CHAPTER IX
THE TOCSIN'S STORY
LaSalle! The old French name! That old French inscription on the ring:"SONNEZ LE TOCSIN!" Yes; he began to understand now. She was MarieLaSalle! He began to remember more clearly.
Marie LaSalle! They had said she was one of the most beautiful girlswho had ever made her entree into New York society. But he had never mether--as Marie LaSalle; never met her--until now, as the Tocsin, in thisbare, destitute, squalid hovel, here at bay, both of them, for theirlives.
He had been away when she had come with her father to New York; andon his return there had only been the father's brother in the father'splace--and she was gone. He remembered the furor her disappearance hadcaused; the enormous rewards her uncle had offered in an effort to traceher; the thousand and one speculations as to what had become of her;and that then, gradually, as even the most startling and mystifying ofevents and happenings always do, the affair had dropped into oblivionand had been forgotten by the public at least. He began to count back.Yes, it must have been nearly five years ago; two years before she,as the Tocsin, and he, as the Gray Seal, had formed their amazing andsingular partnership, that--he started suddenly, as she spoke.
"I want to tell you in as few words as I can," she said abruptly,breaking the silence. "Listen, then, Jimmie. My mother died ten yearsago. I was little more than a child then. Shortly after her death,father made a business trip to New York, and, on the advice of somesupposed friends, he had a new will drawn up by a lawyer whom theyrecommended, and to whom they introduced him. I do not know who thosemen were. The lawyer's name was Travers, Hilton Travers." She glancedcuriously at Jimmie Dale, and added quickly: "He was the chauffeur--theman who was killed last night."
"You mean," Jimmie Dale burst out, "you mean that he was--but, first,the will! What was in the will?"
"It was a very simple will," she answered. "And from the nature of it,it was not at all strange that my father should have been willing tohave had it drawn by a comparative stranger, if that is what you arethinking. Summarised in a few words, the will left everything to me,and appointed my Uncle Henry as my guardian and the sole executor of theestate until I should have reached my twenty-fifth birthday. It providedfor a certain sum each year to be paid to my uncle for his services asexecutor; and at the expiration of the trust period--that is, when I wastwenty-five--bequeathed to him the sum of one hundred thousand dollars."
Jimmie Dale nodded. "Go on!" he prompted.
"It is hard to tell it in logical sequence," she said, hesitating amoment. "So many things seem to overlap each other. You must understanda little more about Hilton Travers. During the five years following thesigning of the will father came frequently to New York, and became,not only intimate with Travers, but so much impressed with the other'scleverness and ability that he kept putting more and more of hisbusiness into Travers' hands. At the end of that five years, we movedto New York, and father, who was then quite an old man, retired from allactive business, and turned over a great many of his personal affairsto Travers to look after for him, giving Travers power of attorney in anumber of instances. So much for Travers. Now about my uncle. He was myfather's only brother; in fact, they were the only surviving members oftheir family, apart from very distant connections in France, from where,generations back, the family originally came." Her hand touchedJimmie Dale's for an instant. "That ring, Jimmie, with its crest andinscription, is the old family coat of arms."
"Yes," he said briefly; "I surmised as much."
"Strange as it may seem, in view of the fact that they had not seen eachother for twenty years," she went on hurriedly "my father and myuncle were more than ordinarily attached to each other. Letters passedregularly between them, and there was constant talk of one paying theother a visit--but the visit never materialised. My uncle was somewherein Australia, my father was here, and consequently I never saw my uncle.He was quite a different type of man from father--more restless, lesssettled, more rough and ready, preferring the outdoor life of theAustralian bush to the restrictions of any so-called civilisation, Iimagine. Financially, I do not think he ever succeeded very well, fortwice, in one way or another, he lost every sheep on his ranch andfather set him up again; and I do not think he could ever have had muchof a ranch, for I remember once, in one of the letters he wrote, that hesaid he had not seen a white man in weeks, so he must have lived a verylonely life. Indeed, at about the time father drew the new will, myuncle wrote, saying that he had decided to give up sheep running on hisown account as it did not pay, and to accept a very favourable offerthat had been made to him to manage a ranch in New Zealand; and his nextletter was from the latter country, stating that he had carried outhis intentions, and was well satisfied with the change he had made. Thelong-proposed visit still continued to occupy my father's thoughts, andon his retirement from business he definitely made up his mind to goout to New Zealand, taking me with him. In fact, the plans were allarranged, my uncle expressed unbounded delight in his letters, and wewere practically on the eve of sailing, when a cable came from my uncle,telling us to postpone the visit for a few months, as he was obliged tomake a buying trip for his new employer that would keep him away thatlength of time--and then"--her fingers, that had been abstractedlypicking out the lines formed by the grain of the wood in the table top,closed suddenly into tight-clenched fists--"and then--my father died."
