses of bonds in this issue--those payable to bearer; those registered as to princ.i.p.al; and those fully registered, that is where the interest is paid by government check instead of the bonds having coupons. Naturally, under the circ.u.mstances, it was the 'payable-to-bearer' bonds that my client wanted."

"Well, they're numbered, aren't they?" Meighan returned encouragingly.

"That's poor consolation for me," said Kenleigh bitterly. "Suppose some of them, or even all of them, were recovered that way in time--where do I stand to-morrow morning?"

"I guess that's right--if the Magpie ever got a chance to hand them over to some fence," admitted Meighan. "The fence could dispose of them by the underground route all over the country where the numbers weren't staring everybody in the face. Yes, I guess they could cash in, all right. Or it wouldn't be much of a trick for a good plate-worker to alter a number or two, either--the game's big enough. But"--Meighan chuckled again--"he hasn't got away with it yet!"

Kenleigh made no answer.

It was still again in the apartment. Through the darkness only a few feet away from Jimmie Dale, the two men sat there silently, waiting, as he had waited, in the darkness, and the silence--for the Magpie. There seemed an abhorrent, gruesome a.n.a.logy in the situation--this waiting for a _murdered_ man to come!

The minutes dragged by, ten, fifteen of them. And now Jimmie Dale, cramped though he was, dared not shift his position; the movement of a foot, the slightest stir would be heard. It would have been better if he had gone before they had ceased talking. He had heard enough long before then, and yet--

Suddenly, startling, like the clash of an alarm bell through the silence, the telephone rang. Jimmie Dale heard Meighan fumble for the receiver; and then, as the other spoke, seizing the opportunity, he began to retreat stealthily back across the hallway toward the vestibule door.

"h.e.l.lo!" Meighan's voice was still guarded. "Yes--yes ... What!" His voice rose suddenly in a rasping cry. "What's that! Dead! _Murdered_!

Wait a minute! Kenleigh, they've found the Magpie murdered in his room!"

"Murdered!" cried Kenleigh; then, frantically: "But the bonds, the bonds! Did they find the bonds? Ask them! Tell them to look! The bonds!

Are the bonds there?"

"h.e.l.lo!" Meighan was evidently speaking into the 'phone again.

"Any trace of the bonds? ... What? ... Yes, yes; go on, I'm listening! ... _Who_? ... _What_?... Good Lord!" The receiver clicked back on its hook.

"What is it? What do they say?" demanded Kenleigh feverishly.

"Mr. Kenleigh," said Meighan soberly, "there's been a little feud on in the underworld for the last few months. It came to a showdown to-night, and the man that won played in luck--he's killed two birds with one stone, I guess. It looks d.a.m.ned black for your bonds, I'm afraid."

"They're--they're gone?" faltered Kenleigh.

"Yes--and for keeps, I guess," said Meighan gruffly. He laughed shortly, mirthlessly. "You can turn the light on now; we'd wait a long time here--for the Gray Seal!"

CHAPTER VIII

AT HALFPAST ONE

Larry the Bat closed the outer door noiselessly behind him, slipped through the vestibule--and, an instant later, was slouching along Fifth Avenue, heading back toward Washington Square. His hands in his ragged pockets clenched. It had been well worked out--with a devil's ingenuity.

The police had swallowed the bait, jumped to the inevitable conclusion desired, and credited the Gray Seal with the double crime of theft and murder without an instant's hesitation. Well, why shouldn't they! It had been well planned; it was natural enough! Larry the Bat, in his turn, laughed, mirthlessly. But the game was not yet played out!

Through the by-ways, lanes and alleys of the underworld, Jimmie Dale once more threaded his way, and finally, mounting the dark stairway leading upward from the side entrance of a small house just off Chatham Square, he let himself stealthily into a room on the first landing. It was Virat now, and this was where Virat lived--a locality where a stranger took his life in his hand any time! Below stairs was a pseudo tea-merchant's store--kept by a Chinese "hatchet" man. But Lang Chang had not been in evidence when he, Jimmie Dale, had crept up the stairs, for there had been no light in the store windows.

And now Jimmie Dale's flashlight was playing around the room. Halfpast one, she had said. It could not be more than one o'clock as yet There was ample time to search for the bonds.

