The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale Part 15

Forty yards! Perhaps he could make it forty-five! Forty-five would be _safer_; and--he reeled suddenly, and staggered, and, with a low cry, his hands reached upward to his temples. His head was swimming--a dizziness, a nausea was upon him--his strength seemed as it were being sapped from his limbs. What was it? He--yes--the wound in his leg!

Yes--he remembered now--that burning like the searing of a hot iron. He had forgotten it in the excitement. But it could not amount to anything--or he would not have been able to have come this far. It was only a pa.s.sing giddiness--he was better now--see, he was still running--he had only slowed his pace for an instant--that was all.

They swept into the lane behind him. He looked back--and his lips grew tight, and bitter hard. It was no longer forty yards--he was _not_ running so fast now--and it was the Wolf, and the Wolf's pack, who were gaining.

He swerved for the third time--into the stretch of intersecting lane.

The Sanctuary was just ahead, but he must reach that loose board in the fence and have disappeared before the Wolf swung around the corner behind him--or else--or else, since that led to nowhere to the French window of Smarlinghue's room, the game was as good as up if he attempted it!

He strained forward, striving to ma.s.s his strength and fling it into one supreme effort. He was close now--only another five yards to go. Yes--he was weak. His teeth set. Four yards--three! If only there were not that glimmer of light, faint as it was, seeping down the lane from the street lamp across the road from the Sanctuary! Two yards--now! No! The Wolf's yell, as the man tore around the corner of the two lanes, rang out like a knell of doom.

Drawn, white-faced, Jimmie Dale, stumbling now, lurched past that loose board he had counted upon for what was literally his life--lurched past, and stumbled on. He could not run much farther. There was one chance left--just one--that there should be no one to see him enter the _front_ door of the Sanctuary, no one lounging about, no one in the tenement doorway. If that chance failed--well, then it was the end--_the_ end of Smarlinghue, the end of Jimmie Dale, the end of Larry the Bat, the end of the Gray Seal--and the Wolf would have kept his pledge to gangland.

But it would be an end that gangland would long remember, and an end that the Wolf would share!

The street was just before him now. He turned into it--and there came a little cry, a moan almost, of relief. The doorway of the tenement was _clear_. He sprang for it, entered, and, suddenly silent now in his tread, reached the door of his own room, slipped through and closed it softly behind him.

And now Jimmie Dale worked with frantic speed. He could hear them racing, yelling, shouting along the lane. A match crackled in his hand, and the gas-jet spluttered into flame--the light in the room could not be seen from the lane. He ran across the room, tearing off his mask as he went, and, wrenching the cash-box from his pocket, tucked mask and cash-box behind the disordered array of dirty canvases on the floor--he dared not take the risk or the time that loosening the base board would entail. He flung his hat into a corner, and, ripping off his coat, tossed it upon the cot; then, s.n.a.t.c.hing up a paint tube, he smeared a daub of paint upon the palette that lay on the table, and laid a wet brush hurriedly several times across the canvas on the easel.

From the corner of the lane and street outside came the scuffling to and fro of many feet, as though in uncertainty, in indecision, in hesitancy.

A dozen voices spoke at once, high-pitched, wild, frenzied.

"Where is he?... Which way did he go?... Where--"

And then the Wolf's voice, above the rest, in a sudden, excited yell:

"What's that across there! It's him! There he is! He's kept on up the lane! He's--"

The voice was lost in a chorus of shouts, in the pound and stampede of racing feet again, of the pack in cry. The sounds receded and died in the distance. Jimmie Dale drew his hand across his forehead and brought it away damp with sweat. He staggered now to the wash-stand, and from the drawer took out a bottle of brandy, and, heedless of gla.s.s, uncorked it, and lifted it to his lips. He would never know a closer call! He had been weaker than he had thought! Thank G.o.d for the brandy! The fiery stimulant was whipping the blood in his veins into life again, and--the bottle was still held to his lips, but he was no longer drinking. His eyes were on the washstand's mirror. He heard no sound, but in the mirror he saw the door of his room open, close again, and, leaning with his back against it--_the Wolf!_