Jimmie Dale turned away his head. There were tears in her eyes. The oldsense of unreality was strong upon him again. He was listening to theTocsin's story. It was strange that he should be doing that--thatit could be really so! It seemed as though magically he had beentransported out of the world where for years past he had lived withdanger lurking at every turn, where men set watch about his house totrap him, where the denizens of the underworld yowled like starvingbeasts to sink their fangs in him, where the police were ceaselesslyupon his trail to wreak an insensate vengeance upon him; it seemed asthough he had been transported away from all that to something that hehad dreamed might, perhaps, sometime happen, that he had hoped mighthappen, that he had longed for always, but now that it was his, that italso was full of the sense of the unreal. And yet as his mind followedthe thread of her story, and leaped ahead and vaguely glimpsed what wasto come, he was conscious in a sort of premonitory way of a vaster perilthan any he had ever known, as though forces, for the moment masked,were arrayed against him whose strength and whose malignity were beyondhuman parallel. In what a strange, almost incoherent way his brain wasworking! He roused himself a little and looked around him--and, with ashock, the starkness of the room, the abject, pitiful air of destitutionbrought home to him with terrific, startling force the significance ofthe scene in which he was playing a part. His face set suddenly inhard lines. That she should have been brought to assume such a life asthis--forced out of her environment of wealth and refinement, forcedin her purity to rub shoulders with the vile, the dissolute, forced toexist as such a creature amid the crime and vice, the wretched horrorof the underworld that swirled around her! There was anger now upon him,burning, hot--a merciless craving that was a savage, hungry lust forvengeance.
And then she was speaking again:
"Father's death occurred very shortly after my uncle's message advisingus to postpone our trip was received. On his death, Travers, verynaturally, as father's lawyer, cabled my uncle to come to New Yorkat once; and my uncle replied, saying that he was coming by the firststeamer."
She paused again--but only for an instant, as though to frame herthoughts in words.
"I have told you that I had never seen my uncle, that even my father hadnot seen him for twenty years; and I have told you that the man you knowas Henry LaSalle is an impostor--I am using the word 'uncle' now when Irefer to him simply to avoid confusion. You are, perhaps, expectingme to say that I took a distinctive dislike to him from the moment hearrived? On the contrary, I had every reason to be predisposed towardhim; and, indeed, was rather agreeably surprised than otherwise--he wasnot nearly so uncouth and unpoli
shed as, somehow, I had pictured hislife would have made him. Do you understand, Jimmie? He was kind,sympathetic; and, in an apathetic way, I liked him. I say 'apathetic'because I think that best describes my own attitude toward every one andeverything following father's death until--THAT NIGHT."
She rose abruptly from her chair, as though a passive position of anykind had suddenly become intolerable.
"Why tell you what my father and I were to each other!" she cried outin a low, passionate voice. "It seemed as though everything that meantanything had gone out of my life. I became worn out, nervous; and thoughthe days were bad enough, the nights were a source of dread. I beganto suffer from insomnia--I could not sleep. This was even before mysupposed uncle came. I used to read for hours and hours in my roomafter I had gone to bed. But"--she flung out her hand with an impatientgesture--"there is no need to dwell on that. One night, about a weekafter that man had arrived, and a little over a month after father haddied, I was in my room and had finished a book I was reading. I rememberthat it was well after midnight. I had not the slightest inclinationto sleep. I picked up another book--and after that another. There wereplenty in my room; but, irrationally, of course, none pleased me. Idecided to go down to the library--not that I think I really expectedto find anything that I actually wanted, but more because it was animpulse, and furnished me for the moment with some definite objective,something to do. I got up, slipped on a dressing gown, and wentdownstairs. The lights were all out. I was just on the point ofswitching on those in the reception hall, when suddenly it seemed asthough I had not strength to lift my hand, and I remember that for aninstant I grew terribly cold with dread and fear. From the room on myright a voice had reached me. The door was closed, but the voice wasraised in an outburst of profanity. I--I could hear every word.
"'If she's out of the way, there's no come-back,' the voice snarled. 'Iwon't listen to anything else! Do you hear! Why, you fool, what are youtrying to do--hand me one! Turn everything into cash, and divvy, andbeat it--eh? And I'm the goat, and I get caught and get twenty yearsfor stealing trust funds--and the rest of you get the coin!' He sworeterribly again. 'Who's taken the risk in this for the last five years!There'll be no smart Aleck lawyer tricks--there'll be no halfwaymeasures! And who are you to dictate! She goes out--that's safe--Iinherit as next of kin, with no one to dispute it, and that's all thereis to it!'
