CHAPTER II
BY PROXY
"The most puzzling bewildering, delightful crook in the annals of crime,"Herman Carruthers, the editor of the MORNING NEWS-ARGUS, had called theGray Seal; and Jimmie Dale smiled a little grimly now as he recalledthe occasion of a week ago at the St. James Club over their after-dinnercoffee. That was before his second debut, with Isaac Brolsky'spoverty-stricken premises over on West Broadway as a setting for thebreak.
SHE had written: "Things are a little too warm, aren't they, Jimmie?Let's let them cool for a year." Well, they had cooled for a year, andCarruthers as a result had been complacently satisfied in his own mindthat the Gray Seal was dead--until that break at Isaac Brolsky's over onWest Broadway!
Jimmie Dale's smile was tinged with whimsicality now. The only effectof the year's inaction had been to usher in his renewed activity witha furor compared to which all that had gone before was insignificant.Where the newspapers had been maudlin, they now raved--raved ineditorials and raved in headlines. It was an impossible, untenable,unbelievable condition of affairs that this Gray Seal, for all hisincomparable cleverness, should flaunt his crimes in the faces of thecitizens of New York. One could actually see the editors writhing intheir swivel chairs as their fiery denunciations dripped from theirpens! What was the matter with the police? Were the police children;or, worse still, imbeciles--or, still worse again, was there some one"higher up" who was profiting by this rogue's work? New York would notstand for it--New York would most decidedly not--and the sooner thepolice realised that fact the better! If the police were helpless, ortools, the citizens of New York were not, and it was time the citizenswere thoroughly aroused.
There was a way, too, to arouse the citizens, that was both goodbusiness from the newspaper standpoint, and efficacious as a method.Carruthers, of the MORNING NEWS-ARGUS, had initiated it. The MORNINGNEWS-ARGUS offered twenty-five thousand dollars' reward for the captureof the Gray Seal! Other papers immediately followed suit in varyingamounts. The authorities, State and municipal, goaded to desperation,did likewise, and the five million men, women, and children of New Yorkwere automatically metamorphosed into embryonic sleuths. New York wasaroused.
Jimmie Dale, alias the Gray Seal, member of the ultra-exclusive St.James Club, the latter fact sufficient in itself to guarantee hissocial standing, graduate of Harvard, inheritor of his deceased father'simmense wealth amassed in the manufacture of burglar-proof safes, someof the most ingenious patents on which were due to Jimmie Dale himself,figured with a pencil on the margin of the newspaper he had beenreading, using the arm of the big, luxurious, leather-upholsteredlounging chair as a support for the paper. The result of hiscalculations was eighty-five thousand dollars.
He brushed the paper onto the Turkish rug, dove into the pocket of hisdinner jacket for his cigarettes, and began to smoke as his eyes strayedaround the room, his own particular den in his fashionable RiversideDrive residence.
Eighty-five thousand dollars' reward! Jimmie Dale blew meditative ringsof cigarette smoke at the fireplace. What would she say to that? Wouldshe decide it was "too hot" again, and call it off? It added quite alittle hazard to the game--QUITE a little! If he only knew who "she"was! It was a strange partnership--the strangest partnership that hadever existed between two human beings.
He turned a little in his chair as a step sounded in the hallwaywithout--that is, Jimmie Dale caught the sound, muffled though it was bythe heavy carpet. Came then a knock upon the door.
"Come in," invited Jimmie Dale.
It was old Jason, the butler. The old man was visibly excited, as heextended a silver tray on which lay a letter.
Jimmie Dale's hand reached quickly out, the long, slim tapering fingersclosed upon the envelope--but his eyes were on Jason significantly,questioningly.
"Yes, Master Jim," said the old man, "I recognised it on the instant,sir. After what you said, sir, last week, honouring me, I might say, toa certain extent with your confidence, though I'm sure I don't know whatit all means, I--"
"Who brought it this time, Jason?" inquired Jimmie Dale quietly.
"Not the young person, begging your pardon, not the young lady, sir. Ashuffer in a big automobile. 'Your master at once,' he says, and shovesthe letter into my hand, and was off."
"Very good, Jason," said Jimmie Dale. "You may go."
The door closed. Yes, it was from HER--it was the same texture of paper,there was the same rare, haunting fragrance clinging to it.
He tore the envelope open, and extracted a folded sheet of paper. Whatwas it this time? To call the partnership off again until the presentfuror should have subsided once more--or the skilfully sketched outlineof a new adventure? Which? He glanced at the few lines written on thesheet, and lunged forward from his chair to his feet. It was neither onenor the other. It was--
Jimmie Dale's face was set, and an angry red surge swept his cheeks. Hislips moved, muttering audibly fragments of the letter, as he stared atit.
"--incredible that you--a heinous thing--act instantly--this is ruin--"
For an instant--a rare occurrence in Jimmie Dale's life--he stood like aman stricken, still staring at the sheet in his hand. Then mechanicallyhis fingers tore the paper into little pieces, and the little piecesinto tiny shreds. Anger fled, and a sickening sense of impotent dismaytook its place; the red left his cheeks, and in its stead a graynesscame.
"Act instantly!" The words seemed to leap at him, drum at his ears withconstant repetition. Act instantly! But how? How? Then his brain--thatkeen, clear, master brain--sprang from stunned inaction into virilityagain. Of course--Carruthers! It was in Carruthers' line.
He stepped to the desk--and paused with his hand extended to pick up thetelephone. How explain to Carruthers that he, Jimmie Dale, already knewwhat Carruthers might not yet have heard of, even though Carrutherswould naturally be among the first to be in touch with such affairs! No;that would never do. Better get there himself at once and trust to--
The telephone rang.
Jimmie Dale waited until it rang again, then he lifted the receiver fromthe hook.
"Hello?" he said.
"Hello! Hello! Jimmie!" came a voice. "This is Carruthers. That you,Jimmie?"
"Yes," said Jimmie Dale and sat down limply in the desk chair.
"It's the Gray Seal again. I promised you I'd let you in on the groundfloor next time anything happened, so come on down here quick if youwant to see some of his work at firsthand."
Jimmie Dale flirted a bead of sweat from his forehead.
"Carruthers," said Jimmie languidly, "you newspaper chaps make me tiredwith your Gray Seal. I'm just going to bed."