Not a muscle of Jimmie Dale's face moved. He allowed another gulp of brandy to gurgle noisily down his throat. The cool, alert, keen brain was at work. It was certain that the Wolf had at no time that night recognised him as Smarlinghue. The Wolf, therefore, at worst, could be no more than _gambling_ on the chance that the object of the chase had taken refuge here in the tenement, and, naturally enough then, was beginning his investigation with the ground floor room. And yet, why then had the Wolf, deliberately in that case, sent his pack off on a false scent? In the mirror he could see that huge jaw outthrust, the black eyes narrowed, an ugly leer on the working face--and a revolver in the Wolf's hand that held a bead on his, Jimmie Dale's, head.

It was "Smarlinghue," the wretched, nervous, drug-wrecked creature that turned around--and, as though startled at the sight of the other, almost let the bottle fall from his hand.

"So it was you--eh--Smarlinghue! Curse you!" snarled the Wolf. "Come out here, and stand in the centre of the room!"

Smarlinghue cringed. He put down the bottle with a trembling hand, and slouched forward.

"I ain't done nothing!" he whined.

"No, you ain't done a thing--except crack a box and pinch about ten thousand dollars' worth of sparklers!" The Wolf's face, if possible, was more ugly in its threat than before.

Smarlinghue, in a sort of stupefied amazement, stared around the room--as though he expected to see a gleaming heap of diamonds leap into sight somewhere before him. He shook his head helplessly.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he mumbled. "I--I heard a row outside there a little while ago. Maybe that's it."

"Yes--_mabbe_ it is!" sneered the Wolf viciously. "So you don't know anything about it--eh? You've got a h.e.l.l of a good memory, haven't you!

You don't know anything about the Spider's safe, or about a little fight in the Spider's room, or about jumping out of the window, and beating it for here with the gang after you--no, you don't! You never heard of it before--of course, you didn't!"

Smarlinghue began to wring his hands nervously one over the other. He shook his head helplessly again.

"It wasn't me!" He licked his lips. "Honest, it wasn't me! I--I don't know what you're talking about. I ain't been out of this room. Honest!

Somebody's trying to put me in wrong. I tell you, I ain't been out of here all night. I--look!" With sudden, feverish eagerness, as though from an inspiration, he pointed to the paint brush, the palette, and the canvas on the easel. "Look! Look for yourself! You can see for yourself!

I've been painting."

And then the Wolf laughed--and it was not a pleasant laugh.

"Yes, you've been painting!" he jeered. "Sure, you have! I know that! Only you've been _painting_ a d.a.m.ned sight more than you thought you were!"

The revolver muzzle covered Jimmie Dale steadily, unswervingly; in the Wolf's face was malicious and sardonic mockery--but the Wolf's eyes were no longer on Jimmie Dale's face, they seemed curiously intent upon the floor at Jimmie Dale's feet. Mechanically Jimmie Dale followed their direction--and his eyes, too, held on the floor. For a moment neither spoke. _The game was up_! His boot top was soaked with blood, and, trickling down the side of the boot, a little crimson stream was collecting in a pool upon the floor.

"You _painted_ some of that on the doorstep!" The Wolf's taunting laugh held a deadly menace. "And you painted a drop or two of it along the street as you ran. I thought when you bust away from the Spider's and that cursed gang nosed in that I was going to lose out; but I figured that I had hit you, and I was keeping my eyes skinned to see. And then you commenced to do the drip act--savvy? I was still looking for it when I came out of the lane--you remember, Smarlinghue, don't you?--you got your memory back, ain't you?--that I was a bit ahead of the rest of 'em?