He began to move noiselessly around the room--a rather ornately furnished combination sitting and bedroom. "Keep away, if dangerous,"

had been the Tocsin's caution. He smiled grimly. What danger could there be? He had only to face one at a time; the Tocsin could absolutely be depended upon to see to that, and the advantage of surprise was with him. He was pulling out the drawer of a bureau now--and now his hands were searching swiftly under the mattress of the bed. It was necessary to secure the bonds. Barring that little matter of the numbers, they were as good as cash--and the matter of numbers would not trouble Virat.

He knew Virat, and he had known Virat very well--but not so well by far as he knew him now! Virat was as suave and polished a gentleman crook as the country possessed. Viral was the sort of man who, after the uproar had died down, would have the nerve and address to take up his residence in some little out-of-the-way place, and either dispose of as many of the bonds at a time as he dared to those he would cultivate as friends, or even have the audacity to secure a loan on a modest number of them from the local bank itself, whose conversance with the missing numbers might be expected to be of the haziest description. Also Virat would be careful to see that his offerings were not made at such dates as to have the interest coupons cause him any inconvenience by falling due within twenty-four hours! It would be quite simple--for Virate! In six months, in as many places, with the length and breadth of the country to choose from, Virat could quite readily dispose of the lot; not quite at the issue price perhaps if he secured loans, but still at a figure that would be very profitable--for Virat! Or, as Meighan had suggested, with the aid of a confederate of the right sort, the change of a figure--ah!

Jimmie Dale; flat upon the floor, his hand stretched in under the washstand, drew out a short, round, heavy object. He examined this attentively for a second; and then, his face hardening, he slipped it into his coat pocket.

He resumed his musings, and resumed his search through the room. Virat was clever enough to find means of disposing of the bonds in some fashion or other, and too clever to have ever committed murder for them otherwise--there was no doubt of that. And, after all, what difference did it make whatever Virat's method might be! It was extraneous, immaterial. Jimmie Dale shrugged his shoulders. The vital question was--where were the bonds?

It was a strange search there in the murderer's room, the flashlight winking and flinging its little gleams of light through the blackness; a strange search, thorough as only Jimmie Dale could make it--and still leave no tell-tale sign behind to witness that a single object in the room had been disturbed. But the search was futile; and at the end Jimmie Dale smiled whimsically.

"The process of elimination again!" he muttered. "I seem to be obsessed with that to-night. Well, not being here, there's only one place the bonds _can_ be. The process of elimination has its advantages." The flashlight circled around the room, and held for a moment on the electric-light switch near the door. "It must be after halfpast one,"

said Jimmie Dale--and suddenly snapped off his light.

There came a faint creaking noise--some one was cautiously mounting the stairs. Jimmie Dale s.n.a.t.c.hed his automatic from his pocket, and without a sound stole forward across the room to a position by the door. The footsteps were on the landing now. The doork.n.o.b was tried; the door began to open slowly, inch by inch, wider; a dark form slipped through into the room; the floor was closed again--and Jimmie Dale, reaching forward, clapped the muzzle of his automatic against the other's head.

But it was Larry the Bat who spoke--in a hoa.r.s.e, guttural whisper.

"Youse let a peep outer youse, an' youse goes bye-bye for keeps! See?

Put yer hands over yer head, an' do it--_quick_!"

Jimmie Dale's left hand reached out and switched on the light. It was Meighan, hands elevated, startled, angry, who stood blinking in the glare--and then a low cry came from the man.

"Larry the Bat--the Gray Seal! So it's a plant, is it! That d.a.m.ned she-pal of yours handed it to me good over the 'phone!" Meighan's lips tightened. "And where's Virat--did you kill him, too?"

Jimmie Dale's hand was searching swiftly through the detective's clothes. He transferred a revolver and a pair of handcuffs to his own pockets.

"I had ter take a chance on de light," said Larry the Bat plaintively; "'cause I had ter frisk youse." He turned off the light again. "Sure, she's a slick one!" Larry the Bat, his left hand free again, turned his flashlight upon the detective. "Youse can put yer flippers down now.

Mabbe she staked youse ter de tip dat de bonds was here, eh?"