"Bed nothing!" spluttered Carruthers, from the other end of the wire."Come down, I tell you. It's worth your while--half the population ofNew York would give the toes off their feet for the chance. Come down,you blast idiot! The Gray Seal has gone the limit this time--it'sMURDER."
Jimmie Dale's face was haggard.
"Oh!" he said peevishly. "Sounds interesting. Where are you? I guessmaybe I'll jog along."
"I should think you would!" snapped Carruthers. "You know the Palace onthe Bowery? Yes? Well, meet me on the corner there as soon as you can.Hustle! Good--"
"Oh, I say, Carruthers!" interposed Jimmie Dale.
"Yes?" demanded Carruthers.
"Thanks awfully for letting me know, old man."
"Don't mention it!" returned Carruthers sarcastically. "You always werea grateful beast, Jimmie. Hurry up!"
Jimmie Dale hung up the receiver of the city 'phone, and took down thereceiver of another, a private-house installation, and rang twice forthe garage.
"The light car at once, Benson," he ordered curtly. "At once!"
Jimmie Dale worked quickly then. In his dressing room, he changed fromdinner clothes to tweeds; spent a second or so over the contents of alocked drawer in the dresser, from which he selected a very small butserviceable automatic, and a very small but highly powerful magnifyingglass whose combination of little round
lenses worked on a pivot, and,closed over one another, were of about the compass of a quarter of adollar.
In three minutes he was outside the house and stepping into the car,just as it drew up at the curb.
"Benson," he said tersely to his chauffeur, "drop me one block thisside of the Palace on the Bowery--and forget there was ever a speed lawenacted. Understand?"
"Very good, sir," said Benson, touching his cap. "I'll do my best, sir."
Jimmie Dale, in the tonneau, stretched out his legs under the frontseat, and dug his hands into his pockets--and inside the pockets hishands were clenched and knotted fists.
Murder! At times it had occurred to him that there was a possibilitythat some crook of the underworld would attempt to cover his tracks andtake refuge from pursuit by foisting himself on the authorities as theGray Seal. That was a possibility, a risk always to be run. But thatMURDER should be laid to the Gray Seal's door! Anger, merciless andunrestrained, surged over Jimmie Dale.
There was peril here, live and imminent. Suppose that some day he shouldbe caught in some little affair, recognised and identified as the GraySeal, there would be the charge of murder hanging over him--and theelectric chair to face!
But the peril was not the only thing. Even worse to Jimmie Dale'sartistic and sensitive temperament was the vilification, the holding upto loathing, contumely, and abhorrence of the name, the stainless name,of the Gray Seal. It WAS stainless! He had guarded it jealously--as aman guards the woman's name he loves.
Affairs that had mystified and driven the police distracted withimpotence there had been, many of them; and on the face of them--crimes.But no act ever committed had been in reality a crime--none withoutthe highest of motives, the righting of some outrageous wrong, theprotection of some poor stumbling fellow human.
That had been his partnership with her. How, by what amazing means, bywhat power that smacked almost of the miraculous she came in touch withall these things and supplied him with the data on which to work hedid not know--only that, thanks to her, there were happier hearts andhappier homes since the Gray Seal had begun to work. "Dear PhilanthropicCrook," she often called him in her letters. And now--it was MURDER!
Take Carruthers, for instance. For years, as a reporter before he hadrisen to the editorial desk, he had been one of the keenest on the scentof the Gray Seal, but always for the sake of the game--always filledwith admiration, as he said himself, for the daring, the originality ofthe most puzzling, bewildering, delightful crook in the annals of crime.Carruthers was but an example. Carruthers now would hunt the Gray Seallike a mad dog. The Gray Seal, to Carruthers and every one else, wouldbe the vilest name in the land--a synonym for murder.
On the car flew--and upon Jimmie Dale's face, as though chiselled inmarble, was a look that was not good to see. And a mirthless smile set,frozen, on his lips.
"I'll get the man that did this," gritted Jimmie Dale between his teeth."I'll GET him! And, when I get him, I'll wring a confession from him ifI have to swing for it!"
The car swept from Broadway into Astor Place, on down the Bowery, andpresently stopped.
Jimmie Dale stepped out. "I shall not want you any more, Benson," hesaid. "You may return home."
Jimmie Dale started down the block--a nonchalant Jimmie Dale now, ifanything, bored a little. Near the corner, a figure, back turned, waslounging at the edge of the sidewalk. Jimmie Dale touched the man on thearm.
"Hello, Carruthers!" he drawled.
"Ah, Jimmie!" Carruthers turned with an excited smile. "That's the boy!You've made mighty quick time."
"Well, you told me to hurry," grumbled Jimmie Dale. "I'm doing my bestto please you to-night. Came down in my car, and got summoned for threefines to-morrow."
Carruthers laughed. "Come on," he said; and, linking his arm in JimmieDale's, turned the corner, and headed west along the cross street. "Thisis going to make a noise," he continued, a grim note creeping into hisvoice. "The biggest noise the city has ever heard. I take back all Isaid about the Gray Seal. I'd always pictured his cleverness as beinginseparable with at least a decent sort of man, even if he was a rogueand a criminal, but I'm through with that. He's a rotter and a houndof the rankest sort! I didn't think there was anything more vulgar orbrutal than murder, but he's shown me that there is. A guttersnipe's gotmore decency! To murder a man and then boastfully label the corpse is--"
"Say, Carruthers," said Jimmie Dale plaintively, suddenly hanging back,"I say, you know, it's--it's all right for you to mess up in this sortof thing, it's your beastly business, and I'm awfully damned thankful toyou for giving me a look-in, but isn't it--er--rather INFRA DIG for me?A bit morbid, you know, and all that sort of thing. I'd never hear theend of it at the club--you know what the St. James is. Couldn't I beMerideth Stanley Annstruther, or something like that, one of your newreporters, or something like that, you know?"
Carruthers chuckled. "Sure, Jimmie," he said. "You're the latestaddition to the staff of the NEWS-ARGUS. Don't worry; the incomparableJimmie Dale won't figure publicly in this."
"It's awfully good of you," said Jimmie gratefully. "I have to have anotebook or something, don't I?"