"I stood there and could not move. It was the voice of the man I knewas my uncle! My heart seemed to have stopped beating. I tried to tellmyself that I was dreaming, that it was too horrible, too incredible tobe real; that they could not really mean to--to MURDER me. And then Irecognised Hilton Travers' voice.
"'I am not dictating, and you are not serious, of course,' he said,with what seemed an uneasy laugh. 'I am only warning you that you areforgetting to take the real Henry LaSalle into account. He is bound tohear of this eventually, and then--'
"Another voice broke in--one I did not recognise.
"'You're talking too loud, both of you! Travers doesn't understand, buthe's to be wised up to-night, according to orders, and--'
"The voice became inaudible, muffled--I could not hear any more. Isuppose I remained there another three or four minutes, too stunned toknow what to do; and then I ran softly along the hall to the librarydoor. The library, you understand, was at the rear of the room theywere in, and the two rooms were really one; that is, there was only anarchway between them. I cannot tell you what my emotions were--I do notknow. I only know that I kept repeating to myself, 'they are going tokill me, they are going to kill me!' and that it seemed I must try andfind out everything, everything I could."
She turned away from the table, and began to pace nervously up and downthe miserable room.
Jimmie Dale rose impulsively from his chair--but she waved him backagain.
"No; wait!" she said. "Let me finish. I crept into the library. It tookme a long time, because I had to be so careful not to make the slightestnoise. I suppose it was fully six or seven minutes from the time Ihad first heard my supposed uncle's voice until I had crept far enoughforward to be able to see into the room beyond. There were three menthere. The man I knew as my uncle was sitting at one end of thetable; another had his back toward me; and Travers was facing in mydirection--and I think I never saw so ghastly a face as was HiltonTravers' then. He was standing up, sort of swaying, as he leaned withboth hands on the table.
"'Now then, Travers,' the man whose back was turned to me was sayingthreateningly, 'you've got the story now--sign those papers!'
"It seemed as though Travers could not speak for a moment. He keptlooking wildly from one to the other. He was white to the lips.
"'You've let me in for--THIS!' he said hoarsely, at last, 'Youdevils--you devils--you devils! You've let me in for--murder! Both ofthem! Both Peter and his brother--MURDERED!'"
She stopped abruptly before Jimmie Dale, and clutched his arm tightly.
"Jimmie, I don't know why I did not scream out. Everything went blackfor a moment before my eyes. It was the first suspicion I had had thatmy father had met with foul play, and I--"
But now Jimmie Dale swayed up from his chair.
"Murdered!" he exclaimed tensely. "Your father! But--but I rememberperfectly, there was no hint of any such thing at the time, and neverhas been since. He died from quite natural causes."
She looked at him strangely.
"He died from--inoculation," she said. "Did--did you not see somethingof that laboratory in the Crime Club yourself the night beforelast--enough to understand?"
"Good God!" muttered Jimmie Dale, in a startled way then: "Go on! Go on!What happened then?"
She passed her hand a little wearily across her eyes--and sank down intoher chair again.
"Travers," she continued, picking up the thread of her story, "hadraised his voice, and the third man at the table leaned suddenly,aggressively toward him.
"'Hold your tongue!' he growled furiously. 'All you're asked to do issign the papers--not talk!'
"Travers shook his head.
"'I won't!' he cried out. 'I won't have any hand in another murder--inhers! My God, I won't--I won't, I tell you! It's horrible!'
"'Look here, you fool!' the man who was posing as my uncle broke inthen. 'You're in this too deep to get out now. If you know what's goodfor you, you'll do as you're told!'
"Jimmie, I shall never forget Travers' face. It seemed to have changedfrom white to gray, and there was horror in his eyes: and then heseemed to lose all control of himself, shaking his fists in their faces,cursing them in utter abandon.
"'I'm bad!' he cried. 'I've gone everything, everything but thelimit--everything but murder. I stop there! I'll have no more to dowith this. I'm through! You--you pulled me into this, and--and I didn'tknow!'
"'Well, you know now!' the third man sneered. 'What are you going to doabout it?'
"'I'm going to see that no harm comes to Marie LaSalle,' Traversanswered in a dull way.
"The other man now was on his feet--and, I do not know quite how toexpress it, Jimmie, he seemed ominously quiet in both his voice and hismovements.
"'You'd better think that over again, Travers!' he said. 'Do you meanit?'
"'I mean it,' Travers said. 'I mean it--God help me!'
