Jimmie Dale's grin had died away. Something was wrong here; there was something deeper than appeared on the surface, something that he did not understand. The tears had come suddenly into the faded old eyes, and were trickling now down the wrinkled cheeks.
“Forget it, Joe!” Jimmie Dale laid his hand in quick sympathy on the other's shoulder. “I didn't mean to hand you nothing. Spill the story, Joe—only hurry, 'cause I got a date.”
“I picked him outer de gutter w'en he could hardly walk,” said Pedler Joe. “An' w'en I wasn't doin' spaces up de river, I kept my eye on him. Sounds like hell from an old lag, don't it? But it's true, Smarly, so help me Gawd, it's true! I wasn't runnin' straight myself, but wot chance I got I tried to show de kid my line wasn't any good. Only I was away a lot, an' I let him down, so it ain't all his fault. Dere wasn't no one to keep him from goin' wild w'en I was doin' time—see? He ain't lived wid me for years, but dat didn't keep him from comin' frequent to see me, I'll say dat for him. An' den dis bank job happened. If youse read de papers youse know he was pinched in my place dat afternoon. He blew in to get a little stake from me, an'——”
“From you!” Jimmie Dale interrupted. “I didn't know you had loose change to——”
“Some days,” said the old man simply, “I pick up more'n youse'd t'ink. But dat ain't nothin' to do wid it. Dere was always a few dollars for Connie w'en he was on his uppers. Well, youse know dey didn't have anythin' on him to hold him for de job, an' dey let him go.”
“And he beat it, and he ain't been seen since,” commented Jimmie Dale judicially in his rôle of Smarlinghue. “And now some one else comes along and swears too it was him at the bank. It's open and shut now that he pulled the job all right, and ducked with the cash. That's why they're laughing at the police. You're wasting your time looking for him. He's gone.”
“Yes,” said Pedler Joe; “he's gone—dat's wot's de matter.” He glanced furtively about him. “But he ain't gone de way youse t'ink. I don't say now he didn't pull de job, though I didn't t'ink so until last night; an' I was handin' de police straight goods w'en dey was puttin' me through down at de Chief's de afternoon dey put de nippers on Connie at my place. He's gone—but he ain't gone de way youse t'ink. Dere's somethin' else bein' pulled besides dat. Take a look at dis!”
Jimmie Dale leaned forward. Pedler Joe had loosened his collar. The man's neck and throat were a mass of ugly bruises, discolored, swollen, finger-printed in angry, purplish blotches.
“Good God!” muttered Jimmie Dale. “How'd you get that?”
“It was last night”—Pedler Joe again glanced furtively around him, as he rearranged his collar—“dey nearly bumped me off before dey was satisfied dat I didn't know any more'n wot I'd told de police. Dey wanted to know where de cash was, de ten t'ousand bucks dat Connie stole. Dat's wot dey did to me, an' dat's why I'm askin' youse if youse have seen or heard anythin' of Connie.”
Jimmie Dale's lips had tightened.
“You think,” he said slowly, “they had tried the same game with Connie, and that's why he's—disappeared? You mean you've doped it out that they hadn't been able to make him talk up to last night, and that they tried you then on a chance?”
The old man nodded.
“Sure, dey got him,” he said miserably. “Dey got him cold. Dat's wot makes me t'ink now dat Connie pulled de job all right, 'cause dey're wise to him.”
“Yes,” said Jimmie Dale; “but who was it that laid you out?”
“I ain't dead sure,” said Pedler Joe. “I woke up last night in bed wid a pair of hands around my t'roat, chokin' me. It was pretty dark in the room. Dere was two of 'em, an' I wasn't sure, an' I ain't sure now, but I thought one of 'em, the little fellow, was Bunty Myers, who used to travel wid Gentleman Laroque's gang.”
Gentleman Laroque! The Phantom! Jimmie Dale was fumbling aimlessly with the brim of his battered old felt hat. Mother Margot, Hip Foo's, the Phantom—and Connie Pfeffer, alias the Mole! Was this what was at the bottom of the Tocsin's note? Intuitively he was instantly sure of it. It dovetailed perfectly. The Phantom was not likely to be playing two games to-night, therefore——
Pedler Joe was whispering hoarsely again:
“Youse're on de level, Smarly, an' on de inside everywhere. I—I thought mabbe youse'd help me. An' if youse heard anythin' or saw anythin' youse'd tip me off.”
Jimmie Dale held out his hand.
“Sure, I will, Joe!” he said. He leaned closer to the other. “You keep your map closed about having spoken to me—see? I know Bunty Myers. I'll do my best for you.”
“T'anks, Smarly,” said the old man gratefully. “I knew youse would.”
“Sure!” said Jimmie Dale again. “Well, that goes—and so-long, Joe.”
He turned and slouched on again down the street. His face was impassive, but his hands in his pockets were clenched now. So the Phantom's hand was in this, too, was it? And the old broken figure with the tray of collar buttons slung around his neck was one of the victims! It brought the hot anger surging upon him. There was something that struck deep to the root of his sympathy, something pathetic in the queer, strange loyalty, the curious love that old Pedler Joe, himself a thief by profession in the days gone by, held for the gutter snipe that he had tried—and failed—to bring up in the paths of virtue! The Phantom! Well, perhaps, to-night, if at Hip Foo's there was——
Jimmie Dale turned the corner, and halted suddenly in a dazed, stunned way. As at the door of Charlie Wong's back there on the other street, a wagon was drawn up here at the curb in front of Hip Foo's, and a little crowd was disembarking from the wagon and was being marshalled into line, but it was not a gape-wagon that stood at Hip Foo's front door; it was a wagon of quite a very different sort—a police van. And then in an instant, his wits at work again after the first shock of surprise, Jimmie Dale slouched back out of sight around the corner again. Here he broke into a run. A raid! Hip Foo's was being raided.
Jimmie Dale ran on at top speed. His chances were just even—that was all. There were two exits a block apart. He could not watch both at once. Which one would Mother Margot use? The police would not get her, nor any of those with her. The police would gather in a few Chinese attendants who would be as phlegmatic and informative as so many cows; the police would collect a little opium-smoking paraphernalia, and Hip Foo would be fined—but that would be all. Before the first blue-coat crossed the threshold of the entrance, the exodus through the sub-cellars would have begun.
And now Jimmie Dale drew into the shadows at the mouth of a dark and narrow lane. It was the toss of a coin. This one or the other! Yes—here they came now, like rats running from a sinking ship. He crouched against the wall unnoticed, or if noticed accepted as one of their own ilk, and watched them. Man after man, woman after woman, passed out into the street. The procession dwindled to a few belated stragglers—and ceased. He waited a minute longer. There was no one else.
Tight-lipped then, Jimmie Dale turned away. Mother Margot had not been amongst them. He had lost the toss, that was all. She had gone out the other way.
He walked rapidly now. There was only one thing left to do, one way left open to him. It would not be very difficult to find Mother Margot—at her home—in those rooms from which, on that first night, the Phantom had so mysteriously disappeared. He had even promised her a visit!
He smiled a little grimly. His promise so far had been unfulfilled. Not because the Tocsin had warned him that the place was a trap, and even Mother Margot,