Carruthers, from his pocket, handed him one. "Thanks," said Jimmie Dale.
A little way ahead, a crowd had collected on the sidewalk before adoorway, and Carruthers pointed with a jerk of his hand.
"It's in Moriarty's place--a gambling hell," he explained. "I haven'tgot the story myself yet, though I've been inside, and had a lookaround. Inspector Clayton discovered the crime, and reported it atheadquarters. I was at my desk in the office when the news came, and, asyou know the interest I've taken in the Gray Seal, I decided to 'cover'it myself. When I got here, Clayton hadn't returned from headquarters,so, as you seemed so keenly interested last week, I telephoned you. IfClayton's back now we'll get the details. Clayton's a good fellow withthe 'press,' and he won't hold anything out on us. Now, here we are.Keep close to me, and I'll pass you in."
They shouldered through the crowd and up to an officer at the door.The officer nodded, stepped aside, and Carruthers, with Jimmie Dalefollowing, entered the house.
They climbed one flight, and then another. The card-rooms, the faro,stud, and roulette layouts were deserted, save for policemen here andthere on guard. Carruthers led the way to a room at the back of thehall, whose door was open and from which issued a hubbub of voices--onevoice rose above the others, heavy and gratingly complacent.
"Clayton's back," observed Carruthers.
They stepped over the threshold, and the heavy voice greeted them.
"Ah, here's Carruthers now! H'are you, Carruthers? They told me you'dbeen here, and were coming back, so I've been keeping the boys waitingbefore handing out the dope. You've had a look at that--eh?" He flungout a fat hand toward the bed.
The voices rose again, all directed at Carruthers now.
"Bubble's burst, eh, Carruthers? What about the 'Prince of Crooks'?Artistry in crime, wasn't it, you said?" They were quoting from hiseditorials of bygone days, a half dozen reporters of rival papers,grinning and joshing him good-naturedly, seemingly quite unaffected bywhat lay within arm's reach of them upon the bed.
Carruthers smiled a little wryly, shrugged his shoulders--and presentedJimmie Dale to Inspector Clayton.
"Mr. Matthewson, a new man of ours--inspector."
"Glad to know you, Mr. Matthewson," said the inspector.
Jimmie Dale found his hand grasped by another that was flabby andunpleasantly moist; and found himself looking into a face that was red,with heavy rolls of unhealthy fat terminating in a double chin and athick, apoplectic neck--a huge, round face, with rat's eyes.
Clayton dropped Jimmie Dale's hand, and waved his own in the air. JimmieDale remained modestly on the outside of the circle as the reportersgathered around the police inspector.
"Now, then," said Clayton coarsely, "the guy that's croaked there isMetzer, Jake Metzer. Get that?"
Jimmie Dale, scribbling hurriedly in his notebook like all the re
st,turned a little toward the bed, and his lower jaw crept out the fractionof an inch. Both gas jets in the room were turned on full, giving amplelight. A man fully dressed, a man of perhaps forty, lay upon his back onthe bed, one arm outflung across the bedspread, the other dangling,with fingers just touching the floor, the head at an angle and off thepillow. It was as though he had been carried to the bed and flung uponit after the deed had been committed. Jimmie Dale's eyes shifted andswept the room. Yes, everything was in disorder, as though there hadbeen a struggle--a chair upturned, a table canted against the wall,broken pieces of crockery from the washstand on the carpet, and--
"Metzer was a stool pigeon, see?" went on Clayton, "and he lived here.Moriarty wasn't on to him. Metzer stood in thick with a wider circle ofcrooks than any other snitch in New York."
Jimmie Dale, still scribbling as Clayton talked, stepped to the bed andleaned over the murdered man. The murder had been done with a blackjackevidently--a couple of blows. The left side of the temple was crushedin. Right in the middle of the forehead, pasted there, a gray-colored,diamond shaped paper seal flaunted itself--the device of the Gray Seal.In Jimmie Dale' hand, hidden as he turned his back, the tiny combinationof powerful lenses was focused on the seal.
Clayton guffawed. "That's right!" he called out. "Take a good look.That's a bright young man you've got, Carruthers."
Jimmie Dale looked up a little sheepishly--and got a grin from theassembled reporters, and a scowl from Carruthers.
"Now, then," continued Clayton, "here's the facts--as much of 'em as Ican let you boys print at present. You know I'm stretching a pointto let you in here--don't forget that when you come to write up thecase--honour where's honour's due, you know. Well, me and Metzer therewas getting ready to close down on a big piece of game, and I was overhere in this room talking to him about it early this afternoon. We hadit framed to get our man to-night--see? I left Metzer, say, about threeo'clock, and he was to show up over at headquarters with another littlebit of evidence we wanted at eight o'clock to-night."
Jimmie Dale was listening--to every word. But he stooped now again overthe murdered man's head deliberately, though he felt the inspector'srat's eyes upon him--stooped, and, with his finger nail, lifted back theright-hand point of the diamond-shaped seal where it bordered a faintthread of blood on the man's forehead.
There was a bull-like roar from the inspector, and he burst through thering of reporters, and grabbed Jimmie Dale by the shoulder.
"Here you, what in hell are you doing!" he spluttered angrily.
Embarrassed and confused, Jimmie Dale drew back, glanced around, andsmiled again a little sheepishly as his eyes rested on the red-flushedjowl of the inspector.
"I--I wanted to see how it was stuck on," he explained inanely.
"Stuck on!" bellowed Clayton. "I'll show you how it's STUCK on, if youmonkey around here! Don't you know any better than that! Where were youdragged up anyway? The coroner hasn't been here yet. You're a hot cubof a reporter, you are!" He turned to Carruthers. "Y'ought to get outprinted instructions for 'em before you turn 'em loose!" he snapped.
Carruthers' face was red with mortification. There was a grin, expanded,on the faces of the others.
"Stand away from that bed!" roared Clayton at Jimmie Dale. "And if yougo near it again, I'll throw you out of here bodily!"
Jimmie Dale edged away, and, eyes lowered, fumbled nervously with theleaves of his notebook.
Clayton grunted, glared at Jimmie Dale for an instant viciously--andresumed his story.