"'You may well add that!' returned the other, with an ugly laugh. Hereached out his hand toward the telephone on the table. 'Do you knowwhat will happen to you if I telephone a certain number and say that youhave turned--traitor?'
"'I'll have to take my chances,' Travers replied doggedly. 'I'mthrough!'
"'Take them, then!' flung out the other. 'You'll have little time givenyou to do us any harm!'
"Travers did not answer. I think he almost expected an attack upon himthen from the two men. He hesitated a moment, then backed slowly towardthe door. What happened in the next few moments in that room, I do notknow. I stole out of the library. I was obsessed with the thought thatI must see Travers, see him at all costs, before he got away from thehouse. I reached the end of
the hall as the room door opened, and hecame out. It was dark, as I said, and I could not see distinctly, butI could make out his form. He closed the door behind him--and thenI called his name in a whisper. He took a quick step toward me, thenturned and hurried toward the front door, and I thought he was goingaway--but the next instant I understood his ruse. He opened the frontdoor, shut it again quite loudly, and crept back to me.
"'Take me somewhere where we will be safe--quick!' he whispered.
"There was only one place where I was sure we would be safe. I ledhim to the rear of the house and up the servants' stairs, and to myboudoir."
She broke off abruptly, and once more rose from her chair, and oncemore began to pace the room. Back in his chair, Jimmie Dale, tense andmotionless now, watched her without a word.
"It would take too long to tell you all that passed between us," shewent on hurriedly. "The man was frankly a criminal--but not to theextent of murder. And in that respect, at least, he was honest withhimself. Almost the first words he said to me were: 'Miss LaSalle, I amas good as a dead man if I am caught by the devils behind those two mendownstairs.' And then he began to plead with me to make my own escape.He did not know who the man was that was posing as my uncle, had neverseen him before until he presented himself as Henry LaSalle; the otherman he knew as Clarke, but knew also that 'Clarke' was merely an assumedname. He had fallen in with Clarke almost from the time that he hadbegun to practise his profession, and at Clarke's instigation had gonefrom one crooked deal to another, and had made a great deal of money. Heknew that behind Clarke was a powerful, daring, and unscrupulous band ofcriminals, organised on a gigantic scale, of which he himself was, ina sense--a probationary sense, as he put it--a member; but he had nevercome into direct contact with them--he had received all his orders andinstructions through Clarke. He had been told by Clarke that he was tocultivate father following the introduction, to win father's confidence,to get as many of father's affairs into his hands as possible, to reachthe position, in fact, of becoming father's recognised attorney--andall this with the object, as he supposed of embezzling from father ona large scale. Then father died, and Travers was instructed to cable myuncle. He knew that the man who answered that summons was an impostor;but he did not know, until they had admitted it to him that night, thatboth my father and my uncle had been murdered, and that I, too, was tobe made away with."
She looked at Jimmie Dale, and suddenly laughed out bitterly.
"No; you don't understand, even yet, the patient, ingenious deviltryof those fiends. It was they, at the time the new will was drawn, whooffered to buy out my real uncle's sheep ranch in that lonely, unsettleddistrict in Australia, and offered him that new position in New Zealand.My uncle never reached New Zealand. He was murdered on his way there.And in his place, assuming his name, appeared the man who has beenposing as my uncle ever since. Do you begin to see! For five yearsthey were patiently working out their plans, for five years beforemy father's death that man lived and became known and accepted, andESTABLISHED himself as Henry LaSalle. Do you see now why he cabled us topostpone our visit? He ran very little risk. The chances were one in athousand that any of his few acquaintances in Australia would ever runacross him in New Zealand; and besides, he was chosen because itseems there was a slight resemblance between him and the real HenryLaSalle--enough, with his changed mode of living and more elaborate andpretentious surroundings, to have enabled him to carry through a bluffhad it become necessary. He had all of my uncle's papers; and the CrimeClub furnished him with every detail of our lives here. I forgot tosay, too, that from the moment my uncle was supposed to have reached NewZealand all his letters were typewritten--an evidence in father's eyesthat his brother had secured a position of some importance; as, indeed,from apparently unprejudiced sources, they took pains to assure fatherwas a fact. This left them with only my uncle's signature to forge tothe letters--not a difficult matter for them!
"Believing that they had Travers so deeply implicated that he could donothing, even if he had the inclination, which they had not for a momentimagined, and arrogant in the belief in their own power to put him outof the way in any case if he proved refractory, they admitted all thisto him that night when he brought up the issue of the real Henry LaSalleputting in an appearance sooner or later, and when they wanted him tosmooth their path by releasing all documents where his power of attorneywas involved. Do you see now the part they gave Travers to play? It wasto put the stamp of genuineness upon the false Henry LaSalle. Not butthat they were prepared with what would appear to be overwhelminglyconvincing evidence to prove it if it were necessary; but if the manwere accepted by the estate's lawyer there was little chance of any oneelse questioning his identity."
