“Quick!” said Jimmie Dale again—and, with his hand on Klanner’s arm, broke into a run.
Those running in the same direction turned off from the lane at the first cross street; but Jimmie Dale held to the lane, and it was three blocks away from Baldy Jack’s before he stopped.
Klanner was panting from his exertions.
“My God—what’s it mean!” he gasped. “I—I thought I saw a revolver in that man’s hand, the fellow next to me, just as the lights went out.”
“You probably did,” said Jimmie Dale grimly.
“Well——what’s it mean?” repeated Klanner heavily.
It was a moment before Jimmie Dale answered. For the man’s own sake, the less that Klanner knew the better, probably—and yet the man must be kept out of harm’s way for the rest of the night. Having failed at Baldy Jack’s, it was certain, since Clarke’s whole plan hinged on Klanner’s death, that they would try again. After to-night—if all went well—it did not matter, for Klanner then would be no longer a factor to Clarke or Hunchback Joe!
“It means,” said Jimmie Dale gravely, “that there’s been some sort of a gangster’s fight pulled off, and that probably there’s been dirty work—murder—in there. The police will go the limit to round up everybody they can find who was in Baldy Jack’s. There’s only one thing to do—keep your mouth shut and lie low to-night. You can’t take any chances of getting into this—you look like a man who’s got a decent job he doesn’t want to lose, and you don’t look like a man who is entitled to be saddled with a reputation for hanging around that sort of place. Do you live near here?”
“Yes,” said Klanner, a little dully.
“Well then,” said Jimmie Dale quietly, “get out of this neighbourhood for the night. Don’t risk recognition while the chase is hot. Go uptown somewhere to any hotel you like, and stay there in your room. You can go to work just as well from there in the morning. Got any money?”
“Yes,” said Klanner slowly. “Yes, I got some money—and I guess you’re right. Say, who are you anyway? You seem to have a line on this sort of thing, and I guess I owe you a whole skin. If you hadn’t—”
“I’m a man in a hurry,” said Jimmie Dale whimsically—and then the grim note crept back into his voice. “I am giving you a straight tip. Take it—and take that street car that’s coming along there.” He held out his hand.
“Sure!” said Klanner. “And I—”
“Good-night,” said Jimmie Dale, and started abruptly across the street, entering the lane on the other side again—but here, in the shadows, he paused for a moment, watching until Klanner boarded the uptown car.
Chapter XXIV.
At Five Minutes of Twelve
Twenty minutes later, well along the East River front, in an unsavoury and deserted neighbourhood, Jimmie Dale was crouched before the door of a small building that seemed built half on the shore edge, and half on an old and run-down pier that extended out into the water. The building itself was little more than a storage shed, and originally had probably laid claims to nothing more pretentious—to-day it served as warehouse and office for Hunchback Joe’s “business,” and, above, for Hunchback Joe’s living quarters. Jimmie Dale glanced around him sharply—not for the first time. There were no other buildings in his immediate vicinity, and such as could be seen loomed up only as black, shadowy, distant shapes—warehouses and small factories, for the most part, and empty and deserted now at night. It was intensely black—only a twinkling light here and there from a passing craft on the river, and the glow from thousands of street lamps that, like some strange aerial illumination, hovered over the opposite shore. The shed itself, windowless at least in front, was as silent, as deserted, and as black as all around it.
Jimmie Dale’s hand stole into his pocket, produced a black silk mask, adjusted the mask over his face—and then the deft, slim fingers were at work with a little steel instrument on the door lock. A moment more, and the door swung silently inward, slowly, inch by inch. He listened intently. There was no sound. He stepped inside, and silently closed and locked the door behind If Hunchback Joe had not returned yet, it was necessary that Hunchback Joe should find the door as he had left it—locked! Again Jimmie Dale listened—and then the ray of his flashlight circled the place. A miscellany of ship’s junk was piled without any attempt at order all over the place; a board partition with two small windows, one on each side of the door, ran from side to side of the shed about a third of the way up its length; and in the sides of the shed itself were also two small, narrow windows—too small and too narrow, Jimmie Dale noted grimly, for the passage of a man’s body.
He moved forward cautiously, though he was almost certain that he was ahead of Hunchback Joe. He, Jimmie Dale, had come without an instant’s loss of time from Baldy Jack’s, and it was more than an even chance that Hunchback Joe would have remained somewhere in the neighbourhood until the affair was over. It would take some little time—not until after the police had restored order—to discover that the attempt upon Klanner had been abortive, that Klanner’s body was not lying there dead on the floor. But after that—Jimmie Dale opened the door of the partition stealthily, slipped through, and, as his flashlight swept around again, nodded his head sharply—yes, he had thought so!—there was a means of communication here—a telephone. Well then, after that, Hunchback Joe would set every crook and tool over whom he had any control at work to find Klanner. But that meant different men at work in many different directions, and there must therefore be some central spot where Hunchback Joe could be instantly reached and reports made to him should Klanner be found—and what better place, what more likely place than here in the security of his own lair! Yes, Hunchback Joe, since he, Jimmie Dale, was now satisfied that the other had not yet returned, would be back here, and, in all probability, long before midnight. Midnight! Why had the Tocsin set midnight, waited for midnight as the hour for the Secret Service raid? Did she have a hidden purpose in that? Was it possible she knew that some one beside Hunchback Joe would also be here at that hour—that Clarke might be here, too! Well, why not! There might well be need for a conference between Clarke and his unholy chief of staff! There might—Jimmie Dale frowned savagely. His mind was running riot! He had not come here to speculate on possibilities; for, whatever might happen, there was definite and instant work to do.
The white ray of the flashlight played steadily now around him. The place evidently served as the office; it was partitioned off again in exactly the same manner from the rear of the shed, making an oblong enclosure the width of the shed one way, and a good fifteen feet the other. It was electric-lighted, and contained a battered table in lieu of desk, upon which stood the telephone; there were several chairs, and a safe, whose scratched, marred, and apparently ramshackle exterior did not disguise from Jimmie Dale the fact that it was of the finest and most modern make.
A rough, wooden stairway led above. Jimmie Dale mounted this, found that it gave on a crudely furnished, attic-like bedroom, and then descending again, he opened the rear door of the partition, and flashed his light around the back of the shed. There were a few packing cases here—that was all. The shed was evidently built out to the extreme end of the pier, judging from its depth; and there had been side doors, but these were boarded up and bore evidence of having been long out of use—and there were no windows.
Jimmie Dale returned now to the front of the shed.
“Under the sail-cloth in left corner,” she had written. Yes, here it was! He stooped down, a twisted smile on his lips, and, taking from his pocket the packet of papers and the blackjack, tucked