"I was saying," he said, "that Metzer was to come to headquarters ateight o'clock this evening. Well, he didn't show up. That looked queer.It was mighty important business. We was after one of the biggest haulswe'd ever pulled off. I waited till nine o'clock, an hour ago, and Iwas getting nervous. Then I started over here to find out what was thematter. When I got here I asked Moriarty if he'd seen Metzer. Moriartysaid he hadn't since I was here before. He was a little suspicious thatI had something on Metzer--see? Well, by pumping Moriarty, he admittedthat Metzer had had a visitor about an hour after I left."
"Who was it? Know what his name is, inspector?" asked one of thereporters quickly.
Inspector Clayton winked heavily. "Don't be greedy boys," he grinned.
"You mean you've got him?" burst out another one of the men excitedly.
"Sure! Sure, I've got him." Inspector Clayton waved his fat hand airily."Or I will have before morning--but I ain't saying anything more tillit's over." He smiled significantly. "Well, that's about all. You'vegot the details right around you. I left Moriarty downstairs and came uphere, and found just what you see--Metzer laying on the bed there, andthe gray seal stuck on his forehead--and"--he ended abruptly--"I'll havethe Gray Seal himself behind the bars by morning."
A chorus of ejaculations rose from the reporters, while their pencilsworked furiously.
Then Jimmie Dale appeared to have an inspiration. Jimmie Dale turned aleaf in his notebook and began to sketch rapidly, cocking his head nowon one side now on the other. With a few deft strokes he had outlinedthe figure of Inspector Clayton. The reporter beside Jimmie Dale leanedover to inspect the work, and another did likewise. Jimmie Dale drewin Clayton's face most excellently, if somewhat flatteringly; and then,with a little flourish of pride, wrote under the drawing: "The Man WhoCaptured 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 hisscowl relaxed into a self-sufficient and pleased smile, and he gruntedapprovingly.
"That's the stuff to put over," he said. "Mabbe you're not much ofa 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 hispocket.
An officer entered the room hurriedly, and, drawing Clayton aside, spokein an undertone. A triumphant and malicious grin settled on Clayton'sfeatures, and he started with a rush for the door.
"Come around to headquarters in two hours, boys," he called as he wentout, "and I'll have something more for you."
The room cleared, the reporters tumbling downstairs to make for thenearest telephones to get their "copy" into their respective offices.
On the street, a few doors up from the house where they were free fromthe 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'llforgive you for the sake of the sketch--hand it over, Jimmie; I'm goingto reproduce it in the first edition."
"It wasn't drawn for reproduction, Carruthers--at least not yet," saidJimmie Dale quietly.
Carruthers stared at him. "Eh?" he asked blankly.
"I've taken a dislike to Clayton," said Jimmie Dale whimsically. "He'stoo patently after free advertising, and I'm not going to help along hisboost. You can't have it, old man, so let's think about somethingelse. What'll they do with that bit of paper that's on the poor devil'sforehead 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'llphotograph it and enlarge the photograph, and label it 'Exhibit A' or'Exhibit B' or something like that--and file it away in the archiveswith the fifty or more just like it that are already in theircollection."
"That's what I thought," observed Jimmie Dale. He took Carruthers by thelapel of the coat. "I'd like a photograph of that. I'd like it so muchthat I've got to have it. Know the chap that does that work for thepolice?"
"Yes," admitted Carruthers.
"Very good!" said Jimmie Dale crisply, "Get an extra print of theenlargemen
t from him then--for a consideration--whatever he asks--I'llpay for it."
"But what for?" demanded Carruthers. "I don't understand."
"Because," said Jimmie Dale very seriously, "put it down to imaginationor whatever you like, I think I smell something fishy here."
"You WHAT!" exclaimed Carruthers in amazement. "You're not joking, areyou, Jimmie?"
Jimmie Dale laughed shortly. "It's so far from a joke," he said, ina low tone, "that I want your word you'll get that photograph into myhands 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'vejust 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 evento you, because it wouldn't be playing fair with some one else; if I'mright the MORNING NEWS-ARGUS gets the biggest scoop of the century. Willyou 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 afternoonthen. And now--"
"And now," said Caruthers, "I've got to hurry over to the office and geta write-up man at work. Will you come along, or meet me at headquarterslater? Clayton said in two hours he'd--"
"Neither," said Jimmie Dale. "I'm not interested in headquarters. I'mgoing home."
"Well, all right then," Carruthers returned. "You can bank on me forto-morrow. Good-night, Jimmie."
"Good-night, old man," said Jimmie Dale, and, turning, walked brisklytoward the Bowery.
But Jimmie Dale did not go home. He walked down the Bowery for threeblocks, crossed to the east side, and turned down a cross street. Twoblocks 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 blendedwith the shadows of the walls--and slipped suddenly into a pitch-blackareaway.
He opened a door, stepped into an unlighted hallway where the air wasclose and evil smelling, mounted a stairway, and halted before anotherdoor on the first landing. There was the low clicking of a lock, threetimes repeated, and he entered a room, closing and fastening the doorbehind him.
Jimmie Dale called it his "Sanctuary." In one of the worstneighbourhoods of New York, where no questions were asked as long as therent was paid, it had the further advantage of three separate exits--oneby the areaway where he had entered; one from the street itself; andanother through a back yard with an entry into a saloon that fronted onthe 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 whathe called it--a sanctuary!
He stepped to the window, assured himself that the shade was down--andlighted the gas, blinking a little as the yellow flame illuminated theroom.
It was a rough place, dirty, uninviting; a bedroom, furnished in themost scanty fashion. Neither, apparently, was there anything suspiciousabout it to reward one curious enough to break in during the owner'sabsence--some rather disreputable clothes hanging on the wall, and flunguntidily 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 hisknuckles grew white. The gray seal on the murdered man's forehead wasa GENUINE GRAY SEAL--one of Jimmie Dale's own. There was no doubt ofthat--he had satisfied himself on that point.