It didn't take a second to spot that on the doorstep, and there's some more of it in the hall. d.a.m.ned queer, ain't it--that it led right to Smarlinghue's room!" The laugh was gone. The Wolf began to come forward across the room. The snarl was in his voice again. "You come across with those sparklers, and you come across--_quick_!"

But now Smarlinghue was like a crazed and demented creature, and he shook his fists at the Wolf.

"I won't! I won't!" he screamed. "You went there to do the same thing!

I had as much right as you! And I _got_ them--I _got_ them! They said he had them there, they were all talking about them to-day, and I _got_ them! I won! They're mine now! I won't give them to you! I won't! I tell you, I won't!"

"Won't you?" The Wolf had reached Jimmie Dale, and one of the Wolf's hands found and shook Jimmie Dale's throat, while the revolver muzzle pressed hard against Jimmie Dale's breast. "Oh, I guess you will! D'ye hear about a man being murdered to-day with his face cut up? Oh, you did--eh? Well, I happen to know that man was the Spider, and one of these days, mabbe, the police'll tumble to who it was, too. Get me?

Suppose I call some of that gang back, and show 'em the _painting_ you've done along the hall--eh? And then, by and by, when the bulls get wise, it'll be yours for the juice route, not just a s.p.a.ce or two for cracking a box! Get me again?"

Smarlinghue, struggling weakly, pulled the other's hand from his throat.

"You--you were there, too, at--at the Spider's," he choked craftily.

"You're--you're in it as--as bad as I am."

"Sure, I was there!" mocked the Wolf, and s.n.a.t.c.hed at Jimmie Dale's throat again. "Sure, I was there--everybody saw me! The Spider was a _friend_ of mine, and everybody knows that, too. I was just going there to pay a pal a little visit--see? And that's how I found you there--see? Anything wrong with that spiel? It's a cinch, aint it?" The fingers closed tighter and tighter on Jimmie Dale's throat. "And that's enough talk--give me them sparklers!" He flung Jimmie Dale savagely away. "Get 'em!"

Smarlinghue reeled backward in the direction of the disordered canvases on the floor. It was quite true! If the Wolf carried out his threat--which he most certainly would do if he did not get the diamonds for himself--Smarlinghue, and not the Wolf, would be held for the Spider's murder. Jimmie Dale stooped, fumbled amongst the canvases, and produced the cash-box. Well, the diamonds would have to go, that was all--he had no choice left to him. But he was still "Smarlinghue," still the half cowed, yet half defiant, pale-faced creature that shook with mingled rage and fear, as he turned again. He clutched the cash-box to him, as though loath to let it go; but, too, as though fascinated by the Wolf's revolver, he moved reluctantly toward the Wolf, who now stood by the table.

Smarlinghue's hands twined and twined over the box, caressing it in hideous greed and avarice; and he mumbled, and his lips worked.

"Half--give me half?" he whispered feverishly.

"I'll give you--_nothing_!" snarled the Wolf.

"Half--give me a quarter then?" whimpered Smarlinghue.

"_Drop it_!" The Wolf's revolver jerked forward into Jimmie Dale's face.

And then Smarlinghue screamed out in impotent rage, and, wrenching the cover of the cash-box open, flung the jewels in a glittering heap upon the table--and, dancing in demented fas.h.i.+on upon his toes, like a man gone mad, he hurled the cash-box in fury from him. It went through the canvas on the easel, and clattered to the floor.

The Wolf laughed.

But Smarlinghue had retreated now, and, crouched upon the cot, was mumbling through twisted lips.

And again the Wolf laughed, and, gathering up the jewels, dropped them into his pocket, and backed to the door. He stood there an instant, his eyes narrowed on Jimmie Dale.

"I got the stuff now"--he was snarling low, viciously--"and mabbe that puts it a little more up to me. But if you ever open your mug about this, I'll do to you what I did to the Spider to-day--and if you want to know what that is, go and ask the police to let you have a look! D'ye understand?"