She halted again by the table--and forced a smile, as her eyes metJimmie Dale's.
"I am almost through, Jimmie. That night was a terrible one for bothof us. Travers' life was not worth a moment's purchase once they foundhim--and mine was only under reprieve until sufficient time to obviatesuspicion should have elapsed after father's death. We had no proof thatwould stand in any court--even if we should have been given the chanceto adopt that course. And without absolute, irrefutable proof, it wasall so cleverly woven, stretched over so many years, that our chargemust have been held to be too visionary and fantastic to have any basisin fact.
"All Travers would have been able to advance was the statement that thesupposed Henry LaSalle had admitted being an impostor and a murdererto him! Who would believe it! On the face of it, it appeared to be anabsurdity. And even granted that we were given an opportunity to bringthe charge, they would be able to prove by a hundred influentialand well-known men in New Zealand that the impostor was really HenryLaSalle; and were we able to find any of my uncle's old acquaintances inAustralia, it would be necessary to get them here--and not one of themwould have reached America alive.
"But there was not a chance, not a chance, Jimmie, of doing that--theywould have killed Travers the moment he showed himself in the open. Theonly thing we could do that night was to try and save our own lives; theonly thing we could look forward to was acquiring in some way, unknownto them, the proof, fully established, with which we could crush them ina single stroke, and before they would have time to strike back.
"The vital thing was proof of my uncle's death. That, if it couldbe obtained at all, could only be obtained in Australia. Travers wasobliged to go somewhere, to disappear from that moment if he wanted tosave his life, and he volunteered to go out there. He left the housethat night by the back entrance in an old servant's suit, which I foundfor him--and I never heard from him again until a month ago in the'personal' column of the MORNING NEWS-ARGUS, through which we had agreedto communicate.
"As for myself, I left the house the next morning, telling my pseudouncle that I was going to spend a few days with a friend. And thisI actually did; but in those few days I managed to turn all my ownsecurities, that had been left me by my mother and which amounted to aconsiderable sum, into cash. And then, Jimmie, I came to--this, I havelived like this and in different disguises, as a settlement worker, as awidow of means in a fashionable uptown apartment, but mostly as you seeme now--for five years. For five years I have watched my supposeduncle, hoping, praying that through him I could get to know the othersassociated with him; hoping, praying that Travers would succeed; hoping,praying that we would get them all--and watching day after day, and yearafter year the 'personal' column of the paper, until at last I beganto be afraid that it was all useless. And there was nothing, Jimmie,nothing anywhere, and I had no success"--her voice choked a little."Nothing! Even Clarke never went again to the house. You can understandnow how I came to know the strange things that I wrote to the Gray Seal,how the life that I have led, how this life here in the underworld, howthe constant search for some clew on my own account brought them to myknowledge; and you can understand now, too, why I never dared to letyou meet me, for I knew well enough that, while I worked to undermine myfather's and my uncle's murderers, they were moving
heaven and earth tofind me.
"That is all, Jimmie. The day before yesterday, a month after Travers'first message to let me know that he was coming, there was another'personal' giving me an hour and a telephone number. He was back! Hehad everything--everything! We dared not meet; he was afraid, suspiciousthat they had got track of him again. You know the rest. That packagecontained the proof that, with Travers' death, can probably never beobtained again. Do you understand why THEY want it--why it is lifeand death to me? Do you understand why my supposed uncle offered hugerewards for me, why secretly every resource of that hideous organisationhas been employed to find me--that it is only by my DEATH the estate canpass into their hands, and now--"
She flung out her hands suddenly toward Jimmie Dale. "Oh, Jimmie,Jimmie, I've--I've fought so long alone! Jimmie, what are we to do?"
He came slowly to his feet. She had fought so long--alone. But now--nowit was his turn to fight--for her. But how? She had not told himall--surely she had not told him all, for everything depended upon thatpackage. There had been so much to tell that she had not thought of all,and she had not told him the details about that.
"That box--No. 428!" he cried quickly. "What is that? What does itmean?"
She shook her head.
"I do not know," she answered.
"Then who is this John Johansson?"
"I do not know," she said again.
"Nor where the Crime Club is?"
"No"--dully.
He stared at her for a moment in a dazed way.
"My God!" Jimmie Dale murmured.
And then she turned away her head.
"It's--it's pretty bad, isn't it, Jimmie? I--I told you that we did nothold many trumps."