Where had it come from? How had it been obtained? Jimmie Dale carefullyplaced the clothes he had taken off under the mattress, pulled adisreputable collarless flannel shirt over his head, and pulled on adisreputable pair of boots. There were only two sources of supply. Hisown--and the collection that the police had made, which Carruthers hadreferred 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 placedupon the rickety table, and sat down before a cracked mirror. Who wasit that would have access to the gray seals in the possession of thepolice, since, obviously, it was one of those that was on the dead man'sforehead? The answer came quick enough--came with the sudden out-thrustof Jimmie Dale's lower jaw. ONE OF THE POLICE THEMSELVES--no one else.Clayton's heavy, cunning face, Clayton's shifty eyes, Clayton's suddenrush when he had touched the dead man's forehead, pictured themselvesin a red flash of fury before Jimmie Dale. There was no mask now, nofacetiousness, no acted part--only a merciless rage, and the muscles ofJimmie Dale's face quivered and twitched. MURDER, foisted, shifted uponanother, upon the Gray Seal--making of that name a calumny--ruiningforever the work that she and he might do!
And then Jimmie Dale smiled mirthlessly, with thinning lips. The boxbefore him was open. His fingers worked quickly--a little wax behind theears, in the nostrils, under the upper lip, deftly placed-hands, wrists,neck, throat, and face received their quota of stain, applied with anartist's touch--and then the spruce, muscular Jimmie Dale, transformedinto a slouching, vicious-featured denizen of the underworld, replacedthe box under the flooring, pulled a slouch hat over his eyes,extinguished the gas, and went out.
Jimmie Dale's range of acquaintanceship was wide--from the upper strataof the St. James Club to the elite of New York's gangland. And, adoredby the one, he was trusted implicitly by the other--not understood,perhaps, by the latter, for he had never allied himself with any oftheir nefarious schemes, but trusted implicitly through long years ofpersonal contact. It had stood Jimmie Dale in good stead before, thisassociation, where, in a sort of strange, carefully guarded exchange,the news of the underworld was common property to those without the law.To New York in its millions, the murder of Metzer, the stool pigeon,would be unknown until the city rose in the morning to read thesensational details over the breakfast table; here, it would already bethe topic of whispered conversations, here it had probably been knownlong before the police had discovered the crime. Especially would it beexpected to be known to Pete Lazanis, commonly called the Runt, whowas a power below the dead line and, more pertinent still, one in whoseconfidence Jimmie Dale had rejoiced for years.
Jimmie Dale, as Larry the Bat--a euphonious "monaker" bestowed possiblybecause this particular world knew him only by night--began a search forthe Runt. From one resort to another he hurried, talking in the acceptedstyle through one corner of his mouth to hard-visaged individuals behinddirty, reeking bars that were reared on equally dirty and foul-smellingsawdust-strewn floors; visiting dance halls, secretive back rooms, andcertain Chinese pipe joints.
But the Runt was decidedly elusive. There had been no news of him, noone had seen him--and this after fully an hour had passed since JimmieDale had left Carruthers in front of Moriarty's. The possibilitieshowever were still legion--numbered only by the numberless dives anddens sheltered by that quarter of the city.
Jimmie Dale turned into Chatham Square, heading for the Pagoda DanceHall. A man loitering at the curb shot a swift, searching glance at himas he slouched by. Jimmie Dale paused in the doorway of the Pagoda andlooked up and down the street. The man he had passed had drawn a littlecloser; another man in an apparently aimless fashion lounged a few yardsaway.
"Something up," muttered Jimmie Dale to himself. "Lansing, ofheadquarters, and the other looks like Milrae."
Jimmie Dale pushed in through the door of the Pagoda. A bedlam of noisesurged out at him--a tin-pan piano and a mandolin were going furiouslyfrom a little raised platform at the rear; in the centre of the room adozen couples were in the throes of the tango and the bunny-hug; aroundthe sides, at little tables, men and women laughed and applauded andthumped time on the tabletops with their beer mugs; while waiters, withbeer-stained aprons and unshaven faces, juggled marvelous handfuls ofglasses and mugs from the bar beside the platform to the patrons at thetables.
Jimmie Dale's eyes swept the room in a swift, comprehensive glance,fixed on a little fellow, loudly dressed, who shared a table halfwaydown the room with a woman in a p
icture hat, and a smile of relieftouched his lips. The Runt at last!
He walked down the room, caught the Runt's eyes significantly as hepassed the table, kept on to a door between the platform and the bar,opened it, and went out into a lighted hallway, at one end of which adoor opened onto the street, and at the other a stairway led above.
The Runt joined him. "Wot's de row, Larry?" inquired the Runt.
"Nuthin' much," said Jimmie Dale. "Only I t'ought I'd let youse know.I was passin' Moriarty's an' got de tip. Say, some guy's croaked JakeMetzer dere."
"Aw, ferget it!" observed the Runt airily. "Dat's stale. Was wise to dathours ago."
Jimmie Dale's face fell. "But I just come from dere," he insisted; "an'de harness bulls only just found it out."
"Mabbe," grunted the Runt. "But Metzer got his early in deafternoon--see?"
Jimmie Dale looked quickly around him--and then leaned toward the Runt.
"Wot's de lay, Runt?" he whispered.
The Runt pulled down one eyelid, and, with his knowing grin, thecigarette, clinging to his upper lip, sagged down in the opposite cornerof his mouth.
Jimmie Dale grinned, too--in a flash inspiration had come to JimmieDale.
"Say, Runt"--he jerked his head toward the street door--"wot's de flycops doin' out dere?"
The grin vanished from the Runt's lips. He stared for a second wildly atJimmie Dale, and then clutched at Jimmie Dale's arm.
"De WOT?" he said hoarsely.
"De fly cops," Jimmie Dale repeated in well-simulated surprise. "Dey wasdere when I come in--Lansing an' Milrae, an--"
The Runt shot a hurried glance at the stairway, and licked his lips asthough they had gone suddenly dry.
"My Gawd, I--" He gasped, and shrank hastily back against the wallbeside Jimmie Dale.
The door from the street had opened noiselessly, instantly. Black formsbulked there--then a rush of feet--and at the head of half a dozen men,the face of Inspector Clayton loomed up before Jimmie Dale. There wasa second's pause in the rush; and, in the pause, Clayton's voice, in avicious undertone:
"You two ginks open your traps, and I'll run you both in!"
And then the rush passed, and swept on up the stairs.
Jimmie Dale looked at the Runt. The cigarette dangled limply; the Runt'seyes were like a hunted beast's.
"Dey got him!" he mumbled. "It's Stace--Stace Morse. He come to me aftercroakin' Metzer, an' he's been hidin' up dere all afternoon."
Stace Morse--known in gangland as a man with every crime in the calendarto his credit, and prominent because of it! Something seemed to gosuddenly queer inside of Jimmie Dale. Stace Morse! Was he wrong, afterall? Jimmie Dale drew closer to the Runt.
"Yer givin' me a steer, ain't youse?" He spoke again from the cornerof his mouth, almost inaudibly. "Are youse sure it was Stace croakedMetzer? Wot fer? How'd yer know?"
The Runt was listening, his eyes strained toward the stairs. The halldoor to the street was closed, but both were quite well aware that therewas an officer on guard outside.
"He told me," whispered the Runt. "Metzer was fixin' ter snitch on himter-night. Dey've got de goods on Stace, too. He made a bum job of it."
"Why didn't he get out of de country den when he had de chanst, insteadof hangin' around here all afternoon?" demanded Jimmie Dale.
"He was broke," the Runt answered. "We was gettin' de coin fer him terfade away wid ter-night, an'--"
A revolver shot from above cut short his words. Came then the sound of astruggle, oaths, the shuffling tread of feet--but in the dance hall thepiano still rattled on, the mandolin twanged, voices sang and applauded,and beer mugs thumped time.
They were on the stairs now, the officers, half carrying, half draggingsome one between them--and the man they dragged cursed them with utterabandon. As they reached the bottom of the stairs, Jimmie Dalecaught sight of the prisoner's face--not a prepossessingone--villainous,--low-browed, contorted with a mixture of fear and rage.
"It's a lie! A lie! A lie!" the man shrieked. "I never seen him in melife--blast you!--curse you!--d'ye hear!"
Inspector Clayton caught Jimmie Dale and the Runt by the collars.
"There's nothing to interest you around here!" he snapped maliciously."Go on, now--beat it!" And he pushed them toward the door.
They had heard the disturbance in the dance hall now and the occupantswere swarming to the sidewalk. A patrol wagon came around the corner. Inthe crowd Jimmie Dale slipped away from the Runt.
Was he wrong, after all? A fierce passion seized him. It was Stace Morsewho had murdered Metzer, the Runt had said. In Jimmie Dale's brain thewords began to reiterate themselves in a singsong fashion: "It was StaceMorse. It was Stace Morse." Then his lips drew tight together. WAS itStace Morse? He would have given a good deal for a chance to talk to theman--even for a minute. But there was no possibility of that now. Later,to-morrow perhaps, if he was wrong, after all!
Jimmie Dale returned to the Sanctuary, removed from his person allevidences of Larry the Bat--and from the Sanctuary went home toRiverside Drive.
In his den there, in the morning after breakfast, Jason, the butler,brought him the papers. Three-inch headlines in red ink screamed,exulted, and shrieked out the news that the Gray Seal, in the person ofStace Morse, fence, yeggman and murderer, had been captured. The public,if it had held any private admiration for the one-time mysterious crookcould now once and forever disillusion itself. The Gray Seal was StaceMorse--and Stace Morse was of the dregs of the city's scum, a pariah,an outcast, with no single redeeming trait to lift him from the ruckof mire and slime that had strewn his life from infancy. The face ofInspector Clayton, blandly self-complacent, leaped out from the paperto meet Jimmie Dale's eyes--and with it a column and a half of perfervideulogy.
Something at first like dismay, the dismay of impotency, filled JimmieDale--and then, cold, leaving him unnaturally calm, the old mercilessrage took its place. There was nothing to do now but wait--wait untilCarruthers should send that photograph. Then if, after all, he werewrong--then he must find some other way. But was he wrong! The notebookthat Carruthers had given him, open at the sketch he had made ofClayton, lay upon the desk. Jimmie Dale picked it up--he had alreadyspent quite a little time over it before breakfast--and examined itagain minutely, even resorting to his magnifying glass. He put it downas a knock sounded at the door, and Jason entered with a silver cardtray. From Carruthers already! Jimmie Dale stepped quickly forward--andthen Jimmie Dale met the old man's eyes. It wasn't from Carruthers--itwas from HER!
"The same shuffer brought it, Master Jim," said Jason.
Jimmie Dale snatched the envelope from the tray, and waved the otherfrom the room. As the door closed, he tore open the letter. There wasjust a single line:
Jimmie--Jimmie, you haven't failed, have you?
Jimmie Dale stared at it. Failed! Failed--HER! The haggard look was inhis face again. It was the bond between them that was at stake--the GraySeal--the bond that had come, he knew for all time in that instant, tomean his life.
"God knows!" he muttered hoarsely, and flung himself into a loungingchair, still staring at the note.
The hours dragged by. Luncheon time arrived and passed--and then byspecial messenger the little package from Carruthers came.
Jimmie Dale started to undo the string, then laid the package down,and held out his hands before him for inspection. They were tremblingvisibly. It was a strange condition for Jimmie Dale either to witness orexperience, unlike him, foreign to him.
"This won't do, Jimmie," he said grimly, shaking his head.
He picked up the package again, opened it, and from between two piecesof cardboard took out a large photographic print. A moment, two, JimmieDale examined it, used the magnifying glass again; and then a strangegleam came into the dark eyes, and his lips moved.
"I've won," said Jimmie Dale, with ominous softness. "I've WON!"
He was standing beside the rosewood desk, and he reached for the phone.Carruthers would be at home now--
he called Carruthers there. After amoment or two he got the connection.
"This is Jimmie, Carruthers," he said. "Yes, I got it. Thanks. . . .Yes. . . . Listen. I want you to get Inspector Clayton, and bring him uphere at once. . . . What? No, no--no! . . . How? . . . Why--er--tell himyou're going to run a full page of him in the Sunday edition, and youwant him to sit for a sketch. He'd go anywhere for that. . . . Yes. . . .Half an hour. . . . YES. . . . Good-bye."
Jimmie Dale hung up the receiver; and, hastily now, began to write upona pad that lay before him on the desk. The minutes passed. As he wrote,he scored out words and lines here and there, substituting others. Atthe end he had covered three large pages with, to any one but himself,an indecipherable scrawl. These he shoved aside now, and, verycarefully, very legibly, made a copy on fresh sheets. As he finished, heheard a car draw up in front of the house. Jimmie Dale folded the copiedsheets neatly, tucked them in his pocket, lighted a cigarette, and waslolling lazily in his chair as Jason announced: "Mr. Carruthers, sir,and another gentleman to see you."
"Show them up, Jason," instructed Jimmie Dale.
Jimmie Dale rose from his chair as they came in. Jason, well-trainedservant, closed the door behind them.
"Hello, Carruthers; hello, inspector," said Jimmie Dale pleasantly, andwaved them to seats. "Take this chair, Carruthers." He motioned to oneat his elbow. "Glad to see you, inspector--try that one in front of thedesk, you'll find it comfortable."
Carruthers, trying to catch Jimmie Dale's eye for some sort of a cue,and, failing, sat down. Inspector Clayton stared at Jimmie Dale.
"Oh, it's YOU, eh?" His eyes roved around the room, fastened for aninstant on some of Jimmie Dale's work on an easel, came back finallyto Jimmie Dale--and he plumped himself down in the chair indicated."Thought you was more'n a cub reporter," he remarked, with a grin."You were too slick with your pencil. Pretty fine studio you got here.Carruthers says you're going to draw me."
Jimmie Dale smiled--not pleasantly--and leaned suddenly over the desk.
"Yes," he said slowly, a grim intonation in his voice, "going to drawyou--TRUE TO LIFE."
With an exclamation, Clayton slued around in his chair, half rose, andhis shifty eyes, small and cunning, bored into Jimmie Dale's face.
"What d'ye mean by that?" he snapped out
"Just exactly what I say," replied Jimmie Dale curtly. "No more,no less. But first, not to be too abrupt, I want to join with thenewspapers in congratulating you on the remarkable--shall I call itcelerity, or acumen?--with which you solved the mystery of Metzer'sdeath, and placed the murderer behind the bars. It is really remarkable,inspector, so remarkable, in fact, that it's almost--SUSPICIOUS. Don'tyou think so? No? Well, that's what Mr. Carruthers was good enough tobring you up here to talk over--in an intimate and confidential way, youknow."
Inspector Clayton surged up from his chair to his feet, his fistsclenched, the red sweeping over his face--and then he shook one fist atCarruthers.
"So that's your game, is it!" he stormed. "Trying to crawl out of thattwenty-five thousand reward, eh? And as for you"--he turned on JimmieDale--"you've rigged up a nice little plant between you, eh? Well, itwon't work--and I'll make you squirm for this, both of you, damn you,before I'm through!" He glared from one to the other for a moment--thenswung on his heel. "Good-afternoon, gentlemen," he sneered, as hestarted for the door.
He was halfway across the room before Jimmie Dale spoke.
"Clayton!"
Clayton turned. Jimmie Dale was still leaning over the desk, but now oneelbow was propped upon it, and in the most casual way a revolver coveredInspector Clayton.
"If you attempt to leave this room," said Jimmie Dale, without raisinghis voice, "I assure you that I shall fire with as little compunction asthough I were aiming at a mad dog--and I apologise to all mad dogs forcoupling your name with them." His voice rang suddenly cold. "Come backhere, and sit down in that chair!"
The colour ebbed slowly from Clayton's face. He hesitated--then sullenlyretraced his steps; hesitated again as he reached the chair, and finallysat down.
"What--what d'ye mean by this?" he stammered, trying to bluster.
"Just this," said Jimmie Dale. "That I accuse you of the murder of JakeMetzer--IT WAS YOU WHO MURDERED METZER."
"Good God!" burst suddenly from Carruthers.
"You lie!" yelled Clayton--and again he surged up from his chair.
"That is what Stace Morse said," said Jimmie Dale coolly. "Sit down!"
Then Clayton tried to laugh. "You're--you're having a joke, ain't you?It was Stace--I can prove it. Come down to headquarters, and I can proveit. I got the goods on him all the way. I tell you"--his voice roseshrilly--"it was Stace Morse."
"You are a despicable hound," said Jimmie Dale, through set lips."Here"--he handed the revolver over to Carruthers--"keep him covered,Carruthers. You're going to the CHAIR for this, Clayton," he said, ina fierce monotone. "The chair! You can't send another there in yourplace--this time. Shall I draw you now--true to life? You've beengrafting for years on every disreputable den in your district. Metzerwas going to show you up; and so, Metzer being in the road, you removedhim. And you seized on the fact of Stace Morse having paid a visit tohim this afternoon to fix the crime on--Stace Morse. Proofs? Oh, yes, Iknow you've manufactured proofs enough to convict him--if there weren'tstronger proofs to convict YOU."
"Convict ME!" Clayton's lower jaw hung loosely; but still he madean effort at bluster. "You haven't a thing on me--not a thing--not athing."
Jimmie Dale smiled again--unpleasantly.
"You are quite wrong, Clayton. See--here." He took a sheet of paper fromthe drawer of his desk.
Clayton reached for it quickly. "What is it?" he demanded.
Jimmie Dale drew it back out of reach.
"Just a minute," he said softly. "You remember, don't you, that in thepresence of Carruthers here, of myself, and of half a dozen reporters,you stated that you had been alone with Metzer in his room at threeo'clock yesterday, and that it was you--alone--who found the body lateron at nine o'clock? Yes? I mention this simply to show that from yourown lips the evidence is complete that you had an OPPORTUNITY to committhe crime. Now you may look at this, Clayton." He handed over the sheetof paper.
Clayton took it, stared at it, turning it over from first one side tothe other. Then a sort of relief seemed to come to him and he gulped.
"Nothing but a damned piece of blank paper!" he mumbled.
Jimmie Dale reached over and took back the sheet.
"You're wrong again, Clayton," he said calmly. "It WAS quite blankbefore I handed it to you--but not now. I noticed yesterday that yourhands were generally moist. I am sure they are more so now--excitement,you know. Carruthers, see that he doesn't interrupt."
From a drawer, Jimmie Dale took out a little black bottle, the notebookhe had used the day before, and the photograph Carruthers had sent him.On the sheet of paper Clayton had just handled, Jimmie Dale sprinkled alittle powder from the bottle.
"Lampblack," explained Jimmie Dale. He shook the paper carefully,allowing the loose powder to fall on the desk blotter--and held out thesheet toward Clayton. "Rather neat, isn't it? A very good impression,too. Your thumb print, Clayton. Now don't move. You may look--nottouch." He laid the paper down on the desk in front of Clayton. Besideit he placed the notebook, open at the sketch--a black thumb print nowupon it. "You recall handling this yesterday, I'm sure, Clayton. I triedthe same experiment with the lampblack on it this morning, you see. Andthis"--beside the notebook he placed the police photograph; that,too, in its enlargement, showed, sharply defined, a thumb print ona diamond-shaped background. "You will no doubt recognise it as anofficial photograph, enlarged, taken of the gray seal on Metzer'sforehead--AND THE THUMB PRINT OF METZER'S MURDERER. You have only toglance at the little scar at the edge of the centre loop to satisfyyourself that the three are identical. Of course, there are a dozenother points of similarity equally indisputable, but--"
Jimmie Dale stopped. Clayt
on was on his feet--rocking on his feet. Hisface was deathlike in its pallor. Moisture was oozing from his forehead.
"I didn't do it! I didn't do it!" he cried out wildly. "My God, I tellyou, I DIDN'T do it--and--and--that would send me to the chair."
"Yes," said Jimmie Dale coldly, "and that's precisely where you'regoing--to the chair."
The man was beside himself now--racked to the soul by a paroxysm offear.
"I'm innocent--innocent!" he screamed out. "Oh, for God's sake, don'tsend an innocent man to his death. It WAS Stace Morse. Listen! Listen!I'll tell the truth." He was clawing with his hands, piteously, over thedesk at Jimmie Dale. "When the big rewards came out last week I stoleone of the gray seals from the bunch at headquarters to--to use it thefirst time any crime was committed when I was sure I could lay my handson the man who did it. Don't you see? Of course he'd deny he was theGray Seal, just as he'd deny that he was guilty--but I'd have theproof both ways and--and I'd collect the rewards, and--and--" The mancollapsed into the chair.
Carruthers was up from his seat, his hands gripping tight on the edge ofthe desk as he leaned over it.
"Jimmie--Jimmie--what does this mean?" he gasped out.
Jimmie Dale smiled--pleasantly now.
"That he has told the truth," said Jimmie Dale quietly. "It is quitetrue that Stace Morse committed the murder. Shows up the value ofcircumstantial evidence though, doesn't it? This would certainly havegot him off, and convicted Clayton here before any jury in the land. Butthe point is, Carruthers, that Stace Morse ISN'T the Gray Seal--and thatthe Gray Seal is NOT a murderer."
Clayton looked up. "You--you believe me?" he stammered eagerly.
Jimmie Dale whirled on him in a sudden sweep of passion.
"NO, you cur!" he flashed. "It's not you I believe. I simply wanted yourconfession before witnesses." He whipped the three written sheets fromhis pocket. "Here, substantially, is that confession written out." Hepassed it to Carruthers. "Read it to him, Carruthers."
Carruthers read it aloud.
"Now," said Jimmie Dale grimly, "this spells ruin for you, Clayton. Youdon't deserve a chance to escape prison bars, but I'm going to give youone, for you're going to get it pretty stiff, anyhow. If you refuse tosign this, I'll hand you over to the district attorney in half an hour,and Carruthers and I will swear to your confession; on the other hand,if you sign it, Carruthers will not be able to print it until to-morrowmorning, and that gives you something like fourteen hours to putdistance between yourself and New York. Here is a pen--if you are quickenough to take us by surprise once you have signed, you might succeed inmaking a dash for that door and effecting your escape--without forcingus to compound a felony--understand?"
Clayton's hand trembled violently as he seized the pen. He scrawledhis name--looked from one to the other--wet his lips--and then, takingJimmie Dale at his word, rushed for the door--and the door slammedbehind him.
Carruthers' face was hard. "What did you let him go for, Jimmie?" hesaid uncompromisingly.
"Selfishness. Pure selfishness," said Jimmie Dale softly. "They'd guy meunmercifully if they ever heard of it at the St. James Club. Thehonour is all yours, Carruthers. I don't appear on the stage. That'sunderstood? Yes? Well, then"--he handed over the signed confession--"isthe 'scoop' big enough?"
Carruthers fingered the sheets, but his eyes in a bewildered waysearched Jimmie Dale's face.
"Big enough!" he echoed, as though invoking the universe. "It's thebiggest thing the newspaper game has ever known. But how did you come todo it? What started you? Where did you get your lead?"
"Why, from you, I guess, Carruthers," Jimmie Dale answered thoughtfully,with artfully puckered brow. "I remembered that you had said last weekthat the Gray Seal never left finger marks on his work--and I saw one onthe seal on Metzer's forehead. Then, you know, I lifted one corner wherethe seal overlapped a thread of blood, and, underneath, the thread ofblood wasn't in the slightest disturbed; so, of course, I knew the sealhad been put on quite a long time after the man was dead--not until theblood had dried thoroughly, to a crust, you know, so that even the dampsurface of the sticky side of the seal hadn't affected it. And then,I took a dislike to Clayton somehow--and put two and two together,and took a flyer in getting him to handle the notebook. I guess that'sall--no other reason on earth. Jolly lucky, don't you think?"
Carruthers didn't say anything for a moment. When he spoke, it wasirrelevantly.
"You saved me twenty-five thousand dollars on that reward, Jimmie."
"That's the only thing I regret," said Jimmie Dale brightly. "It wasn'tnice of you, Carruthers, to turn on the Gray Seal that way. Andit strikes me you owe the chap, whoever he is, a pretty emphaticexoneration after what you said in this morning's edition."
"Jimmie," said Carruthers earnestly. "You know what I thought of himbefore. It's like a new lease of life to get back one's faith in him.You leave it to me. I'll put the Gray Seal on a pedestal to-morrow thatwill be worthy of the immortals--you leave it to me."
And Carruthers kept his word. Also, before the paper had been an houroff the press, Carruthers received a letter. It thanked Carruthersquite genuinely, even if couched in somewhat facetious terms, for his"sweeping vindication," twitted him gently for his "backsliding,"begged to remain "his gratefully," and in lieu of signature there was agray-coloured piece of paper shaped like this:
[Picture]
Only there were no fingerprints on it.